Redistricting: The game of drawing political lines gets underway in Georgia

A man waits to vote at Central Park, Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in Atlanta. The state across the South are the center of the upcoming once-a-decade redistricting battle. The region is the fastest-growing in the country and as a result will be adding an estimated half-a-dozen House seats.

John Bazemore / AP Photo

On Wednesday at 10 a.m. Georgia lawmakers will officially start to redraw political lines based on new Census numbers. If redistricting were a game like baseball, Republicans would be swinging with a bat the size of a tennis racket.

That’s because, in Georgia, the party in power gets to decide political boundaries for congressional seats, state house and senate district. Still, like in any game, there are rules they’ll need to follow.

“Rule number one, you have to equalize populations, and you have to have close to the same number of people in each district,” according to UGA political scientist Charles Bullock, who wrote a book on redistricting.