How bad maps win elections - Gerrymandering explained | Map Men | History Teacher Reacts

[@MrTerry]

What do you think is the best way to draw voting districts?

[@FilmNerdy]

@MrTerry Hot take. I think you guys should adopt some kind of Proportional Representation system. You make constituency borders bigger that represent 5 or 7 seats but you split the votes based on the share of the vote a Party receives in that area. So Party A got 40% of the vote in that 7 seat area so they get roughly gets 40% of seats Party B got 35% so gets roughly 35% etc. There is different forms of PR where some are more Proportional than others but you essentially divide the seats by vote share. I think trailing it in local government would be a good way to experiment this or even have people do research on the Presidential Election by showing how results would have gone in the electoral college. So rather than Democrats getting all of NY and Republican getting all of Texas you would divide the vote electoral votes based on the vote share for each state. So if Dem nominee get 55% of vote in NY and Republican 45% is shared between those votes.

[@jeffslote9671]

The current system is fine. The biggest change we need is to eliminate the voting rights of 1965. It’s an unnecessary federal power grab.

[@theofficialdragon497]

I think there should be the same system like in the UK, when there is an independent commission who decide the districts. There should also be more districts in the House so you wouldn't have to fit 700,000 people in one distict, but could be lowered to 400,000?

[@cadetlimbo]

@@FilmNerdy im from britain and id love a pr system here but unfortunately it seems impossible for one to ever be passed due to neither of the main two parties ever giving into an idea which would mitigate their power in government. closest we got was in the coalition govt of 2010 but even that was manipulated by the tories into being a bad concept. if only..

[@martingriff101]

The best way to draw districts is to make it independent have an election commission. Have equal Republican, Democrats and Independents and take it off the legislator. I think some states have done this Edit: Mr beat does a video on voting types and if it was possible make less districts and a 2 or so congress persons elected in a district. Makes them larger

[@FlyingDishwasher]

Map Men is peak british comedy. If you listen to the ad-read closely, you'll realize they've switched voices.

[@jerramrocks9136]

I didn't realise that! Thanks for pointing that out.

[@bungalo50]

How can you not realize that lmao

[@catfdljws]

one great thing about letting my kid laugh at map men and their accents, is that i could show my kid (age 13) James Burke's Connections and because of the similar accents and sense of humor (granted, Map Men deliver their jokes a hell of a lot faster), she could use that, sorry, connection, and grok both the humor and the material. (lets leave some of the historical inaccuracies of the program out of this thread for the time being - yes throughout our family watching these past 2 weeks, I would update to where we know things better now. )

[@FilmNerdy]

The UK Parliament doesn't have a proportional system, we also have a winner take all system called First Past the Post but it's essentially the same as Winner Take All but with a different name. Other European countries have proportional systems (except France as they have a instant run off system)

[@MalikF15]

Honestly that makes sense the Britain is the mother Country of the US. How are you guys able to have more than two parties though

[@FilmNerdy]

@MalikF15 Basically smaller political parties have to work more efficiently for each seat. So smaller parties will put all their resources into a few areas and do more targeted local campaigns. But that doesnt transpire seats to reflect the national vote share. For example in the last election, the Green Party got 7% of the vote but only 0.6% of seats, ReformUK got 14% but 0.7%, LibDems got 12.5% of the vote but 11% (the LibDems did better than the first two because they have traditionally been a lot more efficent when campaigning and just targetting areas they are second or a decent third place on plus have a strong anti-Tory vote base but who might not want to vote Labour), Labour got 33% of the vote but 63% of seats. Also, we have a habit of tactical voting whereby say for example a Conservative or for the US Republican Party candidate is in a safe seat but Labour (Democrat) is in a very distant second or third. But a established third party that is more in the centre between Republicans or Democrats (My guess is probs the Libertarian Party but that's probs not a good example...maybe like Centrist Dad type Democrats or moderate Republican something) is second or a competitive third. Say that third Party is able to gobble up some moderate leaning Republicans votes to that third Party and stands a better chance than the Democrats(Labour) voters might decide to tactically vote to vote not for their Party of choice but for that third Party to unseat a Party they dislike the most. Sadly, that means people are not often voting for their party of prefered preference but voting for the least "bad" Party in their eyes. It's also the same for third Parties. I wanted to vote LibDem because that's where I lean more but it was traditionally Labour that went Tory for the first time in 2019 so I voted for Labour to help unseat the Conservative. If we had European PR system we will probably see Greens do very well, Reform UK probs do well (although they are the Maga of the UK so they have a very ideological purist and solid base but not one I think would break more than 20%), and LibDems would probs have done better too. Sorry, that was probs information overload 😅

[@MalikF15]

@@FilmNerdy no way thanks so much for you. Give me a detailed description on United Kingdom politics.

[@FilmNerdy]

@MalikF15 Thanks, although I felt like I might have got carried away a bit aha. But glad you got a taste of the UK political system

[@MalikF15]

@@FilmNerdy honest wish we had some more third parties. Your part about voting against rather than for is so true especially this year

[@04nimmot]

Pausing 3 mins in just to say no smack talking Smarties, you have no idea what you’re missing. I shall continue watching now.

[@bennymanjelly]

genuinely their suggestion about naming a district instead of names is a good one. It's generally a method that has worked mostly okay in the UK. I think they have a video about the creation of London Boroughs that shows a good example. If you can't create a reasonable name to justifiable identify a district, then it makes it more evident how fabricated it is, and more political suicidal

[@alexpotts6520]

