@@captainyolowaffle3160 I feel like that's super young, I'm a 13 year old boy, they think I'm an immature dumb boy that could never understand politics. While I may still be a (sometimes) immature and dumb boy, I manage to understand this super easily
Gregory Samuel Teo Yes, that is a problem. That's why there are two federal legislative bodies, like you mentioned. There are state senates and representatives, but unfortunately that can lead to more gerrymandering among precincts. (Correct me if I'm wrong. Some of this is speculation.)
California, New Jersey, Arizona and 3 other states have an independent commission to draw the districts instead of politicians. More states need to adapt this method.
i think population (people) is more important than land mass. If 80% of the people in your state lives in cities, it should make sense that the cities get laws that benefit them, as opposed to the other way around.
@@derekfurst6233 That would put the 20% of people who live in rural areas, like farmers, at a severe disadvantage. If there were an issue that city dwellers liked that would hurt the farmers' agriculture industry, the farmers would have no way to prevent it. The point of taking land area into consideration in forming districts is to ensure that the farmers and other rural residents get a voice, too, so that issues that are important to them can be addressed. The 80% that live in the city are not more important than the 20% that live in the country. Majority rule is a bad idea in many cases. It hurts minorities.
@@jlhill17 the best solution is to allow cities and rural areas to make their own laws. And then have the overarching government only pass what laws it needs to. We could call it: federalism.
So we've had these resources on the internet now for over five years to educate the populous and yet still nothing has even began to be done about it...
we've had dictionaries on the internet for a lot longer than that, and you still use "populous" wrong. some problems are not as easy to solve as they seem
lunarul Fair enough, but this one guy on the internet misunderstanding and misusing a word this one time on this one page isn't nearly as detrimental as an entire nation's (the world's largest power no less) faulty voting system for over two centuries.
If spelling words correctly would improve the world as much as abolishing gerrymandering would, I'm sure OroCrimson would be just as surprised and/or disappointed
Well, I think I fixed gerrymandering. Just force the politicians to play the honeycomb round of Squid Game - with the shapes of the districts they've drawn.
my AP Gov teacher showed us this video and your two party video years ago. they really helped me understand these concepts, thank you so much for making these videos!!
I've been taught this probably 5+ times throughout middle school and highschool and its never sunk in. Thanks for being a better teacher than the entire History division of the Kaneland Board of Education
I obsessively go back and pause these videos to read the flavor quotes, so I saw that, and had a good laugh when I immediately recognized it, being a big Simpsons fan.
2:57 "Citizens want ... close elections where either candidate has a chance of winning." I don't think that is necessarily true. Isn't it actually better for citizens if the elections are not close. If a candidate only receives 51% of the vote that means that at least 49% of the people in their constituency wanted someone else, and possibly more if there are a large number of strategic voters or non-voters. However, if the lines are drawn in a way that gives the average candidate a definite landslide of say 80%, that means that s/he would better represent the views of her/his constituency, because a lower percentage desired someone else. For that matter, would it not be better to have no districts at all, but use an alternative vote that gives candidates voting power in the assembly proportional to the percentage of voters that chose them?
It's insane that gerrymandering has not been dealt with, everyone supports reform there. However, the problem with direct democracy is that it is tyranny of the majority.
***** It would be tyranny, but it would be tyranny that most people wanted to see, so even if to you it is wrong, to them it's right. To fight that kind of situation, you should have an educated population.
firesteel1 Which is why we have certain unalienable rights which are supposed to prevent such things. Using represenatives and laws to stop this is the essence of a Republic.However, there is yet to be a truly perfected form of government
In Germany on state level we have a simple election. Party A gets 30% of the votes -> Party A has 30% of the seats. Quite simple, quite effective. You just need a parlamential democracy not a presedential.
That´s not true. This only is relevant to the legislature. You can use your proportional system regardless of whether you have a presidential republic or a parliamentary one. Latin America often uses proportional systems these says like Brazil and Argentina, but elects their presidents independently.
This is great! Can I make a suggestion: please slow down as you talk. This is quite a bit of info to take in and it's the first time your audience is hearing it. Our brains and minds need to adjust to all the wonderful info you're giving. Thank you for all your hard work!
We have the technology to count votes by brute force today and do not need representatives. We should abolish the representation system and just use raw votes for everything.
This system of referenda and popular initiatives exists and works rather well in Switzerland, an extremely wealthy and highly educated country of 7 mil. There is not a chance in hell it would work well in countries like the UK or the US which have large populations of poorly educated and destitute voters.
dubsll Not gonna lie, most Americans on either side of a debate don't know what they're talking about :/ I find myself in an awkward position when I don't just think the people on the other isle are ignorant, but that the people on my side of the argument are spouting incorrect information and logical fallacies as well :l
To CGP Grey... I feel like you would be the perfect person to teach game theory. If you have some videos already please let me know. I absolutely love your videos... in general, sure... but I love your series on voting and elections, gerrymandering, etc.
2:28 "You must construct additional ranges". That's a meme about the Protoss, a playable race in the game Starcraft, where the player is very often reminded that "You must construct additional pylons"
Modezio Lol. Me to, just a rainbow pig. No, I am not gay. When I made this skin I had no idea that the rainbow was a sign for gays. -.- Why can't something else be!?!?! RAINBOWS ARE AWESOME! THEY'RE NOT GAY!!! NOT I CAN'T DRAW A RAINBOW WITHOUT BEING CALLED GAY!!!!!! Well... That is my response.
