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Gerrymandering is one of the most controversial and consequential practices in American democracy. It involves the strategic manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor a particular political party or group, often resulting in distorted representation that doesn't reflect the true will of voters. Understanding who controls district lines and how the redistricting process works is essential for anyone who wants to grasp how political power is distributed and maintained in the United States.

The practice affects everything from local representation to control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and even small changes in district maps can tip the balance of power in Washington. This comprehensive guide explores the complex world of redistricting, examining who draws the lines, how partisan interests shape the process, and what reforms are being implemented to create fairer electoral maps.

What Is Gerrymandering and Why Does It Matter?

Gerrymandering is the practice where politicians who control the redistricting process draw district lines in a way that maximizes their party's partisan advantage. The term dates back to 1812, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a district map that critics said resembled a salamander, leading to the portmanteau "gerrymander."

Elections are supposed to produce results that reflect the preferences of voters, but when maps are gerrymandered, politicians and the powerful choose voters instead of voters choosing politicians. This fundamental inversion of democratic principles has far-reaching consequences for representation and governance.

The result is skewed, unrepresentative maps where electoral outcomes are virtually guaranteed, even when voters' preferences at the polls shift dramatically. In heavily gerrymandered states, one party can win a substantial majority of legislative seats while receiving only a modest majority—or even a minority—of the total votes cast statewide.

The Growing Sophistication of Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering has been a practice in American elections nearly since the founding of the country, but in recent redistricting cycles, the accuracy of voter databases and mapping software has skyrocketed, leading to a trend of increasingly skewed maps. Modern technology allows map drawers to predict voting patterns with unprecedented precision, down to individual city blocks.

As politicians increasingly turn to powerful computer software to make gerrymandering harder to detect, it's vital that the public has access to tools that can keep up. This technological arms race has made gerrymandering both more effective and more difficult to challenge in court.

Who Draws District Lines in America?

The authority to draw electoral district boundaries varies significantly across the United States, with different states employing different methods. Understanding these various approaches is crucial to comprehending how gerrymandering occurs and persists.

State Legislatures: The Traditional Approach

Historically, state legislatures have determined congressional district boundaries, and this remains true in most states. In 26 states, politicians are in total control of drawing maps. In these states, the party that controls the legislature typically has the power to draw districts that favor their candidates.

The political party that controls a state's government after the census will control redistricting. This creates a powerful incentive for parties to win state legislative elections in years ending in zero, just before the decennial census and subsequent redistricting.

In most states, the state legislature is responsible for drawing and approving electoral districts with a simple majority subject to a gubernatorial veto. This means that if one party controls both the legislature and the governor's office, they have virtually unchecked power to draw districts as they see fit.

Independent Redistricting Commissions

Currently, 21 U.S. states have some form of non-partisan or bipartisan redistricting commission. These commissions represent an alternative approach designed to reduce partisan manipulation of district boundaries.

An Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) is a body separate from the legislature that is responsible for drawing the districts used in congressional and state legislative elections. Of these 21 states, 13 use redistricting commissions to exclusively draw electoral district boundaries.

Seven states – Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, and Washington State – have created independent citizen-redistricting commissions that are responsible for drawing boundaries of electoral districts in a way that does not give any one political party an unfair advantage.

Eleven states use commissions to draw congressional district lines, including states with hybrid methods. Nine of these are non-politician commissions, meaning their members cannot hold political office.

Court-Drawn Maps

When redistricting processes fail or produce unconstitutional maps, courts sometimes step in to draw district boundaries. While most congressional districts were drawn in partisan processes this redistricting cycle, state courts and independent commissions played a bigger role than ever, with each drawing around a fifth of congressional districts.

In the 2021 cycle, courts struck all or part of congressional plans in seven states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, and Utah), and drew the lines themselves in nine states. This judicial intervention often occurs when maps are found to violate state constitutions, federal law, or the Voting Rights Act.

Iowa's Unique Nonpartisan Process

Iowa uses a special redistricting process that uses neither the state legislature nor an independent redistricting commission to draw electoral district boundaries. Instead, nonpartisan legislative staff draw maps according to strict criteria, which the legislature then votes to approve or reject without amendment. This process is widely regarded as one of the fairest in the nation.

