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After intricate explanations of mapping software and math formulas, perhaps the most striking piece of evidence shown in a Richmond courtroom Monday on the opening day of a trial over political gerrymandering in Virginia was a map showing what an expert called the “toilet-bowl configuration.”

As a judge considered a motion to throw out the lawsuit challenging 11 General Assembly districts as unconstitutionally drawn, Wyatt Durrette Jr., an attorney with the redistricting reform group OneVirginia2021, pulled up an image showing the jagged semicircle that is the 72nd House of Delegates District, which winds from west of the University of Richmond through Innsbrook to Glen Allen and North Side.

Durrette asked the judge to consider “what that does” to the people of western Henrico County and what state lawmakers were thinking when they approved the district lines.

“They didn’t really try to make this district compact,” Durrette said of the district, whose seat is currently held by Del. Jimmie Massie, R-Henrico.