What's the point of these zones nower days? It may have made sense back when representatives had to ride a horse for days to get to D.C. or where ever they need to represent their zone. But today we could easily just count every single vote after we put them all into a giant bucket. Is there a problem with my thinking?
+Broockle The biggest problem of direct democracy is the "tyranny of the majority". If votes were entirely proportional, theoretically, 51% of the population could vote in politicians that only benefit them, while hurting the other 49%.
Steven Sheffey And zones prevent that? So it's more just to everyone if the votes are unfair? What a concept xD I'm not sure if I can get behind that idea lol But intriguing definitely.
+TheyCallMeGunny Hold your horses. 20% of popular vote doesn't mean the resting 80% voted against a person, although this may very well be the case in the upcoming US election.
Ever seen Alice In wonderland original movie? This is “The Caucus race@ scene It’s the one where everyone but the representative is running around the fire up high with the rep. They’re all in the water but he’s dry with the fire up above. Alice comes in and he says “no no no, you’ll never get dry like that. You’ll have to run with the others!” The others are in the water.
Every singular vote for party X & Y in total should also be considered. Every one should have one 'for' vote as well as one 'against' vote. Every one should vote, and not not vote. Higher degrees of education like academics, intellectuals and PhDs should have more votes. There should be tests about history, economic maths, ethics and political theory to make sure the elected people can also pass higher the hierachy.
But an algorithm is manmade. The developers of said algorithm just need to define the set parameters to redraw the districts in a way that would be beneficial for them or their backers.
You still need officials in place to organise that though. And I personally trust the masses even less than polticians honestly, I can't imagine the ridiculous chaos that will be caused by people who don't know a single thing about what they're voting for suddenly getting such a huge voice. No thanks!
@@KHCoasterKid You misunderstand my point. In america, districts vote, then a representative is sent to give one vote to the election, in a winner takes all system, which allows gerrymandering. In germany, you vote for a party directly, so if 20% of citizens for for a party, the party gets 20%, not that american nonsense where a party with less votes can still win by having more representatives.
I kinda agree, but look up the system instated in Holland (the Netherlands haha) We have a system where a similar system like gerrymandering is actually the better option. There are 255 seats in parliament (kind of like the house of representatives) these are shared over the popular vote! this means that who you vote for will get a seat. granted they have more then 50K votes (minimum requirement to be representing)! The 255 seats will be divided over the 10+ political parties. After the elections have been, the votes are counted, the seats (zetels) are appointed, and then what? well, the party leaders go see the queen, this is only formality. She takes all the seats and appoints a parliament as decided by her people! She will build a majority of the votes to ease a smooth and well working government, ensureing that these parties get 128 seats at the minimum. There you have a majority (while there are often 2 or more parties siding with each other). a system that represents everybody and not just 1 party or the other!
I think the "let math" (or computers) decide option is the best. It's all done in a predictable, systematic way, without involvement of (potentially biased) people. The fact that it can potentially create uncompetitive districts isn't really a problem -- it's a fact of how people live, regional differences, etc. Similar to the split line approach, I'd recommend a software program that simply starts drawing boxes at one 'corner' increasing/decreasing box size until it gets the right number of voters in the box. Then it draws the next box, etc.
If every election is compeditive, but the votes sway one way (scandal, etc), then one party could win every seat by a narrow margin... with maybe 60% of the vote. That's not good.
Just let the Boondock Saints do their job for about a year. And watch as corrupt politicians suddenly have a "change of heart" and magically come up with a fair solution.
Why do each ranch have their own election and then the winner from that election is counted? Why isn't the entire animal kingdom's votes just counted all at once?
What is interesting though, is that while jerrymandering makes relatively routine elections uncompetitive, by artificially limiting the depth of support of the dominant party it actually makes wave elections more dramatic. Take the U.S. state of North Carolina which has a slim Republican majority overall. A few districts are overwhelmingly Democrat because most of the Democrat population has been concentrated there. Hardly any districts have more than 10% Republican advantages in typical elections because that would be "wasting" votes from the perspective of jerrymandering, and most districts only have a 5-10% Republican advantage. In a routine election this means even if there is a shift of 4% in favor of the Democrats, there will be little if any change in the electoral outcome. But if there is a wave election and there is a 12% shift, the Republicans could lose nearly every district in the state.
Fun fact the term should actually be pronounced "Gary-mandering" as it is named after Elbridge Gerry whose surname is pronounced the same as the given name Gary.
Okay, I don't get it. In first past the post, why would you have representatives? Why districts? Shouldn't just the majority win? Is this how the US works?!!?!? I'm confused
+RoboTekno and choose the country weasely. in countries like russia, if the weasel is not cautious enough and upsets the wrong people, it ends up in alleys...
I'm going through a rewatch, and I'm intentionally liking and leaving comments on all of them so that more people might see these. I rarely do this, that's how important I think your videos are, thank you so much!
We just went through another round of gerrymandering here in North Carolina and I've been using this video series to explain the problem and possible solutions to friends. Thanks for the good work!
