What appears to be lacking is a discussion about districts’ boundaries. Quite clearly there are many district’ boundaries have been drawn up to maximise the number of districts won by a certain party. If one wanted to have fair elections, there is absolutely no justification for many districts’ boundaries to be drawn up the way they currently are.
Congressional districts are required to have approximately the same number of people and take into consideration, geographic boundaries, socio-economic similarities, and racial diversity. But people are not distributed across the land uniformity within those categories, thus some congressional districts take on weird shapes.
I have an opera house with harbour views for sale. That is as credible as the explanation about why some districts are shaped the way they are. Quite clearly, the rationale behind the shapes is to maximise the chances of winning as many districts as possible and to maximise the number of voters of the opposition party in the minimum number of districts. The word that should be used that is most apposite is gerrymander.