“Gerrymandering” has come into the political spotlight after Texas Republicans, spurred onre intentional: the fidget spinner was meant to mute Las Vegas’ liberals and the index finger was meant to create another blue district in a solid-red Southern Illinois. Gerrymandering has a historically racist record as well as a partisan one, with roots in late 1800s South Carolina where Black Americans were cramped into a single district to dilute their influence. That racism has continued into the 2020s, when Louisiana was forced to redraw the state maps it’d gerrymandered to dilute the influence of Black Americans.
But gerrymandering is not a required part of redrawing state maps to reflect population changes. State maps can be drawn instead by independent commissions, groups whose main role is creating fair district maps that consider regional interests while respecting com by President Donald Trump, decided to redraw their state’s congressional map mid-decade in order to gain seats in Congress — an extremely uncommon occurrence. Since Texas, states like New York and Indiana have floated changing their maps as well, while California and Missouri have passed new maps. Amid the confusion of whether voters will have fair maps in the future, voters should understand that gerrymandering is an avoidable problem that can be solved through measures like independent commissions and statewide proportional voting.
Gerrymandering is not a required part of redrawing state maps to reflect population changes.
Gerrymandering has been omnipresent since the late 1800s in the form of unusually-shaped, community-dividing districts: from 2002-2012, Nevada’s third district resembled a fidget spinner and Illinois’ current 13th district looks like a slender index finger. These shapes a munities like farming economies, urban areas or Amish settlements.
ICs are usually made up of both parties and independents where independents are the tiebreakers. In Michigan, where an IC is used, four Republicans, four Democrats and five independents draw the maps for the state legislature’s approval. The Michigan map-makers are selected by randomly accepting applicants. In order for a map to get passed, it needs the approval of seven of the commissioners, including two Democrats, two Republicans and two of the non-affiliated independents. If there is no approval, a map can be submitted by an individual commissioner and get “preferred” by two commissioners whose parties’ backgrounds are different than the submitter’s.
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan group devoted to analyzing maps’ fairness based on factors like partisan advantage using an A-F scale, has given seven out of the eight states that use ICs an “A” grade. For the 42 states without an IC, 23 have a “B” or higher, three have a “C” and 16 have an “F” — like Texas.
According to the project, gerrymandering decreases significantly with ICs. During the 2024 U.S. House elections, in an “A” state such as Colorado (with an IC), Democrats won 54% of the vote and won 50% of the races. In an “D” state such as Oregon (with no IC), Democrats won 53% of the vote and won 83% of the races; this is obviously unfair to the 47% of other voters who now only hold 17% of Oregon’s influence in Congress.
If an IC were established in Texas, based on the project’s records, we could have fairer maps and not solid red or blue districts but more light red or light blue, actually competitive seats. Establishing an IC would involve amending the state constitution. In Texas, only the state legislature can amend the constitution by issuing a proposition that must then be approved by the majority of Texas voters.
However, ICs are not the only option. Statewide proportional voting goes beyond district lines and stops at state lines: the entire state’s population would decide how many seats a party gets based on popular vote.
Let’s take Texas’ most recent voter registration numbers as an example. In August 2025, the Independent Voter Project reported that Texas had 8.1 million Democrats, 6.6 million Republicans and 2.75 million unaffiliated registered voters. In a proportional voting system it would make sense for the Democrats to get 46.5% of House seats while Republicans get 38%. Since there are no district boundaries, it gives opportunities to third parties: third party candidates wouldn’t need to win a specific district, just gain enough votes for a House seat. If the 2.75 million unaffiliated Texas voters all voted for the hypothetical “Pizza Party,” it would get them 15% of the vote share and 15% of the seats. However, in today’s political world, third parties have trouble winning even competitive districts; if the boundaries were erased, those parties could cast their nets to a larger pool rather than a constrained district. The actual House percentages for Texas’ delegation are 65.8% Republican and 31.6% Democrat with no independent seats and one vacancy.
If the boundaries were erased, those parties could cast their nets to a larger pool rather than a constrained district.
The idea that districts are drawn to pertain to a certain region and certain interests is the justification behind current boundaries, but in current maps that logic is not actually enacted. Take Texas’ 26th district for an example, which runs from Rio Grande City to San Antonio, encompassing over 200 miles of rural and urban land. This spurs a candidate to focus on both urban and rural issues, encompassing the SPV idea already. Without boundaries, SPV would force candidates to focus on many issues across a plethora of voting bases, allowing for conservative candidates to run on liberal issues and vice versa.
Political gerrymandering is an obstacle that strips different regions’ influence, harms racialized communities and enables unfair elections. Solving it starts with citizens coming together and addressing the problem; the IC in Michigan, for instance, began with a group of voters advocating for redistricting change. Rather than worrying over whether there will be fair maps, voters should focus on on how to remove that state’s ability to gerrymander entirely by calling their representatives and recommending them these solutions. Organize with others to find common ground ideas that eliminates gerrymandering and establishes a fairer format. Gerrymandering shouldn’t be the way to redistrict and it doesn’t have to be.