*Eagle shows up and says* Don't list to that scumbag, i have the solution! *hands the Queen two books, one is called 'Mein Kampf' and the other is called 'The protocols of the elders of snakes.'*
At 1:14 the Jackalope says: We can't bust heads like we used to but we have our ways. One trick is to tell em stories that don't go anywhere- like the time I caught the ferry over to shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickle, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on em. "Give me five bees a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah:the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. Only thing you could get were those big yellow ones. Wow what a great use of my time. shameless self advertising setamina ytreaz ot bus
@@basilbiscuit2735 S4E17 "Last Exit to Springfield" the one where the nuclear plant workers strike, so Mr. Burns gets Homer's dad and his "ol' union busting" friends, whose plan is to tell boring stories at them to get them to go away.
Here in Australia we do have legislative districts for the House (just like in the US), but we also have a truly independent commission (the Australian Electoral Commission, AEC), which is completely apolitical and its integrity has never been put into question. It can work, you just need to give it a go.
The reason that gerrymandering is a problem is because people vote not for issues but for a particular group. That group happens to be either Republican or Democrat. The rest are insignificant. The voter, when confronted with an unknown, will vote party lines. Now suppose that the ballot did not mention party? The voting public will be stumped. The second problem is the media. Lets suppose I am super rich and i have super rich friends. I tell six of my super rich friends to buy all the media giants. They agree. Now when election comes around they sit around a round table and agree who they want to allow to compete. They approach the possible candidates and make a deal with them. We will get you into office and you will have to make sure that these listed things are taken care off, They agree and the comes the media blitz. They use psychological techniques to get the public enthusiastic. In the end the super rich have who they want.
I am SHOCKED that after 5 years, you only have 25 likes because you nail it. People who are not politicly savvy will just vote for a party rather than an actual candidate. Hence the devolution of USA politics into the reality tv fiasco we have today.
I voted for the first time a couple months ago,locally. All were "non partisan" positions. And guess what? I had no idea what policies anyone supported. If there were no political parties, do you think politicians would just be more open about what they supported?
@@louisryan5815 that might be true. I just have anecdotal evidence. But I barely had any idea what my local candidates stood for, and at least with parties you have a party platform.
For a single official election (e.g. the President) it's totally sufficient to just not have representatives. You don't need to "travel to Washington" anymore to cast your state's vote. An overall total from all voters is the easiest and most logical way. For congress this doesn't work obviously, but you can still do what germany and austria do: They have twice as many seats as there are districts. Every winner gets a seat (to ensure local representation), but then the other half is filled in a way to make the parliament as a whole represent the overall percentages. (Example: Party A gets 30% of the vote, but wins 30 districts, and Party B gets 70% of the vote, winning "only" 20 districts - then Party A has only their 30 local reps and Party B has their 20 local reps plus another 50 members of their "list". [This is assuming, there are 50 districts, which makes for 100 seats.])
I'm sorry, yes ofcourse. I thought this goes without saying, but apparently in some countries everyone who just shows up at the booth on election day can vote °_° Blew my mind to be honest... How do you prevent double-voting?!?
@@QemeH You use your national identity card, which prevent anyone from double voting. And yes you can scan the card meaning you cannot you fake (P.S some country even require more than Identity card like driving license for example) I mean come on we live in modern time not ye olde time
@@hoseadavit3422 Well, since the comment I replied to was apparently deleted, I'm not 100% sure, but... I could vote with my actual real ID card several times, if it weren't for voting registers. Or how does an election helper in New York check weather you already voted in Texas? (If the state is printed on the ID card in the US, just pretend I named different congressional districts instead of different states!) You need to keep track of who votes where anyway, so why not use that for local representation - is, I believe, the point the (now missing) comment was trying to address...
@@QemeH Here in the Netherlands voters are sent a voting card by mail. This has to be handed in at the polling place and cannot be returned. We also require the presentation of an ID that is at most 5 years expired (can be a national ID, Passport or driver's license), but this of course does not prevent double voting. Without the voting card one could simply go to another polling place and vote a second time.
here is an idea: get rid of districts all together and simply divide representatives by the percentage of votes, like delegates. Example: 30% vote democrat 70% vote republican so then we have 3 democrats and 7 republican representatives.
+aroseland1 That is (sorta) how most countries do it, although they just add "at large" reps to make sure the percentage of reps matches the percentage of voters for each party.
When you live in a country where some states are as large or larger than many countries in the world, you need to relegate some power to those states. When subdivisions need to be made for such large areas, you will always have issues of gerrymandering
@@blubberdust as if decentralisation is a uniquely American phenomenon. Most EU countries have provinces and or states, with similar autonomy/legal competences as US states and a similar amount of citizens as an average state. Most of them have zero issues with gerrymandering.
@@michielvangorp9608 A quick google search will show that there are examples from all over the world, from countries in every populated continent, including countries in the EU.
This is one of the reasons that I never voted until the craziest of the two parties put forth a candidate was truly, and completely, a piece of human garbage.
