How Gerrymandering and Authoritarian Trends Threaten 2026 Elections

Ongoing redistricting battles in the United States are occurring amid warnings from analysts, legal scholars, and democracy reform organizations about a broader trend toward weakened institutional protections for fair elections.

In the struggle for partisan advantage, the risk extends beyond unfair maps to the narrowing of competition to make the 2026 election dependent on just a handful of districts and counties.

Redistricting typically occurs every ten years. However, in an environment where courts are more deferential to partisan map drawing and federal oversight of voting rights has been weakened, accurate election results are no longer assured. If this process coincides with an administration that favors stronger executive authority, reduced transparency, or diminished oversight over election administration, the cumulative effect can tilt the electoral playing field – and narrow it considerably.

U.S. elections are administered across 3,000 counties, a remarkably distributed process. Election experts have long thought this to be a messy process, but also one that is resistant to interference because of the sheer number of local officials with oversight responsibility. However, partisan gerrymandering may change that equation in 2026.

Already, partisan gerrymandering contributes to reduced accountability for elected officials and a political environment where voters feel increasingly disconnected from outcomes. Aggressive self-dealing by politicians to draw their own districts erodes the core democratic principle that voters choose their leaders, not the other way around. Most public analysis of mid-decade redistricting focuses on the horserace question of the net gain or loss in seats arising from the sum of all new gerrymandering. But the effects on power go well beyond that. Understanding why requires citizens to think a little deeper about the implications of the current bipartisan festival of gerrymandering.

Even if Republican and Democratic gains come close to balancing out, as I have argued, they reduce the competitive playing field - and make it easier to interfere with a fair election.

Gerrymandering by either party reduces competition. Because of geographic sorting alone, key Congressional elections will hinge on only a small subset of the 3,000 counties, the level at which elections are administered in the United States. Gerrymandering reduces that competition further, and I can imagine control of the House being determined by the vote count in just a few hundred counties.

Those few counties could easily be targets for interference: lawsuits that impede orderly vote-counting or vote-by-mail, or even incursions by military force. Imagine the National Guard or ICE being deployed to cities or places with large Hispanic populations. Cleverly targeted, that could swing critical races, such as the Texas 28th and 34th Districts, which are near the southern border and are over 50% Hispanic.

Similarly, California now has only a few competitive Congressional districts, thanks to voters’ approval of Proposition 50, which imposed an extreme Democratic gerrymander. But that remaining competition is concentrated in places like Kern, Fresno, and Riverside counties, which Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division in the U.S. Department of Justice, announced this year as targets for enhanced surveillance. Like Texas, these districts are rich in Hispanic voters. With the politicization of the Department of Justice, such monitoring carries the risk of voter intimidation in places that will be pivotal in 2026.

Attacking elections, state by state

When fewer districts are competitive, there are fewer places where getting out the vote matters. But 2026 is also headed toward being a year of increased efforts, by partisans and even government officials, to challenge existing voting rights.

Tools like Vote Maximizer will be important for showing citizens where votes are most powerful - and therefore likely to be attacked. In these places, it is critical to ensure the integrity of the vote, whether at polling stations or by making people feel that it is safe to get out the vote.

Developing a tool to defend key elections

At the Electoral Innovation Lab, we are building on our 2024 tool, Vote Maximizer, to develop a resource to help defend elections. By identifying close districts, counties with vulnerable populations, and states with close statewide races, we will show you where you can make the most difference to protect fair elections. That tool will be ready for use by mid-2026.

For those who want to use data for good, information about county-level vulnerabilities is of great value: which counties have anti-vote-counting boards, ambiguous rules, and so on. The Electoral Innovation Lab is one clearinghouse for such information. And wherever you are, you can also help safeguard your local elections by being a poll worker or by helping local, nonpartisan good-government organizations.

Sam Wang is a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University and a leading expert on statistical analysis in public policy. He is the founder of Fixing Bugs in Democracy where he covers topics related to democracy, data analysis, and potential reforms.