“It bears the utterly uninformative title of Veith et al vs Jubelirer (docket number 02-1580). But the case, which the US Supreme Court heard yesterday, deals with the explosive political issue of gerrymandering – and its ruling next year could literally reshape America’s democracy.” Gerrymandering is so widespread and has become so effective that only four incumbent congresspeople were defeated in the last round of elections, and the number of districts in which the House race is a foregone conclusion is astounding. ‘ “Voters no longer choose members of the House, the people who draw the lines do,” says Samuel Issacharoff, professor at Columbia Law School.’ The precision with which databases full of demographic data can predict voting patterns by neighborhood, street or household is largely to blame. The threat to incumbents is often no longer the general election but the primary, which does not have the same intolerance of extremism. Hence, the political process is far more polarized with the ubiquity of gerrymandering. In the past, the Supreme Court has only heard challenges to the practice based on racial grounds, otherwise considering it a fact of life. Yet the Court decided to hear this case, for reasons as unclear as which way they will lean in ruling on it. —Independent.UK