The original Gerry mander was done by Elmbridge Gerry (pronounces Gerry not Jerry) on the state of Massachusetts and when people noticed the unfair redrawing on districts they said “that looks like a salamander” “Not a salamander, a Gerrymander” The reason we call the process Gerrymandering is because of a bad pun that mispronounced the name
California dealt with this by removing the legislature from the districting process "turns it over to a mixed panel of unelected designates (members of the two largest parties in the state, currently the Democratic and Republican Parties, and unaffiliated voters) whose composition is determined by a complex multi-step nomination, selection, and rejection process (Proposition 11 was passed in the November 2008 election). "
I love how CGP is able to explain such complicated political issues in such a cute and charming way
Antoine Brassard Lahey yes! As a young person I don’t exactly understand these strange political ridiculousness, but this makes it fun so...
I’m 11 years old and everyone says I’m to young to understand politics so I shouldn’t have a political opinion but than I remember this stuff
Animals man... Animals everywhere
@@captainyolowaffle3160 I feel like that's super young, I'm a 13 year old boy, they think I'm an immature dumb boy that could never understand politics. While I may still be a (sometimes) immature and dumb boy, I manage to understand this super easily
And that's how I learned about gerrymandering before I even knew about politics
This is a proud day for Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. They all have only one district.
Gregory Samuel Teo Yes, that is a problem. That's why there are two federal legislative bodies, like you mentioned. There are state senates and representatives, but unfortunately that can lead to more gerrymandering among precincts. (Correct me if I'm wrong. Some of this is speculation.)
California, New Jersey, Arizona and 3 other states have an independent commission to draw the districts instead of politicians. More states need to adapt this method.
i think population (people) is more important than land mass. If 80% of the people in your state lives in cities, it should make sense that the cities get laws that benefit them, as opposed to the other way around.
@@derekfurst6233 That would put the 20% of people who live in rural areas, like farmers, at a severe disadvantage. If there were an issue that city dwellers liked that would hurt the farmers' agriculture industry, the farmers would have no way to prevent it. The point of taking land area into consideration in forming districts is to ensure that the farmers and other rural residents get a voice, too, so that issues that are important to them can be addressed. The 80% that live in the city are not more important than the 20% that live in the country. Majority rule is a bad idea in many cases. It hurts minorities.
@@jlhill17 the best solution is to allow cities and rural areas to make their own laws. And then have the overarching government only pass what laws it needs to.
We could call it: federalism.
So we've had these resources on the internet now for over five years to educate the populous and yet still nothing has even began to be done about it...
we've had dictionaries on the internet for a lot longer than that, and you still use "populous" wrong. some problems are not as easy to solve as they seem
lunarul
Fair enough, but this one guy on the internet misunderstanding and misusing a word this one time on this one page isn't nearly as detrimental as an entire nation's (the world's largest power no less) faulty voting system for over two centuries.
If spelling words correctly would improve the world as much as abolishing gerrymandering would, I'm sure OroCrimson would be just as surprised and/or disappointed
M On the other hand, if getting everyone to spell/use words correctly was the _only_ way to improve the world, I'm pretty sure we'd all be S.O.L.
***** Haha definitely
I've learned about elections and voting more from your videos than from the 25 years that I have lived. And it's actually fun!
Happy 30’th birthday 🥳
I wonder how much more you have learned in these past 5 years
Well, I think I fixed gerrymandering.
Just force the politicians to play the honeycomb round of Squid Game - with the shapes of the districts they've drawn.
found Wyoming
@@skystrike8955 lmao
That would just make a bunch of Wyomings
my AP Gov teacher showed us this video and your two party video years ago. they really helped me understand these concepts, thank you so much for making these videos!!
My teacher used your video for an assignment in my class and it was really helpful in explaining what gerrymandering is!
I've been taught this probably 5+ times throughout middle school and highschool and its never sunk in. Thanks for being a better teacher than the entire History division of the Kaneland Board of Education
Animation and examples go a long way.
good video, but you really should have shown an actual picture of the districts. Gerrymandering in the US is insane!
There is a very simple solution to this problem. It's called proportional representation. Most European countries already have it.
1:16 Am I the only person that read the filibuster?
I read it to!
Onions, man. Very classy.
I started reading it but stopped when I recognized that it was a quote by Homer's dad in The Simpson's.
Nope! Now, where was I...
I obsessively go back and pause these videos to read the flavor quotes, so I saw that, and had a good laugh when I immediately recognized it, being a big Simpsons fan.
3:27 Court of Lions! OMG I LOVE IT!
AAAAAAAAAA YAWEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The "Get busy agreeing or I'll get busy eating" line by the Queen is awesome!
2:57 "Citizens want ... close elections where either candidate has a chance of winning." I don't think that is necessarily true. Isn't it actually better for citizens if the elections are not close. If a candidate only receives 51% of the vote that means that at least 49% of the people in their constituency wanted someone else, and possibly more if there are a large number of strategic voters or non-voters. However, if the lines are drawn in a way that gives the average candidate a definite landslide of say 80%, that means that s/he would better represent the views of her/his constituency, because a lower percentage desired someone else. For that matter, would it not be better to have no districts at all, but use an alternative vote that gives candidates voting power in the assembly proportional to the percentage of voters that chose them?
that Abe Simpson quote was 10/10
I was almost worried nobody else got that ;)
"It's all because of the weasel, Charlie! Don't talk to the weasel!"
3:35 "Fool! I AM the weasel!"
"Charlie, what have you done?!"
3:52 anyone see the minecraft pig?
It's insane that gerrymandering has not been dealt with, everyone supports reform there. However, the problem with direct democracy is that it is tyranny of the majority.
