Evan Milligan, plaintiff in an Alabama case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power across the U.S., speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4, 2022.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File
Since 2020, Alabama lawmakers have failed to draw political districts that give Black voters an equal chance of selecting political candidates that represent their interests.
Police officers patrolling the front of the Supreme Court building.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
A loud chorus of Democrats – and some Republicans, too – has for years claimed gerrymandering is costing their party seats in Congress. Is it true?
Mississippi state legislators review an option for redrawing the state’s voting districts at the state Capitol in Jackson on March 29, 2022.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
A ruling by the US Supreme Court to allow unlawful maps to be used in the midterm elections will affect who gets elected to the House of Representatives and may determine control of Congress.
Not every vote is counted equal.
Joshua Lott/AFP via Getty Images
Alabama will be allowed to keep a congressional map that critics say disadvantages Black voters. That does not bode well for 2022 midterms, argues a law scholar.
State Sen. Joseph Thomas, D-Yazoo City, holds a copy of the proposed congressional redistricting map during debate over redistricting at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Jan. 12, 2022.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
The results of the latest round of redistricting have advanced the anti-democratic trend where elected leaders choose their voters, undermining representative government.
People wait in line to get their ballot to vote in the 2020 general election in Detroit, Michigan.
Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
As states devise new electoral district maps, some have adopted independent commissions to ensure fairness in that process. Do they deliver?
Representatives say the Pledge of Allegiance at the State Capitol in Austin. Texas is one of many states that redrew their political maps in 2021.
Tamir Kalifa via Getty Images
To overhaul an election redistricting process tainted by gerrymandering, Michigan has adopted a governance mechanism prominent 2,500 years ago in ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy.
A small sliver of a congressional district in Pennsylvania crossed four counties, on a map that was ruled to be a partisan gerrymandering plan.
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Robin E. Best, Binghamton University, State University of New York and Steve B. Lem, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
When voters in November pick among the candidates for state legislatures, they are choosing the people who will make the new electoral maps for congressional elections.
A worker follows up during the 2020 census test run in Providence, R.I.
U.S. Census Bureau
The Supreme Court has issued what’s likely to be its final word on partisan gerrymandering, saying it’s a political issue, not a legal one. That means reform lies in the hands of voters.
People waited outside the Supreme Court in 2013 to listen to the Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder voting rights case.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
When no one in Mississippi wins a majority of votes in an election, the legislature chooses the winner. This has led to white men winning over and over.
Activists at the Supreme Court opposed to partisan gerrymandering hold up representations of congressional districts from North Carolina, left, and Maryland, right.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Manil Suri, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Karen Saxe, Macalester College
Supreme Court justices have previously called statistical methods of measuring partisan gerrymandering ‘sociological gobbledygook’ and ‘a bunch of baloney.’
Idaho State Capitol in Boise, Idaho.
AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi, File
The majority of US state legislatures are controlled by Republicans because legislative districts are drawn to favor them. Voters are catching on, but change will be slow.
Last March, demonstrators rallied in front of the Supreme Court before oral arguments on Benisek v. Lamone, a redistricting case.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
Judges in North Carolina just threw out the state’s congressional district map. The decision could have major implications for the future of partisan gerrymandering across the US.