The gerrymandering wars are heading South, NBC News reports.
A number of Southern states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, are prime targets for partisan gerrymandering as the congressional redistricting process gets underway after next year's statehouse elections, experts said.
"Many of the states that had the really aggressive gerrymanders the last time — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin — the processes are much fairer there" now, Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University said, referring to what took place after the 2010 census. "The real worry is these fast-growing states in the South."
America's decennial congressional redistricting process — when roughly even-sized House districts are drawn, usually by state politicians — has become one of the most important battles in politics, as the parties seek to gain advantage by drawing sometimes crazy looking maps.
Activists say these partisan maneuvers undermine democracy and that politicians shouldn't be choosing their voters; politicians who gerrymander like to say that by winning elections, they've earned the right to draw the districts as they see fit.