If the majority want it, then it's not tyranny it's democracy
firesteel1 I suppose if the majority wanted to enslave another race that wouldn't be tyranny because the majority desired so.
***** It would be tyranny, but it would be tyranny that most people wanted to see, so even if to you it is wrong, to them it's right. To fight that kind of situation, you should have an educated population.
***** Obviously if the majority want to enslave another race that is not tyranny that is democracy. Tyranny requires the population to be oppressed
firesteel1 Which is why we have certain unalienable rights which are supposed to prevent such things. Using represenatives and laws to stop this is the essence of a Republic.However, there is yet to be a truly perfected form of government
In Germany on state level we have a simple election. Party A gets 30% of the votes -> Party A has 30% of the seats. Quite simple, quite effective. You just need a parlamential democracy not a presedential.
That´s not true. This only is relevant to the legislature. You can use your proportional system regardless of whether you have a presidential republic or a parliamentary one. Latin America often uses proportional systems these says like Brazil and Argentina, but elects their presidents independently.
This is great! Can I make a suggestion: please slow down as you talk. This is quite a bit of info to take in and it's the first time your audience is hearing it. Our brains and minds need to adjust to all the wonderful info you're giving. Thank you for all your hard work!
We have the technology to count votes by brute force today and do not need representatives. We should abolish the representation system and just use raw votes for everything.
This system of referenda and popular initiatives exists and works rather well in Switzerland, an extremely wealthy and highly educated country of 7 mil. There is not a chance in hell it would work well in countries like the UK or the US which have large populations of poorly educated and destitute voters.
paleocon23 Poorly educated? Come on, I'm not saying my country is perfect, but it's incredibly stupid to make such broad generalisations.
dubsll UK is fine, but the US is a bit trickier...
How do you mean? Don't you think that's stereotyping?
dubsll Not gonna lie, most Americans on either side of a debate don't know what they're talking about :/ I find myself in an awkward position when I don't just think the people on the other isle are ignorant, but that the people on my side of the argument are spouting incorrect information and logical fallacies as well :l
i love how theres just a minecraft pig and "you must construct additional ranges"
I friggin' love the Animal Kingdom Census taker. :D
The barnacles are jus' too cute :3
I LOVE that the Animal Kingdom Census Taker is Business Cat!!! Thanks for the lolz CGP Grey!
I chuckled at that sneaky Last Exit to Springfield reference
To CGP Grey... I feel like you would be the perfect person to teach game theory. If you have some videos already please let me know. I absolutely love your videos... in general, sure... but I love your series on voting and elections, gerrymandering, etc.
Dude, we're learning this next week and I just happened to stumble upon this masterpiece, what a great head start.
Bloke was using bitcoins 10 years ago
2:28 "You must construct additional ranges". That's a meme about the Protoss, a playable race in the game Starcraft, where the player is very often reminded that "You must construct additional pylons"
4:54 there is one imposter among us......
Anyone see the minecraft pig?
Who, me?
Modezio Lol. Me to, just a rainbow pig. No, I am not gay. When I made this skin I had no idea that the rainbow was a sign for gays. -.- Why can't something else be!?!?! RAINBOWS ARE AWESOME! THEY'RE NOT GAY!!! NOT I CAN'T DRAW A RAINBOW WITHOUT BEING CALLED GAY!!!!!! Well... That is my response.
Jalookah lol, I hope that's a joke.
Modezio I hope so too. Either way, I am still against gay marriage... And will happily accept a well civilized debate :)
Yes in your profile pic
What's the point of these zones nower days? It may have made sense back when representatives had to ride a horse for days to get to D.C. or where ever they need to represent their zone. But today we could easily just count every single vote after we put them all into a giant bucket. Is there a problem with my thinking?
+Broockle The biggest problem of direct democracy is the "tyranny of the majority". If votes were entirely proportional, theoretically, 51% of the population could vote in politicians that only benefit them, while hurting the other 49%.
Steven Sheffey
And zones prevent that?
So it's more just to everyone if the votes are unfair? What a concept xD
I'm not sure if I can get behind that idea lol
But intriguing definitely.
We keep districts because then the people will have more representatives which equals more democracy.
+TheyCallMeGunny Hold your horses. 20% of popular vote doesn't mean the resting 80% voted against a person, although this may very well be the case in the upcoming US election.
Because people want their local area's interests to be represented, not just the common interests of their political party.
grampa simpson rant at 1:16, brilliant
This is the first video I've seen on your channel and I'm subscribing
Love that ten years ago, Grey used bitcoin icon for sleazy affairs (probably thinking it would be a small bribe)
Moral of the story:
*I* *USED* *THE* *GERRYMANDERING* *TO* *DESTROY* *THE* *GERRYMANDERING*
(inserts picture of the weasel with an infinity gauntlet)
1:17 dat simpsons quote tho
"They didn't have white onions because of the war."
Yep nice Simpsons reference
I am supposed to be writing my english essay, why am I learning how to fix the election system...
Thank CGP Grey! This helped me so much on my Geography essay :D
Ever seen Alice In wonderland original movie? This is “The Caucus race@ scene
It’s the one where everyone but the representative is running around the fire up high with the rep. They’re all in the water but he’s dry with the fire up above. Alice comes in and he says “no no no, you’ll never get dry like that. You’ll have to run with the others!” The others are in the water.
