The Map That Chooses the Voters: Why Gerrymandering Threatens U.S. Democracy—and How to Fix It
North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District
When politicians pick their voters instead of voters picking their representatives, democracy bends. Gerrymandering—surgically drawing districts to entrench one party’s power—skews outcomes, suppresses competition, and leaves whole communities with representatives they didn’t truly choose. It’s not abstract: extreme maps decide who governs, what gets a vote, and whose voice gets muted. (Brennan Center for Justice)
How we got here
In 2019, the Supreme Court held that partisan gerrymandering claims are “political questions” beyond the reach of federal courts. That landmark decision, Rucho v. Common Cause, effectively told reformers to seek remedies in state law and politics—not in federal courtrooms. The practical effect: no federal backstop against even the most surgical partisan maps. (Supreme Court, Oyez, Wikipedia)
In 2023, the Court rejected the maximalist “independent state legislature” theory in Moore v. Harper, confirming that state courts may apply their state constitutions to check election rules and maps. Translation: while federal courts won’t police partisan gerrymanders, state courts still can. The fight shifted to state constitutions, state courts, and state reforms. (Supreme Court, Harvard Law Review, NCSL)
Why it’s a danger to democracy
Voter power shrinks: Extreme maps convert modest vote margins into veto-proof majorities, insulating lawmakers from electoral accountability and dampening turnout. (Brennan Center for Justice)
Polarization grows: Safe seats reward the loudest primaries, not the broadest coalitions, pushing legislatures toward obstruction over problem-solving. (Brennan Center for Justice)
Communities are sliced up: “Packing” and “cracking” dilute communities of color and shared-interest neighborhoods, weakening their policy influence. (Courts still police racial gerrymandering; partisan gerrymandering remains largely a state-law battleground.) (Brennan Center for Justice)
Nonpartisan (or at least fairer) ways to draw the lines
There’s no single silver bullet, but a layered toolkit works—and many states already use parts of it.
1) Independent or citizen redistricting commissions
Move line-drawing out of the hands of self-interested incumbents. Several states empower independent or bipartisan commissions to draw congressional and/or state legislative maps, with clear rules and public input. While designs vary, the core idea is the same: diversify who draws the map, constrain conflicts of interest, and make the process open. (As of the latest cycle, nine states use commissions for congressional maps, with others using hybrids for legislative maps.) (NCSL, Ballotpedia)
Evidence suggests commissions reduce extreme partisan bias when they are genuinely independent (no elected officials as commissioners), transparent, and bound by clear criteria. Early results from states like Colorado and Michigan—where citizen commissions worked under bright-line rules and open meetings—showed measurably fairer plans and more competitive districts compared with prior, legislature-run cycles. (Campaign Legal Center)
Design choices that matter:
Bar current politicians, party officers, lobbyists, and big contractors from serving.
Balance partisan affiliations and include independents.
Use supermajority voting rules to force consensus.
Require on-the-record reasoning and publish all data.
2) Enforceable, neutral map-drawing criteria
Legislate and constitutionalize criteria that line-drawers must follow—and that courts can enforce. Typical guardrails include:
Equal population and contiguity (constitutional baselines).
Compliance with the Voting Rights Act and protection of communities of interest.
Compactness and respect for political subdivisions (cities, counties).
Partisan-fairness standards that discourage durable asymmetries (for example, symmetry tests or limits on “wasted votes,” known as the efficiency gap). (Chicago Unbound)
3) Radical transparency and public participation
Require public map submissions, publish all datasets and draft maps, and hold livestreamed hearings with written explanations for every revision. Sunshine won’t solve everything—but it makes surgical bias harder and gives courts a record to review. Reform groups and legal scholars consistently cite transparency and participation as pillars of durable reforms. (Brennan Center for Justice)
4) Independent judicial review under state constitutions
Because federal courts won’t police partisan gerrymandering, state courts must. Reform paths include explicitly banning partisan gerrymandering in state constitutions (or adopting “free elections” clauses with teeth) and giving courts clear authority and timelines to appoint special masters when legislatures or commissions fail. Moore v. Harper confirms that ordinary state judicial review applies. (Supreme Court, Harvard Law Review)
5) Technical safeguards and open methods
Use open-source software, auditable code, and clear statistical checks to evaluate proposed maps. Many states and watchdogs now run partisan-symmetry, mean–median, and efficiency-gap diagnostics to flag outliers before they become law—and to document them if they do. (Chicago Unbound, review.law.stanford.edu)
What citizens and policymakers can do now
Push for commissions with strong conflict-of-interest rules and supermajority voting. (NCSL)
Codify fairness and transparency—in statutes now, and in constitutions when possible. (Brennan Center for Justice)
Resource state courts and set fast, clear remedial paths (including special masters) when maps flunk the rules. (Supreme Court)
Measure what you value: require public release of all inputs, code, and metrics used to evaluate maps. (Chicago Unbound)
Democracy isn’t just about counting votes; it’s about making votes count equally. The tools exist to end the era of politicians choosing their voters. All that’s missing is the will to use them.