The Redistricting Timeline and Process

Understanding when and how redistricting occurs helps explain why it has such significant political implications.

The Decennial Census and Reapportionment

Every 10 years, U.S. states redraw their congressional and state legislative maps to account for changes in population. This process is triggered by the U.S. Census, which counts the nation's population and determines how many congressional seats each state receives.

Under the Constitution, a state receives its number of House members according to its population. If a state gains or loses population, it could gain or lose a House member, and one state's gain requires another state's loss.

For example, the 2020 census indicated a growth in Florida's population; Florida received one new House member as a result, and Texas received two new members, while New York and California each lost a House member after 2020.

Mid-Decade Redistricting: A Growing Trend

While redistricting traditionally occurs once per decade following the census, some states have recently engaged in mid-decade redistricting to gain partisan advantage. Before 2025, only two states had conducted voluntary mid-decade redistricting since 1970.

Beginning in July 2025, several U.S. states have redrawn or are in the process of redrawing their congressional districts ahead of the 2026 elections, marking one of the largest coordinated attempts to redraw congressional districts between decennial censuses in modern American history.

As of February 2026, six states had congressional district maps that were subject to change before the 2026 elections, and six states — California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Utah — had new congressional maps.

In the Supreme Court case LULAC v. Perry, the Court greenlighted the practice of mid-decade redistricting for partisan purposes, removing a potential legal barrier to this practice.

How Gerrymandering Works: Common Techniques

Gerrymandering relies on several well-established techniques that manipulate district boundaries to achieve partisan goals. Understanding these methods reveals how seemingly neutral line-drawing can produce dramatically skewed results.

Packing: Concentrating Opposition Voters

Packing involves concentrating opposition voters into as few districts as possible. By creating districts where the opposing party wins by overwhelming margins (often 80-90% of the vote), map drawers "waste" those votes and limit the number of seats the opposition can win. While the packed party wins those districts easily, they have fewer competitive districts elsewhere.

Cracking: Splitting Opposition Communities

Cracking is the opposite strategy: splitting concentrations of opposition voters across multiple districts so they cannot form a majority in any single district. This technique is particularly effective in urban areas, where opposition voters might be divided among several districts that extend into suburban or rural areas dominated by the map-drawing party.

Oddly Shaped Districts

It is to the advantage of the controlling party to put a majority of "their" voters in as many districts as possible, and many, if not most, districts today are drawn in precisely this way, even if they otherwise make no geographic sense. The resulting districts often have bizarre, contorted shapes that defy traditional notions of community boundaries.

The legal framework governing redistricting has evolved significantly over time, with recent Supreme Court decisions fundamentally reshaping what challenges can be brought against gerrymandered maps.

The Rucho Decision: Federal Courts Step Back

The redistricting cycle after the 2020 census was the first since the Supreme Court's 2019 ruling that gerrymandered maps can't be challenged in federal court. In the 2019 case Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court held that while gerrymandering was "inconsistent with democratic principles," gerrymandering claims were a "political question" beyond the reach of federal courts to address.

In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan-motivated gerrymandering does not violate the Constitution. This decision effectively removed federal courts as a check on partisan gerrymandering, leaving the issue to state courts and state constitutions.

Map drawers in most of the country no longer have to fear judicial intervention from federal courts, emboldening more aggressive gerrymandering efforts.

Constitutional Requirements

The Supreme Court has subjected redistricting to certain constitutional limits, including that every district within a state must have an equal population. This "one person, one vote" principle, established in the 1960s, requires districts to have nearly identical populations.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, ruling 5-4 that redistricting commissions do not violate the United States Constitution. This decision cleared the way for states to use independent commissions for congressional redistricting.

The Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act limits the ability of a state to redistrict in a way that harms the ability of a racial group to elect a House member of its choice. Redistricting may not be done in a way that dilutes minority electoral power—an issue that is often litigated during the redistricting process.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, and this provision has been used to challenge maps that dilute minority voting strength. However, the scope and application of this protection continues to be litigated in courts across the country.