To make Gerrymandering fair, just don't make it. Here in Germany, the lines are fix. Or increase the number of Representers.
i just realized the jackalope is filibustering using abe simpson's stories...
2:29 great StarCraft 2 reference I think
Every singular vote for party X & Y in total should also be considered.
Every one should have one 'for' vote as well as one 'against' vote.
Every one should vote, and not not vote.
Higher degrees of education like academics, intellectuals and PhDs should have more votes.
There should be tests about history, economic maths, ethics and political theory to make sure the elected people can also pass higher the hierachy.
id be much happier if an algorithm drew the boundary lines, even if it ends up skewed once in awhile i would atleast know why it was skewed.
But an algorithm is manmade. The developers of said algorithm just need to define the set parameters to redraw the districts in a way that would be beneficial for them or their backers.
Option 4:
*Abolish the electoral college*
But that’s not going to happen
sure, but also the issues with the House and state governments would still be totally unaffected.
Or just get rid of the archaic representative system and let the citizens vote directly. You cant gerrymander if there is only one district.
You still need officials in place to organise that though. And I personally trust the masses even less than polticians honestly, I can't imagine the ridiculous chaos that will be caused by people who don't know a single thing about what they're voting for suddenly getting such a huge voice. No thanks!
@@KHCoasterKid Works pretty well for germany and pretty much any true democracy. Our political parties dont win districts, just votes.
@@2MeterLP That’s still a representative system because you’re still electing people to make laws for you in a parliament.
@@KHCoasterKid You misunderstand my point. In america, districts vote, then a representative is sent to give one vote to the election, in a winner takes all system, which allows gerrymandering. In germany, you vote for a party directly, so if 20% of citizens for for a party, the party gets 20%, not that american nonsense where a party with less votes can still win by having more representatives.
I kinda agree, but look up the system instated in Holland (the Netherlands haha) We have a system where a similar system like gerrymandering is actually the better option. There are 255 seats in parliament (kind of like the house of representatives) these are shared over the popular vote! this means that who you vote for will get a seat. granted they have more then 50K votes (minimum requirement to be representing)! The 255 seats will be divided over the 10+ political parties. After the elections have been, the votes are counted, the seats (zetels) are appointed, and then what? well, the party leaders go see the queen, this is only formality. She takes all the seats and appoints a parliament as decided by her people! She will build a majority of the votes to ease a smooth and well working government, ensureing that these parties get 128 seats at the minimum. There you have a majority (while there are often 2 or more parties siding with each other). a system that represents everybody and not just 1 party or the other!
Great video. Everything I wanted and more in 5 mins
I think the "let math" (or computers) decide option is the best. It's all done in a predictable, systematic way, without involvement of (potentially biased) people. The fact that it can potentially create uncompetitive districts isn't really a problem -- it's a fact of how people live, regional differences, etc.
Similar to the split line approach, I'd recommend a software program that simply starts drawing boxes at one 'corner' increasing/decreasing box size until it gets the right number of voters in the box. Then it draws the next box, etc.
10 years later and this is still relevant in the US
Simpsons paradox is no basis for a system of government
If every election is compeditive, but the votes sway one way (scandal, etc), then one party could win every seat by a narrow margin... with maybe 60% of the vote. That's not good.
I legit just watched this vid so that the algorithm would give me more cgpgrey shit.
UA-cam algorithm: ever heard of Gerrymandering?
Me: no
UA-cam: that's exactly why you should watch
These videos are better than my highschool civics class. Sorry Mrs. C.
Just let the Boondock Saints do their job for about a year. And watch as corrupt politicians suddenly have a "change of heart" and magically come up with a fair solution.
Why do each ranch have their own election and then the winner from that election is counted? Why isn't the entire animal kingdom's votes just counted all at once?
I want to know more about the yellow onion story.
BRING IN RANKED VOTING
Has scenario 3 ever happened in the history of any nation who uses gerrymandering?
4:44 One of these are not like the other.
What is interesting though, is that while jerrymandering makes relatively routine elections uncompetitive, by artificially limiting the depth of support of the dominant party it actually makes wave elections more dramatic. Take the U.S. state of North Carolina which has a slim Republican majority overall. A few districts are overwhelmingly Democrat because most of the Democrat population has been concentrated there. Hardly any districts have more than 10% Republican advantages in typical elections because that would be "wasting" votes from the perspective of jerrymandering, and most districts only have a 5-10% Republican advantage. In a routine election this means even if there is a shift of 4% in favor of the Democrats, there will be little if any change in the electoral outcome. But if there is a wave election and there is a 12% shift, the Republicans could lose nearly every district in the state.
Fun fact the term should actually be pronounced "Gary-mandering" as it is named after Elbridge Gerry whose surname is pronounced the same as the given name Gary.
Get rid of geographic clumping of voters. Let them pick who they want to be grouped together with.
4th solution. The AK gets tech like we have today and use individual votes instead of boundaries
Okay, I don't get it. In first past the post, why would you have representatives? Why districts? Shouldn't just the majority win?
Is this how the US works?!!?!?
I'm confused
Everywhere else in the world calls it fraud
So the moral of the story; be the Weasel.
This kid. This kid is going places.
