Well, here is something I almost never do these days. A political race related diary. And of course, leave it to me to decide to tackle a giant redistricting project after all redistricting has been completed, (with the exception of Kansas).
But what I wanted to do was show the effect of having bipartisan public committees handle redistricting efforts, with criteria of compactness, regional interests, and party-balance, with an emphasis on creating politically competitive districts where possible.
For this I chose to tackle the states that Republicans pushed the most egregious gerrymanders, states where they mangled the rights of voters, packed Democrats, split counties with impunity, and hashed districts together with no regard for community of interests.
To start, (I have others, but doing PA, TX, OH, NC and GA all in one diary is far too much work), I did Pennsylvania, and actually this map turned out better than any of my others, perhaps because I've drawn it so many other times, failed in some regards, but gained a good knowledge of the state's politics.