Hofeller drew thousands of maps in his life—thousands of permutations of state maps drawn and redrawn to find all the ways that Republicans could gain electoral advantages without violating the letter of the Voting Rights Act. When he died, Republicans had no idea that he had saved those maps on hard drives. They also had no idea that Hofeller’s daughter would discover those hard drives—and then turn them over to Common Cause, a government accountability group. When Common Cause went through his files, they found a trove of prepared maps for redistricting Republican-controlled states such as
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