District boundaries are redrawn after every Census, or at any time, to give one political party a built-in advantage — guaranteeing election outcomes before a single vote is cast.
Every gerrymander, no matter how complex, relies on two fundamental operations: packing and cracking. Mapmakers use them in combination to produce maps that convert a narrow vote-share advantage into a lopsided seat advantage.
Packing concentrates as many opposition voters as possible into as few districts as possible. If your opponent's voters are packed into one district, they win that one seat by a massive margin — say 90% to 10% — while all those "extra" votes accomplish nothing. Those votes are wasted on a victory that was already assured. In return, the remaining districts have fewer opposition voters, making them safer for your side.
Cracking splits a concentrated community across multiple districts so it never forms a majority anywhere. A city that might deliver a solid 55% for the opposition is divided into four slices, each absorbed into a larger surrounding district where its votes are diluted to 30% and easily overridden. The community has representation in four districts — and meaningful influence in none of them.
Gerrymandering is not an abstract problem of democratic theory. It has measurable, documented consequences for how Congress behaves, what policies get passed, and who gets represented.
Only about 14% of House seats are now considered genuinely competitive — down from roughly 40% in the 1990s. The rest are functionally decided in low-turnout party primaries.
In safe seats, the only electoral threat comes from primary challengers. This incentivizes incumbents to adopt more extreme positions to satisfy their base, while ignoring the majority of voters values entirely.
An estimated 49 million votes cast in the 2020 House elections were effectively wasted — either piled onto landslide victories or spent on hopeless losses by design.
Representation is currently set by gerrymandered districts, members of Congress no longer represent the values and needs of the citizens.
Fewer than 10% of congressional districts will be genuinely competitive in the 2026 elections. The outcome in over 90% of races is predetermined before voters go to the polls.
Current redistricting plans are on track to reduce competitive House seats to less than 5% by 2028 — effectively eliminating electoral competition from the House of Representatives entirely.