Editing Gerrymandering (section)

===First-past-the-post===
{{Main|First-past-the-post voting}}

Gerrymandering is most likely to emerge in majoritarian systems, where the country is divided into several voting districts and the candidate with the most votes wins the district. If the ruling party is in charge of drawing the district lines, it can abuse the fact that in a majoritarian system all votes that do not go to the winning candidate are essentially irrelevant to the composition of a new government. Even though gerrymandering can be used in other voting systems, it has the most significant impact on voting outcomes in first-past-the-post systems.<ref>{{cite web |title=Majoritarian electoral systems are more prone to gerrymandering than proportional systems |url=http://www.democraticaudit.com/2016/06/01/majoritarian-electoral-systems-are-more-prone-to-gerrymandering-than-proportional-systems/ |website=Democratic Audit |date=1 June 2016}}</ref> Partisan redrawing of district lines is particularly harmful to democratic principles in majoritarian two-party systems. In general, two party systems tend to be more polarized than proportional systems.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Feuerherd |first1=Peter |title=Is Gerrymandering to Blame for Our Polarized Politics? |url=https://daily.jstor.org/is-gerrymandering-to-blame-for-our-polarized-politics/ |website=JSTOR Daily |date=19 March 2018}}</ref> Possible consequences of gerrymandering in such a system can be an amplification of polarization in politics and a lack of representation of minorities, as a large part of the constituency is not represented in policy making. However, not every state using a first-past-the-post system is being confronted with the negative impacts of gerrymandering. Some countries, such as Canada and the UK, authorize non-partisan organizations to set constituency boundaries in attempt to prevent gerrymandering.<ref>{{cite web |title=Solving the Problem of Partisan Gerrymandering |url=https://www.conference-board.org/publications/TCB-ced-solving-gerrymandering-problem |website=Committee for Economic Development of The Conference Board |publisher=CED |access-date=15 May 2019}}</ref>