Malapportionment

Malapportionment is the uneven distribution of population or voters among electoral districts in a way that gives districts unequal representational weight. If similarly sized legislative bodies contain districts with very different populations, a vote in a smaller district can effectively carry more representation than a vote in a much larger district.

Malapportionment matters because representative districts are intended to give voters reasonably equal representation. Large population differences between districts can distort political influence, representation, and the practical weight of individual votes. Redistricting and apportionment rules are therefore used to rebalance districts as populations change, subject to the legal standards governing each body.

Malapportionment is about unequal population or voter distribution among districts, while gerrymandering is the deliberate manipulation of district boundaries to create a political or electoral advantage. A map can be malapportioned without being intentionally gerrymandered, and a gerrymandered map can have districts with relatively equal populations. The concepts can also occur together.