The thing is that even if it were made non-partisan, as it is in the UK, the geography of a country often doesn't allow neat, logical divisions into areas of equal population. A good example of this would be the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight has about 120k voters on it, and the constituencies (equivalent of districts) are supposed to be drawn so that each one has about 77k voters in it (ie the total number of voters in the UK divided by the total number of parliamentary seats). This has meant that, on a proportional basis, the Isle of Wight is due about one and a half seats in parliament - that's really awkward. For a long time the Isle of Wight was a single seat, but as a result it had a far larger electorate than anywhere else in Britain. There was a proposal during the last set of boundary changes to remedy this by giving the Isle of Wight the 1.5 seats it deserved. One seat would cover two thirds of the island, while another seat would be formed from the rest of the Isle of Wight merged with bits of the Hamsphire villages around Portsmouth and Southampton, and the poor MP elected for this geographical monstrosity would have had to hop on a boat all the time just to travel between the two halves of the constituency. Naturally, the people of the Isle of Wight thought this was ridiculous, and in the end it was decided to give them two MPs; with the result that the new Isle of Wight East and Isle of Wight West constituencies now have far *lower* electorates than everywhere else in the UK. The Isle of Wight is an exceptional circumstance where the geography was so absolute that the requirement to have equally-sized constituencies was relaxed; but the UK mainland is not so lucky! As a result one often has weird constituencies that, while not as ridiculous as gerrymandered US congressional districts, still are pretty awkward. The seat I grew up in was the quintessentially British-sounding Faversham and Mid-Kent, but in spite of living there for my entire childhood I don't think I ever actually visited the town of Faversham. To get there from where I lived you'd have to drive down some really narrow country lanes, and as for public transport, forget it. I lived in a village called Bearsted which was really a suburb of Maidstone, it was a ten-minute drive away, a single train stop, you could even walk there. But Maidstone unfortunately was just a bit too big for all of its suburbs to fit in one constituency, and so we got lumped in with another town miles away that nothing to do with us. There are many such cases of this kind of thing across Britain - it's kind-of unavoidable.

[@almango873]

In Australia we started off with place names for federal districts but over time we started using the names of notable Australians from the past from that region. We usually also use the names of former Prime Ministers (after they have passed). Sometimes the electorate has drifted quite a distance from the original place over time and there are some geographic names that no longer contain the geographic feature they were named after, or the place a notable Australian lived that gave their name to the district. Often names are a cause for much debate.

[@richardsands]

Except that there are many more constituencies in London than boroughs. I'm lucky enough to live in a Gerrymandered constituency in London: Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner was split out from north Hillingdon and west Harrow, to isolate the strongly conservative older voters, and we've previously hosted a non-resident nepo-baby MP, and still have a Tory now, just so the neighbouring constituencies can have better representation. And our constituency is also split between two boroughs, which means that even if our MPs were interested in helping, they have half as much influence as they would otherwise.

[@zeeox]

7:50 Baden-Baden is a small town in western Germany. It is well known for its odd-name... and that it has an airport that's covered by the popular Irish low-cost flights operator, Ryanair.

[@GymQuirk]

The 1812 ref was invoking a russian composer’s overture about Napoleon. And my favorite line about gerrymandering is: “Instead of voters selecting their representatives, representatives select their voters.”

[@IONATVS]

TBF, many in the Anglosphere, especially Americans and Canadians, THINK the 1812 Overture is about the British-American war of the same name, and of those who know better, many still USE it as an unofficial theme for the War because of its immaculate vibes as THE orchestral anthem for early-19th-century armed conflict. Whether the cannons are firing from Moscow or D.C., the song of powder and shot will ring out.

[@Bowleskov]

The two party system excuse doesn't really work when you consider that in the recent UK Westminster Parliamentary elections an average of 7 candidates were competing for each seat under a "first past the post" system similar to that in use in the USA Federal elections. But I think there is a way in which open primaries do marginally compensate for this lack of choice. But in the UK We have legends such as Count Binface or Raving Lord Sutch who were able to gain ballot access in a way a US equivalent would struggle. Ross Perot could never have campaigned to bring back Ceefax.

[@andreasm5770]

The best way to redraw voting districts is to not have voting districts, because this is an inherrent flaw of theirs, as well as the inevitable wasted votes and lack of incentive for voter turnout. A better solution would be proportional representation within larger multi-winner districts (possibly state-wide).

[@cybersaiyan9596]

when in doubt about constructing a democracy, proportional representation is the answer most of the time.

[@howmanybeansmakefive]

The joke at the end was a self-deprecating one about the UK being an antiquated system, hence the wigs and robes (they know the US doesn't have them). Also the UK Parliament doesn't have any population proportionate voting, each district (constituency) is winner takes all ('first-past-the-post')

[@mjbull5156]

"Antiquated system" is usually progressive code for whining about some aspect of a political system that blocks them from dictating their morals onto the people about how they must behave or stealing resources from demographics they do not like

[@tomchitling]

No, they are refering to the House of Lords, UKs second house which, put simply, has members assigned by nepotism.. ( depicted by mock ermine capes and anachronistic wiggs)

[@shanwyn]

It might be silly, but I am swiss and the system of districts for voting is very alien to me. In my country we decide our senate and house of representative very differently. The HoR is decided by the cantons (states) depending on their share of population. So the most populated state gets the most representatives, the second most populated gets the second most representatives and so on. Of course, this would lead to bigger states like Zurich, Geneva and Berne to dominate the smaller ones (for example, the Canton of Zurich has 1.5 million people while the smallest, Appenzell-Innerhoden only has 16'000). To counter that the Senate comes into place. Each canton gets two representatives, no matter the population (with six cantons being historically half cantons only get one each). Laws have to be passed by both houses, so it balances it very carefully. Some might say that this way the smaller Cantons (States) have a overpowered amount of influence, but it has worked very well over the last two centuries. And the breakdown gets even further when you factor in the political parties and that each state can decide by themselves how they implement their voting system.

[@samhouston1979]

in america it’s similar…we have a Senate that has to approve of HR legislation (and can pass its own) every state has two senators…so Wyoming with 700,000 ish people has the same # of senators as california with 30+ million people

[@davidroddini1512]

@@shanwyn That’s basically what I’m suggesting. Each state already has equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House Of Representatives. However the House is divided into a certain number of seats which each count as a single district. Each district is then decided via winner takes all for the district. If each state was to assign the representatives based on the percentage of the votes each candidate got across the entire state it would basically be the Swiss system.

