GED Civics Practice Question: Redistricting
Civics means government, and now’s the time when everyone’s thinking about the government… that is, election time! The GED has questions about government and voting, so you’ve got to know it. Plus, it’s important in your life. I mean, voting’s going on right now, and it’s going to change the government and who’s got the power.
Before I give you the GED practice question, I found this website with games to practice your civics and government knowledge for the GED. Scroll down to the bottom to see the games. The link is: http://www.quia.com/pages/gedcivics.html Games are always a good way to study, you know, cuz it can be fun. You really do learn, too.
Anyway, it seems like to me, that voting is the one thing that everyone can do to change the government. But there’s people out there who want to win, no matter what, and not have a fair vote. That’s what causes REDISTRICTING. Yeah, learn that word. I was real mad when I learned about it. Here’s how it works.
Because of censuses and voting records, people in the government know how people in different areas will probably vote, like whether they’re Democrat or Republican.
In states, people are usually elected to the government by district… they represent a district, or area, like Senators represent a state. That includes people who go to the House of Representatives (Congress), and the state government, too.
So, redistricting means changing the shape of the district, how the state is divided up. People redistrict so that each district is most likely to vote for their party… i.e. a majority of Republicans in as many districts as possible, or a majority of Democrats in as many districts as possible. They’re changing the boundaries to make THEIR PARTY get elected!!
Want to see how it works? Here’s a page that’s pretty good. http://www.fairvote.org/wheel/
There’s gotta be a way to make it more fair. And this is going on, while a lot of people know nothing about it. Well, that’s not a GED question, but here’s a related one. The text is adapted from http://redistricting.state.md.us/maryland/mdredistinfo.htm
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was originally enacted to prohibit election practices that excluded minorities from exercising their right to vote. During the 1960’s and 70’s, the U.S. Department of Justice used its provisions to enforce prohibitions on election practices such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and other prerequisites to voting that discouraged minorities from voting. Once direct obstructions to voting were more or less eradicated by enforcement of the Act, the focus changed to the effects of gerrymandering on minorities. Many State redistricting plans were held to be in violation of the Act because they included districts that had been drawn in such a way as to dilute a minority population’s voting strength, usually by spreading a compact minority population across several districts. These cases began in 1986.
The Voting Rights Act states: “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by a State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color . . . ”
Here’s the GED practice question: Which of the following types of redistricting does The Voting Rights Act of 1965 NOT protect people from?
1) Redistricting to minimize effectiveness of black votes
2) Redistricting to minimize effectiveness of Latino votes
3) Redistricting to minimize effectiveness of Asian votes
4) Redistricting to minimize effectiveness of Democratic votes
5) Redistricting to minimize effectiveness of Cuban immigrant votes
I’ll give the answer next time! Keep studying to get that GED!
To find out more about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at passGED.com.
