| Recorded at | October 25, 2012 |
|---|---|
| Event | TED-Ed |
| Duration (min:sec) | 03:41 |
| Video Type | TED-Ed Original |
| Words per minute | 188.45 fast |
| Readability (FK) | 43.87 difficult |
| Speaker | Christina Greer |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
District lines, and the groups of voters within them, may seem arbitrary, but a lot of thought (and political bickering) is put into these carefully drawn lines. From "packing" a district to "cracking" a district--learn how the shape of districts impacts political parties during election season. [Directed by Smart Bubble Society, narrated by Christina Greer].
| 1 | 00:15 | Most people have heard the word "gerrymandering" once or twice, | ||
| 2 | 00:19 | probably during a presidential election. | ||
| 3 | 00:22 | What exactly is gerrymandering? | ||
| 4 | 00:24 | Essentially, it's the process of giving one political party an advantage over another political party | ||
| 5 | 00:29 | by redrawing district lines. | ||
| 6 | 00:31 | It's like Democrats trying to gain an advantage over Republicans, | ||
| 7 | 00:34 | or Republicans trying to gain an advantage over Democrats. | ||
| 8 | 00:38 | You see, each party wants to gain as many districts as possible | ||
| 9 | 00:42 | so they can do things like control the state budget, | ||
| 10 | 00:45 | or set themselves up to win even more districts in the future. | ||
| 11 | 00:48 | So to understand how this process began, and how it continues today, | ||
| 12 | 00:53 | we must go back to 1812 in Massachusetts. | ||
| 13 | 00:56 | Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts, supported and signed a bill to allow redistricting. | ||
| 14 | 01:02 | That is, redrawing the boundaries that separate districts. | ||
| 15 | 01:06 | The catch? The new lines would favor Gerry's own political party, | ||
| 16 | 01:10 | the Democratic-Republican party, which no longer exists. | ||
| 17 | 01:13 | You see, Gerry wanted his party to win as many state Senate seats as possible. | ||
| 18 | 01:18 | The more members of your party who vote, the more likely you are to win an election. | ||
| 19 | 01:22 | The new lines were drawn to include loads of areas that would help Governor Gerry in the future. | ||
| 20 | 01:27 | They were so strange looking that someone said the new districts looked like a salamander. | ||
| 21 | 01:31 | The Boston Gazette added Gerry's name to the word salamander, | ||
| 22 | 01:34 | and voilà! Gerrymandering, | ||
| 23 | 01:37 | the process of dividing up and redrawing districts to give your political party an advantage. | ||
| 24 | 01:42 | So how exactly does someone go about protecting their own political party, | ||
| 25 | 01:46 | and actually gerrymandering a district? | ||
| 26 | 01:49 | There are two successful practices. | ||
| 27 | 01:51 | Packing a district, | ||
| 28 | 01:52 | and cracking a district. | ||
| 29 | 01:54 | Packing is the process of drawing district lines and packing in your opponents like cattle, | ||
| 30 | 01:58 | into as few districts as possible. | ||
| 31 | 02:01 | If more districts equals more votes, the fewer the districts there are, | ||
| 32 | 02:04 | the fewer votes the opposition party will get. | ||
| 33 | 02:07 | Packing, then, decreases the opponent's voter strength and influence. | ||
| 34 | 02:11 | Cracking is the opposite: | ||
| 35 | 02:14 | taking one district and cracking it into several pieces. | ||
| 36 | 02:17 | This is usually done in districts where your opponent has many supporters. | ||
| 37 | 02:20 | Cracking spreads these supporters out among many districts, | ||
| 38 | 02:23 | denying your opponent a lot of votes. | ||
| 39 | 02:26 | When you have a large number of people who would generally vote for one type of party, | ||
| 40 | 02:30 | those folks are known as a voting bloc. | ||
| 41 | 02:32 | Cracking is a way to break that all up. | ||
| 42 | 02:35 | So when would a party choose to pack their opponent's districts rather than crack them? | ||
| 43 | 02:39 | Well, that really depends on what the party needs. | ||
| 44 | 02:42 | To dilute your opponent's voters, you could pack them into one district | ||
| 45 | 02:45 | and leave the surrounding districts filled with voters of your own party. | ||
| 46 | 02:49 | Or, if you and your party are in power when it's time to redraw district lines, | ||
| 47 | 02:53 | you could redraw districts and crack up a powerful district | ||
| 48 | 02:56 | and spread your opponent's voters out across several neighboring districts. | ||
| 49 | 03:00 | So, Governor Gerry in 1812 wanted to gain an advantage for his party, | ||
| 50 | 03:05 | and redrew district lines in his state in such a crazy way we have a whole new word | ||
| 51 | 03:09 | and way of thinking about how political parties can gain advantages over their opponents. | ||
| 52 | 03:14 | Politicians think of creative ways to draw districts every few years. | ||
| 53 | 03:17 | So the next time an election comes around, | ||
| 54 | 03:20 | and politicians ask people to vote, | ||
| 55 | 03:22 | be sure to look up the shape of your district and the districts that surround it. | ||
| 56 | 03:27 | How wide does your district stretch across your state? | ||
| 57 | 03:30 | Are all of the districts in your state relatively the same shape? | ||
| 58 | 03:33 | How many other districts does your district touch? | ||
| 59 | 03:36 | But always be sure to ask yourself, | ||
| 60 | 03:39 | does my district look like a salamander? |