[@cgrimes34]

@@davidroddini1512 not a terrible idea. the issue i think would ocme up would be when looking at states that have only one member in the house. if the vote is something like 51/49 percent, Then a slim majority gets total representation from that state. States like California and Texas have enough seats in the house to make this work both for close elections as well as landslides. But the fewer seats a state has, the minority vote will get less and less representation. The other issue is that in the US, we arent only voting for a party, but also a person. Assigning seats by percentage of the vote invites the questions: 1- Who will be the actual representatives? ans 2-Who gets to decide who gets those seats? Presumably a state with 10 available seats would require each party to list (in order) the ten people who would occupy those seats if that party won all ten. If the state were split evenly, each party would send their top five people. The personal element of the election would be removed. I might not like the first or second members of my party, but really think the #3 choice is great, then my party would need to win at least three seats for me to get who I feel will do the best job. Apologies if I got wrong any aspect of the Swiss sytem in my reply.

[@davidroddini1512]

@@cgrimes34 I’m thinking we would probably still have primaries/caucuses for each party to pick their slate of candidates. The candidates would be ranked in order of most votes to least. Then let’s say a state has 20 representatives. If the democrats got 45% of the vote, the republicans got 45% and the libertarians got the remaining 10%. Then the top 9 democrats would each get a seat; the top 9 republicans would each get a seat and the top 2 libertarians would get a seat for the total of 20. As you rightly stated, states with few representatives would likely divide them just between the big two. However, third parties don’t usually have a significant influence in such states anyway. The states where third parties actually have enough influence to even have a spoiler effect are states where there are multiple seats up for grabs. It’s not perfect but definitely better than what we have currently.

[@shanwyn]

@@davidroddini1512 OMG you just solved the blockade I had for years in understanding this district and voting system! LOL. Who said you never learn something in the Internet? Thank you. The "Winner takes all" system is the same here for the Senat candidate since only 2 per Canton can be assigned. But yes, HoR is representative to the votes with no minimum hurdle. So even the tiniest parties have a chance to be representative if they get enough votes to qualify for a seat

[@migga86]

I believe the simplest way to get representation is if no matter what your district might be (the place you collect votes in boxes and count them), you get a vote for the party you want to represent your opinions. That way there are no two party results and you don't get the "win all" problem. Politicians would be required to work even in lazy states. All the countries votes are added and finally you get a cut of the seats. If you still want a direct person vote of that state or district to get a seat, they get a seat of the alotted percentage if they got enough votes. If there are 150 seats for republicans, the first 150 by percentage of their districts get in. This is a direct mandate which reflects US voting. To not get overly chaotic, make a 3 or 5% hurdle to cross (3 seats or so). If the party gets less, their percentage is added to the miscellaneous parties pile which get the seats assigned like direct mandates for the others. I know it might sound similar to german, but the amount of seats is fixed in this system, based solely on total population. And the smaller parties can send representatives in if they really dominate one district. I haven't studied politics, but I hope someone can show me improvements to this.

[@wobaguk]

Smarties are basically M&Ms but a bit older

[@wessexdruid7598]

M&Ms were copied from Smarties.

[@Markstubation01]

Also cheaper.

[@cobaltblue3457]

im so glad you have a real following now. I watched your first video like 3 years ago and its amazing to see 426k subs.

[@MrTerry]

Check out this video that claims the Tiananmen Square Massacre didn't "happen". kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6LCaqhqipJjg8U

[@ryancarter1080]

Personally I think service zones would be the best. By that I mean areas that get their water, electricity and similar services from the same place.

[@entropiceffect]

The problem is that each service zone has vastly different populations.

[@samhouston1979]

this is why - especially in a census year - votes for state legislatures are important since by and large they draw the maps

[@vaudevillian7]

We have First Past the Post in the UK too, but in a way that smaller parties haven’t been crowded out.

[@randomanimefan1000]

3:34 Smarties are like m&ms, just with a thicker candy shell.

[@Skippymabob]

And more importantly IMO, Came first Smarties (UK) were invented years before M&M were invented

[@TheBandit025Nova]

In a America they’re not look like that it’s just circular

[@cmlemmus494]

@@Skippymabob Worth noting it is unclear whether M&Ms were a separate invention or a copy. Smarties (1937) were unknown in the US when M&Ms came out (1940), but Forrest Mars Sr. was in the UK in that period after buying a British dog food company.

[@Skippymabob]

@@cmlemmus494 Yeah I wasn't trying to imply otherwise, I personally fall on the side of it just being "one of those things". But we did it first regardless aha

[@cmlemmus494]

@@Skippymabob No worries. I mostly figured you were saying "invent" for both for ease, I just like dropping trivia tidbits for future readers. ;)

[@肉骨粉]

Stop redrawing districts to account for population changes, and use weighted voting for representative to ensure the people are fairly represented. It's a tried and true system and inertia is the only reason it hasn't been implemented.

[@yotamarnold5496]

Well there's also a downside to that, because then there will be a multiparty system with endless negotiations (filled with broken promises and lies)

[@xergiok2322]

@@yotamarnold5496 What are you basing this assumption on? There are still negotiations in a two party system, but with even more deadlocks due to polarisation. More parties means more possible avenues of finding support for your agenda. The threshold for a successful negotiation is arguably lower in a multi party system because you have more potential allies.

[@yotamarnold5496]

@xergiok2322 I live in Israel, we have a multiparty system, and it is a political shitshow after every election. It takes ages to form a government, something that doesn't take long in a system with few parties, Starmer's government was commenced a day after the election I'm not saying it's better or worse than the two party system, I'm just saying each system has its downsides

[@Escapee5931]

If you're voting for the president of a country, surely it's possible to just count the total votes for each candidate. There's no need to insert some artifical state or region or voting college into the mix. One person, one vote - most votes gets the job.

[@JustinDLink]

the problem with that is 1 party will never go for it. In two separate elections (Bush/Gore in 2000 and Trump/Clinton in 2016), the Republican won despite not winning the popular vote. The Republicans, at this stage in our country, will likely never win another "popular" vote for President, so they want to ensure the electoral college stays alive and well. Then they concentrate on winning the states and gerrymander the districts so they can control the Senate and House.

[@OriginalPiMan]

That would be good at the presidential level, but that isn't the only thing districts are for. Districts are also for electing members of congress. One per district.

