malapportionment
- noun
- /ˌmæl.əˈpɔːr.ʃən.mənt/
- Specialized
:
malaproporción
- Many activists are fighting against malapportionment to make sure that every vote carries equal weight.
Examples
-
The study highlighted how malapportionment contributed to unequal access to political power among different communities.
-
For example, Nicolau found the PT and the PSDB to have been particularly disadvantaged in the elections of 1994 by malapportionment in the Chamber (1997, 458).
Academic text (1998) -
To be sure, this is a basic, if somewhat abstract, harm of all legislative malapportionment, not just prison gerrymandering.
Academic text (2017) -
The elimination of de jure segregation and of malapportionment, however, enabled the state governments to become more representative and responsible.
Academic text (1993) -
Second, the plurality system provides greater opportunity to manipulate the size of single-member constituencies through malapportionment.
Academic text (1998) -
In the 1950s and 1960s, increased federal regulation could be seen as a means of offsetting serious imbalances at the state level caused by segregation and malapportionment.
Academic text (1993) -
Such divergence in constituency size and in vote tallies reflects the extent of malapportionment and deviation in the proportionality of votes and seats that different parties receive.
Academic text (1998) -
J. Douglas Smith, The Supreme Court Could Send America Back a Century, TIME (Dec. 8, 2015), http://ti.me/1SK0dkz ("By 1960, malapportionment had produced staggering inequality in virtually every state in the union.") # 45.
Academic text (2017) -
Dilution of representation thus occurs when malapportionment provides some representatives more per capita policy influence in the legislature than others. Id. at 1309-10. #168. Id. at 1310-11. #169.
Academic text (2017) -
The Supreme Court ruled that malapportionment must be addressed to ensure fair representation in elections.
Synonyms
25
7.4
Unfair treatment that gives some people fewer chances or help
2
5.8
An uneven amount or size between parts of something
1
6.7
A situation where a group of people appears in fewer numbers than expected
1
8.6
An unfair spread of resources and chances between people or groups
1
8.1
A situation when one thing is much larger or smaller than another and seems unfair
An unfair way of giving things or help to groups of people
How Fair
∞
2.5
- Formal
46
5.3
236
1.9
- Specialized
21
2.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
malapportionment = apportionment (semi-transparent) = mal + apportion + ment
The word is formed by adding mal- to apportionment, so the negative or unfair sense is structurally clear.
Etymology
The word malapportionment breaks into mal- meaning 'bad' and apportion or portion meaning 'to divide' or 'a part'. So, malapportionment is like a 'bad sharing of parts', which explains when seats or representatives are not divided fairly among districts.