Elections: Getting Rid of Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing electoral districts to gain an electoral advantage for a political party. The concept is based on the fact that political affiliation of a citizen is public knowledge. Why is one required to make that information public?  Actually, one is not required — one can register as “Independent” and not state which party one prefers.

Votes are considered private, yet voting habits can be predicted by looking at public records showing under which party an individual has registered.  It takes away the privacy of voting if other people can make good predictions about how one will probably vote based on one’s voter registration.  No one is allowed to see another person’s vote — why should they be able to see what party that person prefers?

Suggestion:

Make voter registration private and/or stop requiring people to state a party affiliation when they register.  That would plug a huge security leak in voting privacy rights and make it impossible to gerrymander a district based on public voter registration records.