Federal Court Strikes Down "Unconstitutional" Gerrymandering in North Carolina

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In that case, why not go whole-hog? Make every Congresscritter a Member-At-Large, sent to Congress by a petition signed by 300,000 electors (or whatever number is appropriate for one's state) who have signed only one petition each election cycle. That way, all of the representatives have the support of every elector, no votes are "wasted", and political parties can still ask their members to send particular candidates to DC. The downside - and I think it isn't a downside at all, but some people do - is that one can't vote against somebody under this system, only for somebody.

This is basically the 'list transferable vote' option in use by most democracies, where you vote for a candidate and his party. If the party achieves more than 100/(number of seats) percent of the votes the party gets a seat, usually assigned to the highest ranked on the list. If a candidate gets more than that many votes he gets assigned that seat personally.

This system slightly advantages more popular parties.

That's why I put it at the END of the list. I recognize that the courts do NOT want to get into that political can of worms if they can help it. Better to try to get them to do a bipartisan committee to redraw the lines first, before smacking them with the "nuke it from orbit" option.

That's not what I meant.

Granting the power to redistrict to judges lets judges choose who elects them. Admittedly this is somewhat better than letting the guys writing the laws decide who elects them, but the judges get to decide what laws are legal.