March 17, 2026 Editor, The News-Gazette: Wikipedia defines gerrymandering, “in the context of representative electoral systems, is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries to advantage a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency.”
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as “the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections,” and The Britannica says, “in U.S. politics, the practice of drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one political party an advantage over its rivals (political or partisan gerrymandering) or that dilutes the voting power of members of racial or ethnic minority groups (racial gerrymandering).”
This is what the Democrats propose to do in the upcoming referendum, by manipulating the boundaries, giving an unfair advantage to Democrats, and diluting the voting power of Republicans.
Supporters say it will bring fairness to the elections. What is fairness? They have six of the 11 districts now; if you vote “yes” they will have 10 of the 11 districts.
The majority of the voters in each of these districts will be Democrats. Lexington and south will still be in the one Republican district with Roanoke, but all of the rest of the county and north through the Winchester area and east of the Appalachian Mountains will be in newly formed Democrat districts, coming out of Northern Virginia.
These majority Democrats will make all the decisions for Western Virginia. The one Republican district will never have the power to win on any issues.
We already have a Democrat majority in the state legislature; we have two Democrats as our senators, and we have a Democrat governor. If you do not want 10 districts to turn into Democrat districts in the Congress, vote “no” in the upcoming referendum. Don’t let gerrymandering into Virginia.
MARILOU SCHINDLER Natural Bridge
