GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Every vote counts, when it's election season.
To keep elections fair, federal judges ruled North Carolina's congressional district map needs to be redrawn.
Judges say the current map unfairly lumped voters together based on political party affiliation.
Because of that, WFMY News 2 explains how some people didn't get a fair chance to elect who they wanted in office.
Back in 2016 when North Carolina voters elected their representatives to move to Washington, and the overall voter count was 47 percent Democrat, and 53 percent Republican. Almost right down the middle.
But, in the end we sent 10 Republicans and just 3 Democrats to Washington.
So -- how does something like this happen?
"The current district lines were drawn by the Republican legislature to maximize the number of Republicans who would be elected. So, what they did was pack a large number of Democratic voters into three districts. Then they took the remaining districts and made them Republican, but not so heavily Republican to waste a lot of votes. So in a sense the Republican votes were used much more efficiently," said University Of North Carolina At Greensboro Political Science Professor, Dr. Charles Prysby.
That is why congressional districts look the way they do.
The question is, is this legal?
Well, up until now, yes.
But, now three federal judges ruled that these congressional districts must be redrawn because they are illegal.
So what changed? Because this happens everywhere.
In other states too, you get partisan gerrymandering. The North Carolina case I guess has been considered one of the most egregious ones in the country. So to some extent it is a matter of degree, said Dr. Prysby.
Dr Prysby says this could be monumental, because while lines have been redrawn because politicians packed voters into districts based on their race before -- this is the first time congressional districts have to be redrawn because of party.