State Constitutional Protections

With federal courts largely out of the picture for partisan gerrymandering claims, state constitutions have become the primary legal battleground. Some state constitutions contain explicit anti-gerrymandering provisions that state courts can enforce.

After the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the state's 2021 congressional map as an impermissible partisan gerrymander under the state constitution, the court put in place a map drawn by court-appointed experts, but then, after changes to the composition of the state supreme court, the court reversed its recent ruling and said it would no longer police partisan gerrymandering.

The Impact of Gerrymandering on American Democracy

The consequences of gerrymandering extend far beyond individual election results, affecting the fundamental functioning of representative democracy.

Skewed Representation

By Brennan Center estimates, maps used in the 2024 election had on average a net 16 fewer Democratic or Democratic-leaning districts than maps that complied with the strong anti-gerrymandering standards in the stalled federal Freedom to Vote Act.

After the 2020 census, Republicans controlled the redistricting process in more states than Democrats, and used this advantage aggressively. Maps in Texas and Florida are especially skewed, but North Carolina provides one of the most striking examples of the power of gerrymandering to affect the balance of power, not only in a state but nationally.

After the 2024 election, North Carolina saw three Democratic districts flip to Republicans, enough to give control of the U.S. House to the GOP by a slim margin. This single state's redistricting effort had national implications for control of Congress.

Reduced Electoral Competition

Since 1997, 42% of the decline in competitive districts is attributable to partisan gerrymandering. When districts are drawn to be safe for one party, general elections become less competitive, and the real contest often shifts to primary elections where more extreme candidates may have an advantage.

Only a small number of congressional races are considered toss-ups, and most are in districts drawn by independent commissions or courts. This means that in states where legislatures control redistricting, very few seats are genuinely competitive.

Impact on Minority Communities

Targeting the political power of minority communities is often a key element of partisan gerrymandering, especially in the South, where white Democrats are a comparatively small part of the electorate and often live in the same neighborhoods and communities as white Republicans.

This creates situations where partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering become intertwined, as efforts to dilute Democratic voting strength may simultaneously dilute minority voting power.

Voter Disenfranchisement

Millions of eligible voters live in districts that are safe for the political party they oppose. When voters know their district is heavily gerrymandered against their preferred party, they may feel their vote doesn't matter, potentially reducing turnout and civic engagement.

Recent Gerrymandering Battles: 2024-2026

The period from 2024 to 2026 has witnessed unprecedented redistricting activity, with multiple states redrawing maps mid-decade in a coordinated effort to gain partisan advantage.

Texas: The Opening Salvo

The redistricting began when Texas gerrymandered its congressional map to benefit Republicans under the orders of Donald Trump. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a revised House map into law in August 2025 that could help Republicans win five additional seats.

In August, Texas enacted a mid-decade congressional redraw in a special session, and the plan concentrates Democratic voters and extends GOP advantages in fast-growing suburbs around Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth and Austin.

Democratic Response: California and Beyond

In response, Democratic-led states began the process of gerrymandering their own congressional maps to counter Republican gains, with California being the first, passing an amendment to redraw the state's congressional map to benefit Democrats.

Voters in California in November approved revised House districts drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature that could help Democrats win five additional seats. The measure, titled 2025 California Proposition 50, was approved by voters in the November 2025 election.

North Carolina's Aggressive Gerrymander

Republican-led North Carolina soon followed by passing new congressional maps with the aim of gaining more Republican seats. The General Assembly adopted new congressional districts in late October, and compared to the 2024 map, the new lines increase the number of likely Republican seats by unpacking Democratic voters in the Triangle and Charlotte and by reconfiguring several eastern districts, a change that could shift two to three seats toward the GOP.

Missouri and Ohio

In Missouri, Governor Mike Kehoe announced a special session to redraw the state's congressional districts, the House voted to advance the new map that would give Republicans another seat, and the new map was signed into law on September 28, 2025.

After months of commission deliberations, Ohio approved a new congressional plan in September that shores up several Republican-held seats around Cincinnati, Dayton and central Ohio and nudges one or two Democratic-held seats into more competitive territory.

