By Maha Ezzeddine
Maryland Newsline
Thursday, May 9, 2002

1. The word "gerrymander" initially appeared in:

A newspaper article
A political cartoon
A state of the state speech
A fish casserole recipe

2. What doctrine is the underlying guideline for state redistricting?

"Re-election, re-election"
"No single-race majority districts"
"One person, one vote"
"No earmuff-shaped districts"

3. When drawing district lines, politicians are allowed to do everything except:

Draw maps that favor their party
Create districts in which a minority group is a majority
Attempt to secure their re-election
Draw maps based only on the racial identity of residents

4. In Maryland, who proposes the maps for congressional districts?

The General Assembly
The governor
The secretary of state
The treasurer

5. In how many states does the governor kick start the legislative redistricting process?

In all of them
In 12 states
In two states
In none of them

6. Article III, Section 4 of the Maryland Constitution requires that political districts be:

Equal in population and rectangular in shape
Equal in population and compact in shape
Compact in population and similar in shape
A puzzle in population and shape

7. In 1994, the U.S. District Court in Maryland ordered the state to submit a new legislative plan because:

The governor lost the old one.
Baltimore was over-represented.
The old one violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The districts were not compact.

8. Maryland redistricts after every:

Mild winter
Decennial census
Two years
Gubernatorial election

9. The Maryland Constitution addresses congressional redistricting:

In Article III, section V
In a secret section
In its footnotes
It doesn’t

10. Maryland has how many legislative districts?

30
47
60
Nobody knows for sure.

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