How do politics corrupt nonpartisan electoral mapmaking?

Published January 23, 2024 at 8:40 AM EST

Millions of Americans will vote this year in districts whose borders cut profiles that even Salvador Dali couldn’t dream up.

Gerrymandering — lawmakers drawing district maps to let politicians essentially choose their voters instead of the other way around — is nothing new.

That’s why 22 states have some kind of independent commission to handle map drawing every ten years. But independent commissions aren’t always independent.

A new investigation from ProPublica has some insight into how politics can corrupt nominally nonpartisan mapmaking.

Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with ProPublica’s Marilyn Thompson.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.