As of April 2026, there are live litigation challenges to federal or state legislative lines in 14 states, with pending fights over congressional lines in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The legal battles over these mid-decade maps will likely continue for months or years, potentially reshaping the electoral landscape multiple times before the next regular redistricting cycle in 2031.

Both Parties Gerrymander

While Republicans have been more aggressive in recent redistricting cycles due to controlling more state legislatures, it's important to recognize that both parties engage in gerrymandering when they have the opportunity.

Republicans weren't alone in gerrymandering; Democrats in Illinois, for example, boldly redrew their state's congressional map to reduce Republicans to holding just 3 of 17 seats, the fewest number of Republican seats since the Civil War, while the Brennan Center estimates that a fair Illinois map would have around 6 GOP seats.

The closely divided House of Representatives creates the incentive for both Democratic and Republican-controlled states to gerrymander as much as possible. When control of Congress hangs in the balance, the temptation to maximize partisan advantage through redistricting becomes nearly irresistible for whichever party controls a state's map-drawing process.

Reform Efforts and Solutions

Recognizing the corrosive effects of gerrymandering on democracy, reformers have pursued various strategies to create fairer redistricting processes.

Independent Redistricting Commissions

One way to combat gerrymandering is through the creation of independent redistricting commissions, bodies separate from state legislatures that are responsible for drawing the districts.

IRCs are a voter-centric reform used to ensure that voters — not politicians — decide how electoral districts are drawn, and the structure of IRCs vary from state to state, but they are meant to make the redistricting process more transparent and impartial by establishing standards for who can serve on the commission and criteria that must be followed.

Effective IRCs require the commissioners to adhere to strict criteria, such as complying with federal and state constitutions, equal population, protecting language and racial minorities, partisan fairness, compactness, and contiguity, among others.

Effective IRCs also require the commission to hold public hearings, make the data being used to draw maps publicly available, accept public comments, and allow voters to submit maps to the commission online.

Recent Reform Successes and Setbacks

In 2018, voters in four states – Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, and Utah – approved ballot measures creating IRCs, and Ohio also passed a bipartisan redistricting reform measure.

However, reform efforts have faced significant challenges. During the November 2024 elections, Ohio voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment (Issue 1) that would have established a citizen-led redistricting commission to replace an existing system that repeatedly produced unconstitutional maps.

Redistricting reforms creating independent redistricting commissions resulted in fairer maps, while less robust reforms struggled. The effectiveness of reform depends heavily on the specific design of the commission and the criteria it must follow.

Federal Legislation

In 2022, Congress came closer than ever before to ending the scourge of gerrymandering in congressional redistricting once and for all, but that moment has now passed, though it will come again.

In recent Congresses, several bills have been introduced that could require states to use independent redistricting commissions for U.S. House redistricting; the House passed two such bills in previous Congresses, H.R. 1 (117th Congress) and H.R. 1 (116th Congress), though neither became law.

Although state-level reforms and state courts can fix part of the problem, they are unlikely to be the answer everywhere, and to truly fix the problem, Congress must act.

Transparency and Public Engagement

Even in states without independent commissions, reforms can improve the redistricting process through increased transparency and public participation. Requirements for public hearings, advance publication of proposed maps, and clear criteria for map-drawing can all help constrain the worst excesses of gerrymandering.

Organizations like the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and PlanScore have developed sophisticated tools to analyze proposed maps and identify gerrymandering, giving the public and media the ability to evaluate redistricting proposals with greater rigor.

The Role of Technology in Modern Redistricting

Technology has transformed redistricting in recent decades, making both gerrymandering and anti-gerrymandering efforts more sophisticated.

Advanced Mapping Software

Modern redistricting software allows map drawers to access detailed demographic, voting, and geographic data down to the census block level. They can instantly see how different boundary configurations would affect partisan outcomes, racial composition, and other factors. This precision enables far more effective gerrymandering than was possible in earlier eras.

Algorithmic Analysis

The Redistricting Report Card uses a cutting-edge algorithm to provide unprecedented analysis of a map's partisan fairness, generating around one million potential districting plans for each state, providing a baseline of what's possible to draw in a state given its political landscape and redistricting rules.

