Redistricting

Redistricting is the redrawing of electoral district boundaries, usually after a census to account for population change. It determines which voters are grouped together for representation.

Census: An official count of a population, often used to allocate political representation and public resources. Census population totals provide the data used to adjust district populations.
Gerrymandering: The deliberate drawing of electoral boundaries to advantage a political party or group. It is the most contested consequence of strategic redistricting.
United States Constitution: The supreme law of the United States, establishing its national government and foundational rules. Its census and apportionment provisions set the framework for congressional districting.
Independent redistricting commission: A body designed to draw electoral maps separately from the ordinary legislative process. Commissions offer an alternative to maps drawn directly by elected legislators.
Rucho v. Common Cause: A 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that partisan-gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond federal courts' reach. The ruling left partisan map challenges primarily to state courts and political processes.
Apportionment: The allocation of legislative seats among geographic areas according to population or other rules. Apportionment determines how many seats a jurisdiction receives before its districts are drawn.
Racial gerrymandering: The use of race as a predominant factor in drawing electoral district boundaries. Redistricting can raise constitutional questions when race drives a district's shape.
Reynolds v. Sims: A 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring state legislative districts to have roughly equal populations. The decision extended equal-population requirements to state legislatures.
Legislative redistricting: The drawing of electoral district boundaries by a legislature. Legislative control is the conventional alternative to independent mapmaking bodies.
Partisan symmetry: A property of an electoral system in which parties would receive equal seat shares for equal vote shares. It is one proposed standard for measuring partisan bias in district maps.

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