+RoboTekno Done! My surname means Weasel in English. :P
+RoboTekno and choose the country weasely. in countries like russia, if the weasel is not cautious enough and upsets the wrong people, it ends up in alleys...
+RKBock ...with multiple deep knife wounds.
Илья Ишикаев And/or multiple gunshot wounds to the back
animals are using bitcoins
of course , they are the deepweb
+Carrot Does Gaming 😊
All3me1:3 Kawaii
John Snow you know nothing!!!
+All3me1 and so should we.
get busy agreeing or I'll get busy eating LOL
+TheNauken My favourite line in the whole video!
We need Queen Lion.
As it should be.
Where is it at?
Edit: 2:35
I wish someone would do that IRL, oh how fast democracy would get things done.
Welcome to politics in the U.S. where politicians police themselves.
Representatives pick their voters, instead of voters picking their representative...
“We have done an internal investigation on ourselves and found no wrongdoing”
@@AndrewAMartin there you go sir the simplest definition of gerrymandering
I'm going through a rewatch, and I'm intentionally liking and leaving comments on all of them so that more people might see these. I rarely do this, that's how important I think your videos are, thank you so much!
I agree, actually.. I never think of liking or disliking videos, but I should start doing that with these
iamsaztak The algorithm will just gerrymander your likes
Same, and just noticed in the beginning one of the citizens is a Minecraft pig
ScienceKid07 holy shit ur right. great detail
Agreed
We just went through another round of gerrymandering here in North Carolina and I've been using this video series to explain the problem and possible solutions to friends. Thanks for the good work!
IN THE BACKWATER SWIRL-ING, THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE
And in the past few months, North Carolina is having the same issue again.
The Gerrymandering in Durham is honestly *impressive*
You forgot option 4: Get rid of electoral boundaries and have representatives according to percentages (no winner takes all).
Ah yes, just like the rest of the world does :)
STV FTW!!!
What about local representation?
@@rajashashankgutta4334 Most representatives aren't defending their district's interests but their party's interests.
*A bear shows up to the Queen Lion* I come bringing a solution! *Hands the queen a book titled "The Communist Manifesto"*
*Eagle shows up and says* Don't list to that scumbag, i have the solution! *hands the Queen two books, one is called 'Mein Kampf' and the other is called 'The protocols of the elders of snakes.'*
If one animal is not free, all are not free. Bear. Freedom.
Didn't that fail on the north half of Asia?
But behold! A frog shows up and conquers the two animals, then presents the Queen Lion with "Code civil de Français."
I disliked the comment simply because I dislike Communism. It's funny, though.
You must construct additional ranges.
We must support a party that will be firm on the matter of Zerg Rushes!
+AncelDeLambert
STARCRAFT
2:29
you must construct additional pylons.
heavyweaponsgaming
Hmgdjdg
1:05 Are those bitcoin logos? And was this video from 2011? You were involved with bitcoin NINE YEARS AGO?!?!!??!?! Mr. Grey I hope you're rich!
Why does queen lion have a mane
Because she's that awesome.
Some female lions can have a mane. The same goes for males that lack one
Because gender is a social construct and lions don't have to identify by your ridiculous fabricated gender system (sarcasm)
Its just her scruff
@@Universedarkghosts transphobic much, white boy?
2:28 "You must construct additional ranges."
I GOT THE REFERENCE
WOO
Garen Crownguard I don't get it...
***** Starcraft.
***** "You must construct additional pylons"
Aaron Lin You're a pylon of the community.
+Garen Crownguard Me too! And I was especially excited 'cause I've never even PLAYED Starcraft.
At 1:14 the Jackalope says:
We can't bust heads like we used to but we have our ways. One trick is to tell em stories that don't go anywhere- like the time I caught the ferry over to shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickle, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on em. "Give me five bees a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah:the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. Only thing you could get were those big yellow ones.
Wow what a great use of my time.
shameless self advertising
setamina ytreaz ot bus
Thank you for your service
This is actually a quoted rant from the grandpa on The Simpsons. I'm not sure which episode though.
@@basilbiscuit2735 S4E17 "Last Exit to Springfield" the one where the nuclear plant workers strike, so Mr. Burns gets Homer's dad and his "ol' union busting" friends, whose plan is to tell boring stories at them to get them to go away.
I love how currency in the Greyworld has been Bitcoin EVER SINCE 2011
i also love that
0:48 Damm You got so early in to Bitcoin 🤯
Here in Australia we do have legislative districts for the House (just like in the US), but we also have a truly independent commission (the Australian Electoral Commission, AEC), which is completely apolitical and its integrity has never been put into question. It can work, you just need to give it a go.
The reason that gerrymandering is a problem is because people vote not for issues but for a particular group. That group happens to be either Republican or Democrat. The rest are insignificant. The voter, when confronted with an unknown, will vote party lines. Now suppose that the ballot did not mention party? The voting public will be stumped.
The second problem is the media. Lets suppose I am super rich and i have super rich friends. I tell six of my super rich friends to buy all the media giants. They agree. Now when election comes around they sit around a round table and agree who they want to allow to compete. They approach the possible candidates and make a deal with them. We will get you into office and you will have to make sure that these listed things are taken care off, They agree and the comes the media blitz. They use psychological techniques to get the public enthusiastic. In the end the super rich have who they want.
