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Abstract

Partisan Bias occurs when an election results in a party gleaning a significantly different proportion of legislative seats than the proportion of votes cast for that party. It can be strategically produced via gerrymandering and is thought by many to threaten the basic principles of democracy. This research uses the 2022 state election results to compute statewide measures of Partisan Bias, then analyzes the correlation with controversial state social policies. Results showed that the redistricting method used and the percent of the party’s legislators were related to Partisan Bias. Analysis also showed that Partisan Bias explains significant levels of variance in four of the five social policies measured. The results demonstrate how gerrymandering of state districts can result in more extreme social policies than the majority of state voters prefers and suggest that gerrymandering suppresses their rights and freedoms, thus violating the principles of democracy.

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