"pack" and "crack" (types of gerrymandering)

[Joel S. Berson]

"During as sometimes contentious 2 1/2-hour meeting, coalition
members voiced their desire to avoid 'packing and cracking': creating
districts that excessively concentrate voters from a legally
protected minority group or splitting minority neighborhoods into
more than one district so their influence would be lessened."

Boston Globe, Sept. 28, 2012, B3, col. 2.

Not in OED, I think.

Wikipedia, under "Gerrymandering", has a section 4, "Packing and
cracking", with explanations of the terms.

I did not attempt a serious search for prior instances; seems
difficult to isolate.

2005, testimony before a subcommittee of the House of
Representatives, in "Voting Rights Act : the judicial evolution of
the retrogression standard ...", has the phrase "packing and
cracking" but without explanation.  GBooks.

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org