Gerrymandering Simplified
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- Опубліковано 8 січ 2024
- You've probably heard of gerrymandering, but exactly how does it work? Here's an explanation, starting with a simple model to show how it's an optimization that reduces the values of certain votes, and then moves to a more realistic situation. Without a doubt, gerrmandering is a scourge in any democratic republic, such as the USA.
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Very awesome and clear video on the issues regarding gerrymandering in the US. Thank you for making this one.
I had an idea about this. I doubt its original, so if anyone knows a name for it so I can learn more that'd be great.
Basically if you're going to have someone represent a particular chunk of the population then grouping that chunk by their geography can only be used to subvert public opinion and de legitimize democratic institutions. I had a solution in the shower.
If you have 10 reps in your state then each 10th percentile of the population (sorted by income & net worth) gets a representative. Instead of districts we have blocks of citizens who likely share more economic interests. We could go so far as to require reps belong to that income bracket (at least within the past few years) to ensure we have working class candidates in power.
Is there a word for this? Anybody want to tell me its a bad idea?
I don't know if there's a word for this, but I recognize some practical issues, perhaps the most important being how people would know what group they belong to and how they would cast a vote. Certainly, it would be easier if every place used mail-in voting, but having to show up in person to cast a vote could be messy at best.
Also, are we sure that we want to divide up representation based on wealth? Wouldn't it be easier if we just threw out the idea that "money is a form of speech" and prevented the campaign contributions that now plague our system? It seems obvious to me that if money is speech, then some people have a lot more "speech" than others. And why do industry and special-interest groups get to spend money on campaigns? After all, everyone who works at a particular business has their own free-speech rights, so why do the controllers of said business get a second separate voice?
To simplify and illustrate my point, every individual has the right to speak their opinion, but in our current system, that means some people get to stand on a box on a street corner to express themselves while others have giant kilowatt PA systems, and still others own entire broadcast networks.
Here's another thought. Instead of dividing up the population, how about dividing up the representation? This would be particularly good if there's more than two viable parties. To use your example, suppose you have a state with 10 districts, and thus, 10 reps. How about if everyone in the state votes for their top ten candidates? Granted, some people will vote strictly along party lines but it opens up the possibility of more proportional representation. I can see some problems with this in very large states (getting your name out there), but that kind of goes back to my prior point of getting money out of politics. I really think that's the major issue.
@@ElectronicswithProfessorFiore Oh I'm sure it would be messy. I suppose you could vote when you send in your taxes or something. Its not unsolvable. The power of money is what I thought the idea would counteract. Besides, how could anyone represent my interests AND my landlords interests?
@@RobertDrane What? Are you saying that your landlord's interest is NOT to put YOUR interests FIRST? Perish the thought! /snark
If you want to remove "the power of money", in my opinion the best way to do that is to remove money from the equation entirely. If we want to remove the effect of the output impedance of a source on the circuit it drives, we do that by decreasing it, ideally to zero. Same thing!
Keep your day job. You're exceptionally good at it. Not so much here. When you are voting for a representative, you probably expect this representative to represent you, no? The more homogeneous your districts are in terms of what people want politically, the less possible this becomes. If you live in a state with people with distinct viewpoints (as is common today) and the state is broken up into districts where each area has a heavy majority with one viewpoint, it is far more likely that representatives will be doing their job, than the case where each district is split as close as possible to 50/50. This is an argument for grouping people by viewpoint, so that they can be well represented, rather than by proximity, which is not necessarily a unifying factor.
The issue of gaming the system by generating districts with just enough skew to make it highly likely that one side wins is a problem, but not because it groups lots of people with one viewpoint together. The problem is that it doesn't consistently group people with one viewpoint together. Therefore, IMHO the first maps you drew with four districts with heavy majorities of one viewpoint are optimal, while the maps with 50/50 distributions are even worse than the engineered maps.
If you do end up with districts split 50/50, you shouldn't be surprised if your representative is making their decisions based on other factors, usually based on who's contributing the most money. Having representatives who actually represent their constituents is difficult enough when it is clear what their constituents want...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you said "The more homogeneous your districts are in terms of what people want politically, the less possible this becomes." I think you meant to say "The more heterogeneous..." Assuming that's the case...