[@elvangulley3210]

​@OriginalPiMan it would still be the best method why should a bunch of low population na k water towns with 50 people decided who gets elected in state positions over the overall population this system is rigged in Republicans favor on statewide and national levels

[@lordrork5884]

The problem there is that it actually makes a large number of states nearly irrelevant when selecting a president. The electoral college is an abomination, but a replacement still needs to ensure everyone is invested in the process.

[@elvangulley3210]

@@lordrork5884 those states need to grow then it's not fair north Dakota or Mississippi has more power than new york we don't want to be dragged down by the welfare queens of the south

[@wobaguk]

The 'First Past the Post' system in the UK actually supresses votes outside the main couple of parties due to what is known as tactical voting. As the main parties are almost certainly going to be the winner of a given district (known as a constituency), rather than voting for the minority party people find appealing (and 'waste' a vote), people vote for the party who has the best chance of beating the big party they hate the most. This is one main reason for the ongoing call for a more proportional system. There is an intermediate system called Single Transferable Vote which is often suggested which allows people to vote for parties in order of preference, but that hasnt been adopted either.

[@FSMDog]

In the Senedd we have STV - and for the Scottish Parliament too...

[@laurencefraser]

Single Transfferable Vote is also known as and/or substantially similar to Preferential Voting and/or Ranked Choice voting. Just for reference.

[@darkbrightnorth]

The U.S. needs an independent commission like the UK and Canada have and all three of us need a more proportional electoral system after that.

[@Kanbei11]

It's a step in the right direction but one needs to be very careful it's actually neutral and isn't infiltrated by one party.

[@garrenosborne9623]

Amen

[@PCDelorian]

STV would be the best way to keep districts (used in Ireland and Australia) where you combine between 3-12 constituencies into one with however many seats (so rather than 3 with 1 rep each, you have 1 big one with 3 reps), and use a transferable vote system where you take preferences into account. This helps keep the local nature of politics whilst allowing some albeit localised proportional representation. It makes gerrymandering much harder especially if the constituencies are larger, and enables 3rd parties. What's more you can use STV's single seat alternative AV for presidential votes, where voting for smaller parties wouldn't waste your vote.

[@philash824]

3:25 Smarties are like M&M’s, but better. Smarties were first released in 1882 as chocolate beans, their name being changed to Smarties in 1937. Mars inc. didn’t release M&M’s until 1941. It’s possible that Forrest Mars Sn. encountered smarties when he was in Europe during the Spanish civil war (1936-39) and took the idea (stole) back to the states

[@frag2k12]

So Smarties in the UK are basically like M&Ms a small chocolate dragee/bean in a sugar shell, M&Ms are based on them when someone saw soldiers during the Spanish civil war eating them and got a patent to make them in the US. Smarties themselves are generally milk chocolate with only the orange coloured ones these days having a flavour with orange oil added to the shell, at one time the dark and light brown ones had there own with dark being plain chocolate and light being coffee. If I am also remembering correctly the purple one did briefly have a yellow center and was pineapple flavoured, but that was short lived.

[@Soundbrigade]

I attended an evening “class” where researches/scientists from the university of Gothenburg talked about corruption and pointed out three kinds of corruption: Stealing of public means for personal benefit. Nepotism Gerrymandering

[@joefierheller9688]

damn even congress forgot Wyoming

[@DarthRaptor22]

A great way to fix this issue would be to actually have proportional representation. 435 members isn't enough. It need to be like the constitution says, 1 for every 100k. Yes, I know that would be around 5k members

[@RobertGrimm]

I like the shortest split line method of creating districts. It can be done entirely by algorithm. It doesn’t take communities into account, though, so it might be a good starting point and the results could be minimally tweaked. We definitely need to add more representatives too. 435 is nowhere near enough. Maybe that could be done by going to proportional representation or ranked choice voting with multi-member districts.

[@Mercure250]

Yeah, when you think about it, 435 seats for 330+ million people when the UK House of Commons has 650 seats for 67-ish million people is a bit weird. Not saying that the House of Representatives should have 3300 seats, but you know.

[@Kanbei11]

Who gets to determine the algorithm though? If the answer is AI then how do you oversee it and you need to be very careful that it's fed on good data - give it racist data and you'll get racist results.

[@RobertGrimm]

@@Kanbei11 Shortest Split Line is the name of a specific algorithm. I should have capitalized it. You take an area and split it along the shortest line that will divide the population evenly. The only thing it knows is where people live. It can't produce racist results but it also can't keep communities together. That's why it is a starting point and needs human intervention to produce maps that take anything but population into account. If you want an unbiased way to split the population evenly, it is the best.

[@Kanbei11]

@@RobertGrimm ah ok, I hadn't heard of the algorithm and thought you were talking generally. Thanks for the correction and the extra info 🙂

[@LetsTakeWalk]

Map men, Map men, Map Map MAP men, men.

[@DarthRaptor22]

Another way to fix this issue would be to make all districts a recognizable geometric shape. Like rectangles, squares, rhombus, pentagon, etc

[@andrewshaw1571]

The issue with this is that settlements dont form like that and to enforce you arbitrary geometry on life, you cut straight through established communities. France tried this idea and it only succeeded in increasing hatred.

[@estranhokonsta]

You are equating votes to the terrain instead of the humans?

[@andrewshaw1571]

@tylerbarse2866 I dont see how current issues have a bearing on potential alternative issues. I in no way implied that the current system was alright, only that the proposed solution has been tried as a system and failed spectacularly. The implication of my comment is that a different change is required and discussion about what change is required is not changed by the fact that some of the issues with one proposed system already exist.

[@andrewshaw1571]

@tylerbarse2866 I'm referring to france when they did that, not france now. France when they did that, in the 1790's devolved into the terror followed by a coup followed by a coup. The french system, of today, modelled on the british system with changes to reflect frances unique character, isnt representative of the france i was referring to. And again, though you say you understood the implications, you went on to talk about the issues with the current system, issues i didnt defend so i dont think you do. The implications are that a different change to one that was tried and failed catastrophically are needed, not remaining with the status quo or changing to a system that was tried and failed because the current clusterfuck which though terrible, works on a basic level is so bad that anything else would be better. Its the sad history of revolutions, focussed on whats wrong, they throw the baby out with the bath water and produce something even worse until the forces that built the previous system hammer the new one into workable shape.

