California voters have approved a measure allowing the state to redraw Congressional district lines in response to Republican gains in Texas and other states. The special election on Nov. 4 centered on Proposition 50, which Governor Gavin Newsom positioned as a direct response to Republican redistricting efforts that Democrats say will unfairly increase GOP representation in Congress.

With about 90% of votes counted, Prop. 50 passed with 63.9% in favor and 36.1% voting against. Voter turnout was much higher than expected.

Gerrymandering is the process in which a state redraws its voting boundaries to favor one political party. This is often done in two ways: packing and cracking.

Packing involves concentrating voters of a certain political party into a single district to reduce their influence in other districts. Meanwhile, cracking involves spreading voters across multiple districts to prevent them from gaining any power.

Texas redrew its district lines earlier this year on President Donald Trump’s orders. The new maps, approved by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature were expected to help Republicans gain up to five seats in the U.S. Congress.

To counter this, California held the special election to determine if the state should also redraw district lines to add Democratic seats, countering the Texas move.

“Texas has redrawn their districts in a rather un-democratic fashion,” U.S. history teacher Mr. Jacob Ferrin said. “California is responding to Texas’s gerrymandering with their very own gerrymandering.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed and the state legislature approved the “Election Rigging Response Act,” otherwise known as Prop. 50, which voters approved on Nov. 4.

Prop. 50 authorizes temporary changes to district maps in response to redistricting, especially with Texas’s push on redistricting. It will replace California’s current congressional maps with new ones drawn by the state legislature until the California Citizens Redistricting Commission draws new maps based on the 2020 U.S. Census, which will take effect in 2030.

The 2020 U.S. Census determined the number of seats each state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives for the elections from 2022-2032.

With Prop 50 passing, Democrats expect the new California maps could help them win approximately five additional congressional seats that currently lean Republican or are competitive. This could offset Republican gains in Texas, where redistricting helped the GOP secure seats that previously favored Democrats or were toss-ups.

Due to its large population, California may be the only state that can counteract Texas’s increase in Republican representation, although other states, mostly Republican, are gearing up to redraw their districts.

“Perhaps other governors in other states don’t feel like they have quite the capital or swing to fight against it,” Mr. Ferrin said. “California is the fifth largest economy in the world. California has a lot of weight to swing in this direction in terms of our GDP and our power as a state.”