Spot on!
I am SHOCKED that after 5 years, you only have 25 likes because you nail it. People who are not politicly savvy will just vote for a party rather than an actual candidate. Hence the devolution of USA politics into the reality tv fiasco we have today.
I voted for the first time a couple months ago,locally. All were "non partisan" positions. And guess what? I had no idea what policies anyone supported. If there were no political parties, do you think politicians would just be more open about what they supported?
@@owlblocksdavid4955 probably... there'd be nothing but the truth that they could align themselves with.
@@louisryan5815 that might be true. I just have anecdotal evidence. But I barely had any idea what my local candidates stood for, and at least with parties you have a party platform.
lost it at "build additional ranges"
Instead of this how about use the number of voters instead of districts won
For a single official election (e.g. the President) it's totally sufficient to just not have representatives. You don't need to "travel to Washington" anymore to cast your state's vote. An overall total from all voters is the easiest and most logical way.
For congress this doesn't work obviously, but you can still do what germany and austria do: They have twice as many seats as there are districts. Every winner gets a seat (to ensure local representation), but then the other half is filled in a way to make the parliament as a whole represent the overall percentages.
(Example: Party A gets 30% of the vote, but wins 30 districts, and Party B gets 70% of the vote, winning "only" 20 districts - then Party A has only their 30 local reps and Party B has their 20 local reps plus another 50 members of their "list". [This is assuming, there are 50 districts, which makes for 100 seats.])
I'm sorry, yes ofcourse. I thought this goes without saying, but apparently in some countries everyone who just shows up at the booth on election day can vote °_° Blew my mind to be honest... How do you prevent double-voting?!?
@@QemeH
You use your national identity card, which prevent anyone from double voting. And yes you can scan the card meaning you cannot you fake
(P.S some country even require more than Identity card like driving license for example)
I mean come on we live in modern time not ye olde time
@@hoseadavit3422 Well, since the comment I replied to was apparently deleted, I'm not 100% sure, but... I could vote with my actual real ID card several times, if it weren't for voting registers. Or how does an election helper in New York check weather you already voted in Texas? (If the state is printed on the ID card in the US, just pretend I named different congressional districts instead of different states!) You need to keep track of who votes where anyway, so why not use that for local representation - is, I believe, the point the (now missing) comment was trying to address...
@@QemeH Here in the Netherlands voters are sent a voting card by mail. This has to be handed in at the polling place and cannot be returned. We also require the presentation of an ID that is at most 5 years expired (can be a national ID, Passport or driver's license), but this of course does not prevent double voting. Without the voting card one could simply go to another polling place and vote a second time.
at 0:10 at the bottom right there is a Minecraft pig as one of the representatives
_"Queen Lion"_ *Shows a male lion*
Queen Lion what
get busy agreeing or I'll get busy eating LOL
I went over this in my Gov class but you explain it the best. I find your vids extremely helpful.
here is an idea: get rid of districts all together and simply divide representatives by the percentage of votes, like delegates. Example: 30% vote democrat 70% vote republican so then we have 3 democrats and 7 republican representatives.
+aroseland1 That is (sorta) how most countries do it, although they just add "at large" reps to make sure the percentage of reps matches the percentage of voters for each party.
+Aaron Baker I wonder why we don't - I image that whichever party is benefiting at time would fight any change.
+aroseland1 but muh heritage
Ya but only the most conservative of conservatives would do that.
I think that's MMP. Do you live in NZ?
My country literally goes "how many voted for who" and thats it.
When you live in a country where some states are as large or larger than many countries in the world, you need to relegate some power to those states. When subdivisions need to be made for such large areas, you will always have issues of gerrymandering
@@blubberdust as if decentralisation is a uniquely American phenomenon. Most EU countries have provinces and or states, with similar autonomy/legal competences as US states and a similar amount of citizens as an average state. Most of them have zero issues with gerrymandering.
@@michielvangorp9608 A quick google search will show that there are examples from all over the world, from countries in every populated continent, including countries in the EU.
1:16 So I tied an onion to my belt which was the style at that time!! OMG I can't stop laughing...
This is one of the reasons that I never voted until the craziest of the two parties put forth a candidate was truly, and completely, a piece of human garbage.
Thank you for not specifying who it was.
it was hitler wasnt it
0:15 the pig
The original Gerry mander was done by Elmbridge Gerry (pronounces Gerry not Jerry) on the state of Massachusetts and when people noticed the unfair redrawing on districts they said “that looks like a salamander”
“Not a salamander, a Gerrymander”
The reason we call the process Gerrymandering is because of a bad pun that mispronounced the name
This guy knew about Bitcoin in 2011, should have bought some 😂
California dealt with this by removing the legislature from the districting process "turns it over to a mixed panel of unelected designates (members of the two largest parties in the state, currently the Democratic and Republican Parties, and unaffiliated voters) whose composition is determined by a complex multi-step nomination, selection, and rejection process (Proposition 11 was passed in the November 2008 election). "
wrong quote
I meant to talk about a NONpartisan group instead THAT came later
That's how it's done in Australia too. The Australian Electoral Commission handles the election districts. It's designed to be non partisan.
3:11 Well, It's Not Like These New Ranges AREN'T Representative, It's Just That Election Night Is Awfully Boring.