This cartoon image depicts a donkey and an elephant - the traditional symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties - competing to paint parts of Texas their own color, the donkey's blue and the elephant's red. Inevitably, as the posturing, paint-brush-wielding donkey and elephant show, the redistricting process is messy and fraught with partisan tensions. Redistricting involves partisan competition over how redistrict lines will be drawn. Drawn one way, a map of representative districts may give greater advantage to Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party. Drawn another way, the advantage may fall to Republican candidates and the Republican Party.