[@andrewshaw1571]

@tylerbarse2866 Can't give a short answer but the two books to read are de tocqueville's. That is democracy in america and the old regime and the revolution. Between them you get the basic problem of france, that the above system formalises. A lack of social cohesion. It was built by continuous centralisation and the above system would continue that. By breaking up communities at the bottom, you create places of lots of people living in proximity but not together. The kind of place where increasingly basic issues get pushed to the designated legal people for fixing them rather than spontaneous organisation of concerned citizens. In such a society, everything is handled ultimately at a political level, making everything a fundamentally divisive process instead of a cooperatively human process. To give a simple idea, litter on a beach. Too much for one person to handle so a civilisation with no strong cohesion or government will basically rely on individuals independently trying to fix it and more often than not, giving up. In france, you'd have everyone doing nothing while assuming the local government will do their job and fix it. They could do it themselves collectively but theres no shared understanding that it will be done so everyone wishes to avoid being the only people trying and failing and so nothing gets done and the second the government is struggling, it falls apart. America and britain before it, would automatically form local groups who would make it their duty to fix problems like that. The government would handle them where they could but where they fail, the citizens step in of their own accord, in an organised manner, to keep the community going. Thats what churches in properly secularised countries do, look after people on a local level because they all agree its right, countries where churches have too much power are thinking on too large a scale to properly care for the little guy. Think of it like a flat's shared stairwell. Do you keep it clean by demanding an external agency with no local interest come by to maintain it, do you let one person who cares be exploited by everyone or do you come to local agreement that this is your shared building and thus, shared responsibility? Splitting communities by voting disrupts that cohesion and so ought to be avoided where possible.

[@alexander5128]

I liked VTH`s "Fun"-Idea: Sort the Voting-Districts by Streets. So you would still be able to put certain neighborhoods in the same voting-groups and give them voting-strength. But also there is no chances for garrymendering by putting odd districts together because you give all streets numbers from 0 to (idk 400.000) and you can only put streets with connecting numbers in the same voting-district

[@f1lthyp1neapple98]

I saw my town/ city in this video and it made me happy

[@brightfamilytravels]

Australia has preferential voting, which is arguably a better way of having every vote count. AUSPOL explained has a good video explaining the voting process

[@laurencefraser]

Australia's system has a lot of problems, but preferetial/instant run off voting is not one of them. It's one of the better ways to go about counting votes, really.

[@rendomstranger8698]

In my opinion, the fairest way other than abolishing districts all together would be a 60% rule. Meaning that for a district to be legal, no more than 60% of the people in that district may have voted for the same party. You can't effectively gerrymander when the margin is only 10% for packing. It would still allow cracking to happen but cracking on its own does little without having a place to pack voters.

[@guyfawkes8873]

I think the best idea is to have an actual party system ;) if a country has 10 parties to vote for, you don’t need districts for competitiveness or representation, the party system by itself provides that. And since people can shift between more or less like minded parties, without having to jump to the complete opposite end of the political spectrum, it helps with polarisation and voter mobility too.

[@AlucardNoir]

My idea of the fairest is to take a state. Draw a line in the middle from north to south. Then redraw the line based on streets and highways that past though the state. Step 3, move the south most point west or east until half the population of a state is in each half. Again, always taking into account streets. Step 4, repeat the process for both sides, but this starting from the middle of the previous line, and going east and west, then move the line points at the borders of the state north or south until you spit the districts in half again. Repeat until each district contains the desired number of voters. Is this the best way? No. Is it guaranteed to be fairer than a gerymandered map? yes. Will it end up splitting communities? somewhat.

[@steviebudden3397]

Nobody's addressing the most important thing here! At 3.17 those things on the leftare 'smarties' - pellets of chocolate with a sugar coating in various colours. Much the same as M&Ms really. But they've been here in UK long enough that I grew up with smarties but not M&Ms; hence they have superior nostalgia value to me. Also they come in cardboard tubes rather than plastic bags.

[@ChibiHobbit904]

I just watched this yesterday nice quick reaction and thanks for extra understanding

[@Pyronaut_]

I think the best way to draw voting districts is to not draw them at all. I think it’d be much better to just have a multi-winner election. That mostly gets rid of the problem of the proportion of the representatives not actually representing the wants of the people. One argument against this I’ve hear before is that it makes it harder to have local representation. But I’d argue that if most people care about having local representatives, then that would be reflected in the results and you’d still get a varied geographic distribution of representatives.

[@michaelodonnell824]

FWIW The UK also has a First-past-the-post system which is why in the most recent General Election, Labour won a huge parliamentary majority with only 34% of the votes....

[@andrewshaw1571]

34% of votes cast. It was also the lowest voter turnout in years.

[@doctorsatansrobot]

And we left the EU based on a general election where conservatives 'won' with a 'landslide' 42% of the vote.

[@TheDarkWxtch]

Hey, Mr. Terry, I doubt you'll read this (given that it's been a month since the upload), but those things next to the chocolate raisins are called Smarties. No, they are not the ones you are used to. Here, they are called Rockets due to weird international copyright shenanigans. They are like M&Ms, but the gimmick is that the orange ones are chocolate orange flavoured.

[@orangeofmars2835]

In WI the Supreme Court may have after 14 years fixed the Assembly and State Senate Gerrymandering but the Congressional Partisan Gerrymandering resulting in a 6-2 Republican-Democratic super majority still exists. A result of large block Districts hiding Democratic areas in places like Wausau and Steven Point within a large block of Republican Votes eliminating the power of those Democratic Votes. A way of making this fair would be to add Congressional Seats to match smaller numbers of voters so these Democratic areas will have a majority District. WI has approximately 3.5 Million registered voters. It would likely take an increase of Congressional Seats from 8 to 70 to sufficiently reduce Partisan Gerrymandering to where Districting will fairly represent all voters. That would amount to about 50,000 voters per Representative rather than the approx. 440000 voters per Representative.

[@PCDelorian]

Small point, the UK also has a winner takes all or First Past the Post System

[@ghostoftanelorn9928]

In the UK the country is divided into districts which are defined with geographical and historical territorial boundaries. America's state borders seem to have been lined up as squarely as possible, without regard or geography, though I do see a few squiggly state borders that I assume are either mountains or rivers used to mark boundaries. It might be interesting to define districts on geographical lines.