These algorithmic approaches can identify when a map is an extreme outlier compared to the universe of possible maps that could be drawn under neutral criteria, providing strong evidence of intentional gerrymandering.

Public Mapping Tools

The same technology that enables sophisticated gerrymandering also empowers citizens to draw and propose their own maps. Many states now accept public submissions of redistricting plans, and user-friendly mapping tools allow ordinary citizens to participate meaningfully in the process.

Key Players in the Redistricting Process

Understanding who controls district lines requires examining the various actors involved in redistricting decisions.

State Legislators

In states where legislatures control redistricting, individual legislators play crucial roles. Leadership positions—such as speaker of the house or senate president—often have outsized influence over the map-drawing process. Redistricting committees may hold hearings and develop proposals, but final decisions typically rest with legislative leadership and caucuses.

Governors

In most states with legislative redistricting, governors can veto redistricting plans, giving them significant leverage. A governor from the opposite party of the legislative majority can force compromise maps that are less gerrymandered than the legislature might prefer.

Political Consultants and Data Analysts

Behind the scenes, political consultants and data analysts often do the actual work of drawing maps. These professionals use sophisticated software and detailed voter data to craft districts that achieve their clients' partisan goals while maintaining legal defensibility.

Courts

State and federal courts serve as referees in redistricting disputes, though their role has been constrained by recent Supreme Court decisions. State courts remain important players in states with constitutional anti-gerrymandering provisions.

Commission Members

In states with redistricting commissions, the composition and selection of commission members becomes crucial. Commission membership choices can affect how insulated the commission is from actual or perceived political influence, and in many states, an individual serving on a redistricting commission cannot participate in certain specified political activities immediately prior to, during, or immediately following commission service.

Advocacy Organizations

Groups like the Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, and Common Cause play important roles in monitoring redistricting, filing legal challenges, and advocating for reform. On the other side, partisan organizations work to maximize their party's advantage in redistricting.

Criteria for Drawing Districts

Various legal and traditional criteria govern how districts should be drawn, though their relative priority and interpretation varies by state.

Equal Population

The "one person, one vote" principle requires districts to have nearly equal populations. For congressional districts, this standard is extremely strict, with courts typically requiring population deviations of less than one percent. State legislative districts have slightly more flexibility.

Contiguity

Districts must be geographically contiguous, meaning you can travel from any point in the district to any other point without leaving the district. However, this requirement can be satisfied by connections as narrow as a single point or a bridge.

Compactness

Many states require districts to be reasonably compact, though there's no universally accepted definition of compactness. Various mathematical measures exist, but courts have been reluctant to strike down maps solely for lack of compactness.

Respect for Political Subdivisions

Traditional redistricting principles favor keeping counties, cities, and other political subdivisions whole when possible. However, this criterion often conflicts with other requirements and can be sacrificed to achieve partisan goals.

Communities of Interest

Many states require consideration of "communities of interest"—groups of people with shared social, economic, or cultural interests. This principle can protect neighborhoods and regions with common concerns, but defining communities of interest is inherently subjective.

Competitiveness

Some reform proposals and commission criteria include requirements for competitive districts, though this remains controversial. Critics argue that requiring competitive districts may conflict with other goals, such as protecting minority representation.

The Future of Redistricting

The redistricting landscape continues to evolve, with several trends likely to shape future cycles.

Continued Mid-Decade Redistricting

Some states may take the unusual step of redrawing congressional lines mid-decade to shore up partisan advantages or to take advantage of a changing legal landscape, and the political and legal fights over congressional maps — and especially who draws them — are far from over.

The precedent set by the 2025-2026 redistricting wave may encourage more frequent map changes, potentially leading to constant redistricting battles rather than the traditional once-per-decade cycle.

Expansion of Independent Commissions

Despite setbacks, the effort to establish independent citizen-redistricting commissions and reduce partisan gerrymandering is far from over. Public awareness of gerrymandering has increased dramatically, and gerrymandering has gone from an issue that barely registered with voters to one of the most salient.

