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A FEW WORDS - Donald Trump has been shouting “rigged election” for so long, I’m starting to think he’s going to trademark it. He’s slapped it on rallies, lawsuits, and fundraising emails like it’s the MAGA version of “Just Do It.”
At his request, Republicans across the country are now busy rigging the next elections — and they’re not even pretending otherwise. No mystery ballots showing up in the dead of night. No secret servers. No shadowy conspiracy theories about foreign plots. Just the oldest, most reliable trick in American politics: redraw the lines so you get to choose your voters instead of letting the voters choose you.
And now they’re not even waiting for the census. Texas, Florida, and other Republican-run states are moving to redo their congressional maps five years early — mid-decade — so they can lock in an advantage for 2026 and beyond. Now Democrats are starting to join the game—including California Governor Gavin Newsom. It’s turned into the political version of a nuclear arms race. What used to be a once-a-decade brawl is turning into a permanent campaign. It’s chaos — cartographers gone wild.
Here’s the thing: this kind of legal election-rigging isn’t hard to fix. We already know what works because we’ve done it here in California. A few years back, former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — teamed up with Common Cause and the League of Women Voters to push independent redistricting commissions. Democrat and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has been campaigning to expand this concept across the country. The idea was simple: take the map-making pen away from politicians and hand it to ordinary citizens. The result? Fairer maps, more competitive races, and a model the rest of the country could adopt tomorrow if politicians cared more about voters than their own reelection.
California has shown there’s a better way. Our independent commission — made up of everyday people, not career politicians — draws the lines using common-sense rules: keep communities together, follow natural boundaries, and resist the urge to draw districts that look like someone spilled spaghetti on a map and traced the noodles. It’s not perfect, but it’s light-years ahead of what’s going on in Texas, Florida, Ohio, and plenty of other states.
And here’s the important part: independent redistricting isn’t some partisan fever dream. It’s genuine populism. Not the kind you can slap on a hat and sell at a rally. The real thing. It hands power back to the people, forces candidates to compete for the middle, talk to voters outside their base, and maybe — just maybe — find some common ground instead of just lobbing insults on social media.
So how do we make it happen?
1. Pass state ballot initiatives. In places where citizens can put something directly on the ballot, skip the politicians and go straight to the people. That’s how California and Michigan did it.
2. Pressure state legislatures. In states without that option, it’s time to turn up the heat. Call, write, march — make sure your lawmakers know you’re paying attention…assuming they haven’t gerrymandered your district out of existence yet.
3. Push for national standards. Congress could set some baseline rules for fairness. Sure, bipartisan agreement these days is about as likely as Mitch McConnell and Bernie Sanders starting a boy band, but it’s still worth pushing for.
4. Keep talking about it. Gerrymandering isn’t exactly a sexy topic — until you realize it’s the reason your vote might not matter. The more we explain it, the harder it will get for politicians to keep doing.
Schwarzenegger calls gerrymandering “politicians cheating the voters.” Holder calls it “a threat to our democracy.” I call it what it is: the most effective form of election rigging in America — and the only one both parties have been getting away with for centuries.
Trump wants you to believe the danger is ballots appearing after midnight. The truth? The real rigging happens months — sometimes years — before Election Day, when politicians quietly use a Sharpie to decide which voters get a voice and which ones don’t.
So the next time you hear Trump railing about “rigged elections,” tell him you agree — just not for the reasons he thinks. The maps are the heist. And now that both sides are racing to redraw them early, the only thing more predictable than his rants will be the results.
(John Shallman is an award-winning political media consultant, crisis management expert, and President of Shallman Communications in Los Angeles. He has advised presidential, gubernatorial, and local campaigns nationwide. In addition to his work in politics, Shallman is the author of the national best-selling book Return from Siberia, a memoir blending history and personal discovery. His insights on strategy and storytelling continue to shape public opinion across platforms. Learn more at www.shallmancommunications.com.)