[@mistyhaney5565]

I don't know how we should draw districts, but I do believe that there has to be a way that provides outcomes that are more reflective of the views of the population. There shouldn't be states with a fifty-one forty-nine split in voting that results in a single party winning ninety-five of the races.

[@e1123581321345589144]

I'd argue that if most districts have predictable results, then it's not a democracy anymore. You have a weird sort of Gellite deciding things for the country.

[@oe3567]

I understand what you’re saying but America isn’t a democracy

[@e1123581321345589144]

@@oe3567 yeah, that's wat I was saying :)))

[@cmlemmus494]

I understand where you're going with this, but I think your phrasing might be problematic. If you clear away misinformation, there are certain types of policy (eg, more availability of education & medical care) which would be highly popular and thus have predictable results. That doesn't mean there is a lack of democracy by voting in popular policies.

[@e1123581321345589144]

@@cmlemmus494 I wasn't talking about policies though, I was talking about districts. In the sense that if the outcome in your district is already known before the vote, then your vote becomes irrelevant and the only ones who actually have a choice are the people in swing districts. This is fundamentally different in a proportional voting system. In that case, a fraction of a percent in every district can add up and change the outcome of the vote.

[@watcherzero5256]

Those of us there at the start remember we called Gif with a hard G because there was already another file format with a soft j called .jiff (lossy compression JPG's)

[@amysutt]

18:30 we are also winner takes all and our boundaries are drawn by an independent body that only looks at administrative area and population

[@PeterKelley]

In Australia redistributions are conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission, an independent body to avoid this sort of thing.

[@almango873]

A smartie is like a M & M with better chocolate inside.

[@slicer2938]

ill give an example from here in australia. we have an independent electoral commission which is completely independent from government meaning political bias is out of the question and intentional gerrymandering is nearly impossible. We generally have two main considerations when it comes to how seats should be drawn. prioritize communities taking into account geographical boundaries, economic, social, and regional characteristics and community interest. community interest essentially states that if the community wishes to not be changed in a given way dont do it. maintaining geography plays into the maintaining community aspect. if you and an adjacent electorate is divided by a huge river with a single bridge, you guys might want to be seperated. and lastly we only change if significant population changes past the acceptable range. A seat will only be changed or added if that occurs. ill give an example of my own which being in my local area recently in NSW the town of Dapto was moved from the Wollongong seat to the Shellharbour seat. This was mostly done because Dapto is growing at a faster rate then Wollongong and so outgrew that seat making a change to Shellharbour as they sit next to each other make the most sense. Dapto is still too small for its own seat so the most appropriate way to maintain community is to move to the closest seat geographically.

[@yobo_i]

The part in the end where they had the wigs on is in reference to the house of lords in uk politics which is confusing and flawed, most of the seats are hereditery and you hold a seat in there for life. What makes it worse is the fact that they have the power to veto any proposed law

[@howmanybeansmakefive]

Just a caveat, the HoL is definitely antiquated and needs reform, but the majority are not hereditary peers (though even 1 is too many). Also ever since the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the HoL can no longer veto bills, at most they can delay by sending it back to the commons, but a second commons vote will pass a bill into law, bypassing the HoL. Especially since the Parliaments Acts, it is not necessarily less democratic than the US, where unelected Supreme Court justices have the power to directly strike down legislation. There is still a lot of reform that needs to be done though, and I hope Labour follows through with abolishing hereditary peers.

[@yobo_i]

@@howmanybeansmakefive my comment was supposed to highlight the reference to the HoL, but i wasnt aware of the details, thank you for the correction

[@DeAtHbAt4eA]

Postal codes. And then just use number adjoining until you've built up enough population. Random number generator designed by the states as they grew decides randomly. Leading directly to even voting and politicians that actually have to be in tune with what's happening community by community.

[@rosmeeker1964]

I do like the Hare Clarke system she says from a little island below Australia.

[@The_One_In_Black]

I may need to show this one in my class

[@Yannis1a]

I think the better way to draw the districts is with The Shortest-Splitline Algorithm, along side the Mixed-member proportional representation

[@BillCraven]

Also in England, the ridings (districts) are not equal by population leading to things like pocket boroughs, which are controlled by small groups.

[@arwelp]

You’re Canadian, aren’t you? :) Actually pocket boroughs were abolished in 1832. The Boundary Commission draws boundaries to try to keep logical communities together, and within 5% of a target number of electors (currently about 73,400). There are about 5 island constituencies in the UK where this isn’t geographically possible - Orkney & Shetland, Na hEileanan Siar (Western Isles), and Anglesey, where the population is below the target, and the Isle of Wight which with 100,000+ voters was too large to be one constituency and has now been split into 2 smaller constituencies, but out of 650 total constituencies they’ve not done too badly.

[@anthonyholroyd5359]

My 'best solution' for the house would be to throw out the idea of districts completely and instead have the entire state vote as one. The vote would be for party rather than individual candidate, and seats would be awarded uaing the party list system. If a states population means it gets 11 seats? Then those seats are awarded to each party proportionately based on their total vote share in that state. That way the democrats might get 5/11 seats. The republicans might get 3/11 and the remaining 3 seats might be split evenly amongst other parties. 1 libertarian, 1 Green etc. For smaller states with only 1 representative, you could have a two round election where the two candidates with the highest vote share go head to head in the second round. Winner takes the seat.

[@laurencefraser]

Strictly proportional votes with no districts has it's upsides. Unfortunately, the bigger the population and the area you're governing, the more dramatic the Downsides become. Don't live in New York, Texas, California, or ... however you spell the state Chicargo is in? (and Maybe one or two others?), and more specifically the larger cities in those states? Congratulations, you're now Completely Irrelivant to the politicians who are making the rules you have to live by. Oh, and you no longer have any method of removing politicians who do a bad job if that bad job lines up with what the party wants done. There's more issue sthan that, and it's more complicated than that, and there's a lot of good to go with the bad, but just switching to proportional elections doesn't actually fix everything... though if your only objective is removing gerrymandering then yes, it will 100% work.