While federal courts have stepped back from policing partisan gerrymandering, state courts continue to develop and apply state constitutional standards. The legal landscape remains fluid, with ongoing litigation over racial gerrymandering, Voting Rights Act compliance, and state constitutional requirements.

Technological Arms Race

Both map drawers and reformers will continue to develop more sophisticated analytical tools. The ability to generate and evaluate millions of possible maps may eventually make extreme gerrymandering more difficult to defend, as statistical analysis can clearly demonstrate when a map is an outlier.

What Citizens Can Do

While redistricting can seem like an arcane process controlled by political insiders, ordinary citizens can play meaningful roles in promoting fairer maps.

Participate in Public Hearings

Most redistricting processes include public hearings where citizens can testify about their communities and preferences for district boundaries. Attending these hearings and providing input can influence the process, particularly in states with commissions that take public input seriously.

Submit Maps

Many states accept public submissions of proposed redistricting plans. With user-friendly mapping tools now available, citizens can draw and submit their own maps that reflect their vision of fair representation.

Support Reform Efforts

Citizens can support organizations working for redistricting reform, sign petitions for ballot initiatives creating independent commissions, and vote for candidates who support fair redistricting processes.

Stay Informed

Understanding how redistricting works in your state and monitoring proposed maps allows citizens to identify and call attention to gerrymandering. Organizations like FairVote and RepresentUs provide resources for learning about and engaging with redistricting issues.

Vote in State Elections

Since state legislatures control redistricting in most states, state legislative elections in years ending in zero (just before the census) are particularly consequential. Voting in these elections directly affects who will draw district lines for the next decade.

Conclusion: The Ongoing Battle for Fair Representation

The question of who controls district lines goes to the heart of American democracy. When politicians choose their voters through gerrymandering rather than voters choosing their representatives through fair elections, the fundamental principle of representative government is undermined.

The current system varies dramatically across states, with some employing independent commissions designed to produce fair maps while others allow partisan legislatures to draw districts with minimal constraints. Recent Supreme Court decisions have largely removed federal courts from policing partisan gerrymandering, placing greater emphasis on state-level reforms and state constitutional protections.

The unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting in 2025-2026 demonstrates that the battle over district lines is intensifying rather than subsiding. Both parties have shown willingness to aggressively gerrymander when they have the opportunity, creating an arms race that threatens to make representation increasingly disconnected from actual voter preferences.

However, there are reasons for optimism. Public awareness of gerrymandering has increased dramatically, reform efforts continue in many states, and technological tools now allow citizens and watchdog organizations to identify and challenge extreme gerrymanders more effectively than ever before. Independent redistricting commissions have proven that fairer maps are possible when the process is insulated from partisan manipulation.

Ultimately, achieving fair representation requires sustained citizen engagement, continued reform efforts at both state and federal levels, and a commitment to the principle that in a democracy, voters should choose their representatives—not the other way around. Understanding who controls district lines and how the redistricting process works is the first step toward ensuring that electoral maps serve the interests of all citizens rather than the partisan advantage of those in power.

Key Takeaways

  • In 26 states, state legislatures controlled by political parties draw district lines, often resulting in gerrymandered maps that favor the party in power
  • 21 states use some form of redistricting commission, with 13 states using commissions exclusively to draw electoral boundaries
  • The Supreme Court's 2019 Rucho decision removed federal courts from policing partisan gerrymandering, leaving the issue to state courts and legislatures
  • Gerrymandering techniques include "packing" opposition voters into few districts and "cracking" them across many districts to dilute their voting power
  • Maps used in the 2024 election had approximately 16 fewer Democratic-leaning districts than fair maps would have produced, according to the Brennan Center
  • The 2025-2026 period saw unprecedented mid-decade redistricting, with six states adopting new congressional maps between regular census cycles
  • Both Republican and Democratic parties engage in gerrymandering when they control the redistricting process
  • Independent redistricting commissions have proven effective at producing fairer maps when properly designed with clear criteria and transparency requirements
  • Citizens can participate in redistricting through public hearings, map submissions, supporting reform efforts, and voting in state elections
  • The future of redistricting will likely involve continued legal battles, potential expansion of independent commissions, and increasingly sophisticated technological tools for both drawing and analyzing maps