Sure, if you did have the distribution shown in the first map, an argument can be made that the first couple of versions are "optimal" in that a very large number of people will have their views reflected by a representative who thinks like them. But that's not gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the overall effect on multiple districts. In this video, the effect of gerrymandering is shown in the last version drawn: One group gets 75% of the seats when they only comprise 50% of the electorate. I don't think any dispassionate observer would say that that is a good outcome. Now, is having four districts of 50/50 better than two districts that are 99/1 and two that are 1/99? I don't know for sure, but I can say that the 50/50 scheme would tend to elect reps who are more toward the middle and the others would tend to elect those more toward the extremes. (And as a side note I'll add that being "extreme" is not always bad: For example, I am an extremist when it comes to slavery-it should not exist anywhere at any time, period.)
I totally agree with your last sentence: "Having representatives who actually represent their constituents is difficult enough when it is clear what their constituents want". It has been clear from numerous polls over the years that a majority of Americans believe in a woman's right to control her own body, or that we need to spend more money on programs that help people and less on war. But with gerrymandered districts, it has become increasingly easy for those desires to be ignored.
@@ElectronicswithProfessorFiore Yes, I misspoke. In any event, parliamentary systems used in many parts of the world can claim to be more democratic, always allowing people to be represented by someone with a common world view, as long as their choice has sufficient votes. So it is possible to allow voters to have representation in most circumstances and not force people to be represented by people they never agree with simple because of their location. The parliamentary system also had the advantage of not having a strong tendency to devolve into a two party system, which has been the norm in the US since the beginning.
Extreme is a loaded word which I try not to use. I would prefer representatives who faithfully represent their districts, and letting the chips fall where they may during the legislative process. Having worked as a lobbyist on several occasions, I know how little it costs to buy congressional support and in an equally split district, campaign contributions really matter. Another factor is election shenanigans, which is only possible in close elections.
This argument isn't new. It was discussed in detail in Plato's Republic 2400 years ago, with Plato being very wary of giving the commoners too much access to power.
Your final sentence is intriguing. The US spends an inordinate amount of blood and treasure on foreign conflicts that have no direct relationship to American interests. The media generally supports these conflicts when they begin, and then pretend they never supported them when they become unpopular over time. Support for these military adventures is also a bedrock principle for both parties and might be easier to throttle if representative was really a descriptive term. My favorite example of this is the US operation to protect shipping in the Red Sea which is rarely used by ships going to or from the US which always use the Panama Canal to go to Europe from the east coast and Asia from the west coast and would never consider using the Suez Canal as an alternative.
@@ats89117 To be clear, my intent with this video is to explain how the process works, not whether or not there is a better system out there. Personally, I think our system has serious systemic issues, not the least of which is the "buying of congressional support" as you state, and which was so ably described by Eisenhower when he condemned the military-industrial complex at the close of his presidency. And of course, we would be remiss to not mention the work of Gillens & Page on this topic.
Regarding your final paragraph, some people have stated that there really is only one party in America, and that's the War Party, but it comes in two flavors: one which is socially conservative and the other which is socially liberal. I think that's a gross oversimplification, but it does reveal a common thread. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of Americans do not realize that just the typical year-to-year increases in the defense budget is enough to make tuition at every public college and university in the country free.
If the representatives are shoe-ins by having an easy vote from a homogeneous voterbase, you'll also find on the whole they won't represent you much. Because they don't have to. They already know they are a shoe-in. So........ you shouldn't be surprised if your shoe-in representative is making their decisions based on other factors, usually based on who's contributing the most money to their next campaign.
This is a well known problem with "safe seats" all over the world, and you can't argue your way around that the general solution is making the seat *less* safe, or more heterogeneous/split. The idea that a candidate from a safe seat is more likely, in general, to do actions motivated purely for their constituents, is frankly laughable.
Your *actual* problem is allowing money to speak the loudest in an election, if your viewpoint has been skewed to that mode of thinking. Because then candidates aren't fighting for the votes of people based on their ideas and policy, they're fighting over how they can advertise the loudest and disparage their opponents. Hence why only the United States of America is bribery actually known as "lobbying" and "super political action committees" are a thing.