[@LordRogerPovey]

Smarties- weird British Food! You mean like Spray Cheese! It a candy coated choc sweet!

[@kierancalverley220]

I believe the wigs they're wearing at the end is a joke about the UK's house of Lords, which is totally undemocratic

[@warmstrong5612]

Giving the districts actual names instead of numbers is pretty ingenious.

[@VooshSpokesman]

Love from a Suris and Vaush fan!

[@safebox36]

The UK version of Smarties are like M&Ms only they taste a little nicer, are sold in a tube, and you can eat the whole lot of them without feeling ill.

[@IulianYT]

Well, in Moldova we have had one failed attempt of gerrymandering, and soon after the elections the voting system was reverted back to proportional. So, I don't know a way to build a system for drawing voting districts (which should not divide communities, which should be compact, which should be competitive and so on), but I would suggest to drop the districts at all, or in other words - join them together, but let them have more than 1 representative, be it on party lists or on individual candidates, the people will have the option to vote for his own representative. We also have a somewhat autonomous region, which is mostly troublesome and destructive, but still, so, some of them requested that there would be a special district in the autonomy for 5 seats out of 101 in the parliament, which was obviously rejected. But, they can "easily" have 5 representatives in the parliament, if they have 5 individual candidates which will make campaign in the region, and get voted, population of the autonomy should be enough with "smart voting" to get all 5 elected. But the regional elites don't want that, as for that they will have to work, and the population still will have the option to vote for normal political parties. But for their proposals - they want themselves (elites) to be semi-automatically be promoted to members of the parliament, as there wouldn't be any choice for the population in the autonomy.

[@g22l87]

We have this problem in France too but without the population limit, the largest constituency representing more than 200 000 peoples and the smallest representing only 6000 peoples.

[@commanderboom2626]

My state recently redrew our maps which had been (emphasis on had) some of the worst maps in the US, hopefully they’ll end up working as well in practice as they did in theory

[@WanderingWriter]

*nervous sweating*

[@ItsDesm]

The issue is made even worse when the Supreme Court has been compromised. Several states have had their maps marked as UNCONSTITUTIONAL by the court system, but the Supreme Court, either by malice or incompetence, has made it where states will have to vote this November using unconstitutional maps. Basically, the cases were in front of them, but they waited long to not do anything, and left it so that the timing made it impossible for any other outcome other than states being forced to use the unconstitutional maps that will lead to thousands or millions of votes not counting the way they should be.

[@samhouston1979]

“compromised” aka isn’t all Democrats 🤣

[@simiamalum5487]

Bro, SCOTUS is split into pretty much equal thirds at the moment. One third is judicially liberal (constitution is a living document), one third is judicially conservative (original intent), one third are swing. They're not "compromised" just because you don't get your way every time.

[@danieltodorov7753]

@@samhouston1979 You're weird.

[@unc54]

@@samhouston1979 They're literally expanding the powers of the President. But hey they're not Democrats so it's a good thing

[@elvangulley3210]

​@@simiamalum5487they always side republican by the same margin stop with the lies it's a republican owned court that cares not for the rule of law

[@Undead.Comrade]

Ideally we would move to a proportional representation so that parties would get a number of representatives equal to a proportion of the number of votes they get state/nation wide. In the age of the internet where people have instant access to information a person likely has more in common with a person on the other side of the country than they do the other side of their town. Proportional is more fair and more representation and less prone to manipulation.

[@jamesj2509]

The UK has an independent body, The Boundary Commission, responsible for drawing parliamentary constituency boundaries. The US needs something similar, and preferably one which able to overrule state legislators. The overriding principle of such a body should that within each state, the number of districts won by each party should reflect (based on the most recent statewide elections) the state vote overall, to within a set percentage which would depend on the number of districts. Wyoming, with only one district, would simply have to apply a majority. For a 2-district state such as Rhode Island, it might be preferable to create a 3rd district at the expense of a more populous state, to more accurately reflect the will of the people overall. For the larger states, with 10+ districts, it would be relatively easy to draw districts so the popular vote and districts won differ by less than 5%. As a secondary principle, assuming the first has been met, there should be an aim to represent distinct communities - this might include Indian reservations for example - which have traditionally been underrepresented.

[@watcherzero5256]

In Britain we have independent organisations called the Boundary Commissions that draws up electoral districts within a target population +/- 5%, so out of the reach of politicians then has a public consultation on the proposed changes, the politicians try for example by requesting reviews of large districts with a surplus of their voters and resisting smaller districts primarily of their voters being merged by submitting written appeals with any different excuse they can think of other but are usually unsuccessful. The Independent organisation doesn't consider political balance when drawing up its district maps purely cultural affinity (i.e. are they the same historic community, are they predominantly the same economic class so would have similar concerns and interests? do they shop and travel to work in the same place? Where is their local public services and how far are they from it? (which tends to be the heaviest weight making wards in Britain generally square or circular rather than squiggly unless following a barrier that cant be crossed) Is there a natural barrier to form a district boundary like a rail line, river or major road?).

[@laurencefraser]

New Zealand does something similar... with the odd twist of the South Island being always divided into a set number of electorates such that they each have as-close-to-the-same-as-practical population numbers, and then whatever size those electorates end up being, the North Island is divided into as many electorates of that same population size as necessary (and then there's a few extra weird electorates to cover awkwardly outlying islands and the like, if I remember rightly). Of course, New Zealand uses a Mixed Member Proportional system largely similar to Germany's rather than a strictly first past the post system (though the electorates are still first past the post, which is one of several problems with MMP as it stands. Though they're all minor 'adjust this thing' issues rather than a 'this fundmantally doesn't work, toss it out and start over' issues.)

[@laurencefraser]

It's not so much the electoral collage (though that is it's own set of issues) as First Past the Post voting strongly encouraging voter behaviour which leads to a two party system even without other factors. You Can end up with a 'third party' if the voters are still voting on Issues and the particular combination of positions represented by each party works out right... but as soon as things get polarised enough that a party is less a convenient bundle of political positions and more a trible identity, that goes out the window.

[@robertwareham8466]

I think the AI suggestion was firmly tongue in cheek

[@TrunksWD]

I live in a swing district for the House. I see I got a lot riding on my shoulders.

