For many years Michigan was divided evenly along party lines. Then, in 2011, Michigan's Republican party legally rigged the system. Charged with drawing new district lines, the lawmakers did so with unprecedented precision carving unnatural boundaries to keep their favored voters and locales in hand " to guarantee a majority for their party. It worked perfectly. The process of creating these doctored maps, known as gerrymandering, resulted in widespread victories for the Republicans. But in 2016, a then 26-year-old with no political experience uprooted the system. Katie Fahey ... dedicated two years of her life to launching and leading a grassroots campaign that started with a Facebook post and, against the odds, ended gerrymandering in Michigan. Film-makers found Fahey the perfect anchor for their gerrymandering documentary Slay the Dragon, named for the oddly shaped district in Massachusetts created by the man who gerrymandering its name, former vice-president Elbridge Gerry. Slay the Dragon will be released this week during a census year " when the US population will be carefully counted in order to determine the size of electoral districts next year. It's clear that Fahey's hard-won movement is a threat to Republicans across the country during that process. But Fahey is hoping the momentum ... can be replicated in the 35 other states that still use congressional redistricting.
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