How Texas' oddly drawn and unfair districts compare to the rest of the U.S.



See the most squiggly, gerrymandered districts in Texas, according to data. Texas is well-known for its oddly drawn congressional district lines, a good indication of gerrymandering.

See the most squiggly, gerrymandered districts in Texas, according to data. Texas is well-known for its oddly drawn congressional district lines, a good indication of gerrymandering. Photo: Eric Gay /Associated Press Photo: Eric Gay /Associated Press Image 1 of / 56 Caption Close How Texas' oddly drawn and unfair districts compare to the rest of the U.S. 1 / 56 Back to Gallery

Texas has some of the most head-scratching congressional districts in the nation, which is why a Wisconsin gerrymandering case being battled out in the Supreme Court is especially important to the Lone Star State.

In general, both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, or the act of packing voters of one political party into "safe" districts.

While that might not sound like a bad thing, easy elections in oddly shaped district's are what gerrymandering is all about.

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"The point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a safe seat, but to put your opponents in safe seats by cramming all of their supporters into a small number of districts," wrote Washington Post politics reporter Christopher Ingraham. "This lets you spread your own supporters over a larger number of districts."

Typically, the political party in power in a state has dibs on drawing up congressional district lines.

While not every weirdly shaped district means gerrymandering is afoot, a 2015 study that mathematically compared how squiggly U.S. districts are with each other found that less compact districts, or districts whose congressional lines are all over the place, are the most gerrymandered.

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The study, by Silicon Valley Data Science, "found that districts are less compact (more squiggly) when one party controls the redistricting process" and that "electorates in less compact districts tend to be overly skewed towards one party, providing some validation that the motivation of drawing these districts is to achieve specific distributions of voters."

In Texas, researchers found that because of gerrymandering, Republicans were awarded two extra seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Above: See a ranking of Texas' most gerrymandered congressional districts.