[@mjbull5156]

The desirability of "meaningful progress" is entirely dependent on what you are pogressing toward.

[@konstus]

the fairest way to draw voting districts is to not bother. proportional representation on top

[@adamelliott3694]

The voice swapped commercial cracks me up.

[@FSMDog]

In the UK we have winner takes all (or first past the post), but regional parties are a thing here...

[@samhouston1979]

i think they need to increase the number of representatives that way it’s more local

[@muhammadaliffbinmuhammadla7846]

2:49 feels like a Mr. Bean skit. 😂

[@TAP7a]

“You’re looking at land, not people” If only a particular group of voters would remember this instead of getting their knickers in a twist when the see a map painted mostly one colour because 13 of the 24 people living there voted a particular direction

[@thomasdalby8420]

Smarties were the original MnM's. The mars company bought the rights to sell them state side from rowntree McIntosh....(British company) But there was already a product called smarties in the states so they changed the name from smarties to MnM's.

[@johnwilletts3984]

Democracy today is like two wolves and a sheep voting on What’s for Dinner. There needs to be a closer connection between the wishes of voters and the actions of those elected. So first step for the US would be to have many more people in Congress. This would allow a voter to communicate one to one with the candidate. Then the Party system needs to be broken down and replaced with a focus on policies. So for example if my big issue is say pot holes in the local roads. I could check out all the candidates for their road repair objectives. People need to learn that democracy should be about getting done the things that are personal to you as an individual. It’s not about securing a victory for your tribe.

[@joshuatempleton9556]

smarties are british m&m's.

[@Skizzo321]

Slightly Larger and a thicker coating, and comes in tubes. "Put Smarties Tubes on Cat's Legs; make them walk like a robot." -Jimmy Carr

[@Fonetiker]

So that's Eminem's British alter ego.

[@mistycrom]

1. Smarties came first, so if anything, M&Ms are American smarties. B. We have both anyway, so not really. and 3. as said, Smarties are bigger and better than M&Ms (Except crispy M&Ms , which are the best ones). But apart from all of that, you're exactly right.

[@hawx00145]

Smarties here(US) are small disc shaped chalky candy...

[@larsg.2492]

20:12 Yes, that is the whole point why the system exists!

[@tomhalla426]

The minor little problem is that “reform” redistricting procedures are very often equally partisan, with no accountability. The procedure in California was gamed by the Democrats, who effectively control a “nonpartisan” commission.

[@roevhaal578]

I don't understand why they used West Virginia as an example, it seemed to follow county lines. The only way to make it look cleaner would be to add Wood County to the southern district instead of Pendleton County but Wood County has 87k people while Pendleton County has 7k people.

[@Imasleepinaway25]

Change the the system so that instead of each representative being selected from the state or federal government per only a few ten of thousands of voters, we could instead have a system where each representative is selected at the community level for each 100,000's of voters per state. The U.S. of A has a population of hundreds of millions right now so this could help with so many issues, and I feel it may be doable. Just have the states do the census and send that date to community leaders so the communities in each state can represent themselves!

[@ednac1626]

Lol i sound like a bionic commercial, we have the tech, do direct voting , sadly that would make too much chaos

[@willjohnson8446]

In a two party, winner-take-all, system the fairest thing to do is draw the districts so that the districts resemble the political makeup of the state. So, if 60% of the population are likely to vote GOP, then 60% of the districts should be likely to vote GOP.

[@PixelatedH2O]

I don't know what the best way to draw districts is overall. In Utah though, I think across the state they must be as close to equal parts red and blue though.

[@Aipe-em1uk]

"Smarties" are candy coated chocolate similar to M&Ms

[@jodij2366]

It might be time for the House of Representatives to be expanded from it's current 435 members - that number has been unchanged since 1913, even though the United States is considerably larger now than it was then. The United Kingdom has 650 in the House of Commons - that could be a good number to look at.

[@genoobtlp4424]

16:40 How about nothing? Give people a list with all candidates and x crosses to set, thus counting all equally as bad. Pick the x most popular and tadaa

[@niekasnemo6269]

This wouldn't probably work in USA, because of it's size. But at least to me Lithuania's way seems quit fair. So districts are almost the same as regulatory districts (some lower populated ones ar combined) and there are two types of voting (for many mandate and one mandate votes). So many mandate ones work like this: all parties wanting to participate need to provide ranked list of their candidates in the order they want them to become politicians. During voting day everyone votes for their favorite party and can write up to five that party's registered members. Then during counting every party gets what percentage of the population voted for them which says how many seats they will get. Those seats are given to the highest ranked members of respective party (ranking can change by counting each members votes percentages). One mandate ones are more straightforward. Every district gets one seat and people from that district can register to be but on the balad and voted for (usually you get 2-3 people). Because they need to be from that district many people know candidates personally or know their careers in politics, their character and similar things. This makes it way more personal. If I remember correctly about half of parlament seats are elected each way.

[@YearRoundHibernater]

435 is way too few representatives for a country the size of the US. The UK has 650 MPs and we have a 5th of the the population. Increase the number and it'll be easier for constituents to interact with their representatives and harder for lobbying groups to affect the House of Representatives as a whole, win win. Maybe with fewer constituents they'll actually get involved in a community rather then just showing up for photo ops or fund raising dinners with the rich people who live or work in the district. Imagine reps actually talking to normal people rather then only pretending to have just spoken to someone who coincidentally was saying how much X or Y needs to change because of 'insert sob story here' and 'that's why I'm backing this bill'.

[@laurencefraser]

Fundamentally the USA's biggest problem is that it's actually too big to manage properly via any system other than Imperial Bureaucracy. The democratic elements exist mostly because popularity contests cause less stability issues than stabbings when it comes to internal power struggles and the illusion of being lisented to (among other measures... and no, gun controll isn't actually relevant one way or the other to this) substantially reduces the risk of the commoners revolting.

[@tchuryanimations]

There we go.

[@tabathacarruthers5122]

Iowa doesn't look like that anymore. We lost a representative so now are split in 4. Not evenly, unfortunately.

[@stephenderry9488]

Have you looked in all the downtown bars?