Nowhere in this article do I see a link to the three discussed maps (or did I miss something?). Viewing the maps would have been extremely useful.

Hi @TorreyaMan, my name is Jamey Padojino, digital editor at Palo Alto Online. Thank you for bringing this up. The maps have been added to the story.

"it's about people and how people relate to each other"

i.e., people with the same political leanings.

It's gerrymandering. The linguistic twists and turns this political body is doing is actually quite hilarious.