Colorado voters have rejected Amendment 86, according to the Associated Press.
The conservative backed amendment would have placed more restrictions on redrawing Colorado’s congressional maps to stop the state from jumping into any future gerrymandering fights.
Earlier this year, a progressive Colorado group attempted to pursue mid-decade redistricting to help counteract Texas and other states which redrew their maps to favor Republicans.
Watch Denver7 anchor Micah Smith's story in the video below:
When state leaders redraw congressional maps to favor one party over another, it’s called gerrymandering. However in some states, the gerrymandering efforts backfired and instead created a dummymander this election.
“Dummymandering is really this notion of redrawing districts in order to maximize your party's probability, chances of winning, and we do it historically. We've done it for a very long time. This round was different because we ended up with mid-cycle redistricting, really with the intent and explicit command from Donald Trump, the administration, to say, ‘Look, red states make this happen because we want to make sure that we keep the majority in the House’, and it just didn't play out,” said Dr. Robert Peuhs, the political science chair at MSU Denver.
Redistricting typically occurs every 10 years, after the release of the U.S. census data.
A dummymander happens when a party redraws lines to benefit their candidates but it backfires and ends up helping the opposing party.
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“There were a few districts where the Republicans picked up seats and flipped seats,” Preuhs said. “But where it didn't turn out were places that were the most high-profile ones. Texas, for instance, it doesn't look like the Republicans are going to flip anything, and if anything, Democrats pick up some seats.”
Preuhs said progressives' redistricting efforts in Colorado will likely die off because Democrats have a super majority in the State House and a majority in the Senate.
