1/ This year, millions of voters will cast ballots in districts that have been ruled unconstitutional for excessive gerrymandering. motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
2/ Gerrymandering is when lawmakers reshape boundaries for elections in a way that favors their party. Courts are divided on whether this is constitutional.
3/ As @pemalevy reports, since sweeping into power in Congress and many statehouses in 2010, Republicans have engaged in aggressive gerrymandering across the country, using both racial and partisan voter data to rig maps in their favor.
4/ North Carolina’s entire congressional map is unconstitutionally partisan according to a federal court, which ordered state lawmakers to redraw the map. 
5/ But the Supreme Court halted that order and several others, meaning districts found to be illegal will remain in place for the 2018 elections.
6/ In Texas, a federal court found state lawmakers intentionally discriminated against voters of color when drawing the state’s congressional map. Two of those districts have been found to violate the constitution. 
7/ And Texas lawmakers may have been overzealous in drawing maps for some state-level races, too. Districts for the Texas House of Representatives have been ruled unconstitutional for racial gerrymandering.
8/ In November, voters in Wisconsin will be casting ballots for their state assembly representatives even though the boundaries for those races have been found unconstitutionally partisan.
9/ As @pemalevy reports, if the party in power wants to gerrymander the districts, there is no downside to doing this. If the maps are overturned, redrawing them often goes right back to the state lawmakers who created them in the first place.
10/ “You see what you can get away with, and even if the maps ultimately get struck down, you may get a free election or two or three or even four out of it,” says @mcpli of @brennancenter.
11/ Even though courts have repeatedly tossed out Republican-drawn electoral maps for excessive gerrymandering, these maps will remain in effect through November, potentially changing who controls Congress and state legislatures for the next two years.
12/12 Read the full story here: motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
