Weird maps win elections - Gerrymandering explained

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Why does the USA draw district maps with absolutely bonkers shapes? And how do squiggly districts help the wrong politicians win elections? And have we been pronouncing "Gerrymandering" wrong for 200 years?
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/ jayforeman
Written and presented by
JAY FOREMAN / jayforeman
MARK COOPER-JONES www/ markcooperjones
Director/DOP
JADE NAGI / jade_nagi
Edited by
JAY FOREMAN
Runner
ABBY TIMMS
VFX
DAVE BRAIN / ornsack
Animation
/ connaugh
Gerrymandered districts artwork
/ asquith_d
/ playercoalition
Many thanks (and recommended KZbin channel if you're into US politics)
MR BEAT / iammrbeat

[@JayForeman]

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[@Sporecrawler]

Hi

[@cathylin6140]

early

[@TheOne_6]

hello there jay

[@ZaneLikesCheese]

You switched the voices on the sponsor again😂

[@chrisjones5411]

So you did a travel agent Surfshark sketch ad here but you weren't available to do the travel agent Surfshark sketch ad for Tomska's channel. Sus

[@Qenwolf]

Ah yes, to avoid the controversial subject of British politics, they went for the much more peaceful subject of American politics

[@CasualSpud]

both are shit tbh

[@kieran10202]

American politics is much calmer because the rich always win.

[@mgraham0160]

GENIUS!

[@joelvr101]

@@CasualSpud You truly missed the joke lmao

[@Newton-Reuther]

​@@CasualSpudSeethe and cope. America is worse!

[@painbow6528]

This crisp advert was ruined by some nonsense about maps.

[@JayForeman]

This is my favourite comment so far!

[@clarkoncomputers]

Their ads are creative and fun it's worth to watch the whole thing! Some are so memorable I remember for years, like when someone asks how is my Italian, woof woof woof woof!

[@quantisedspace7047]

Do Americans know what crisps are ?

[@_RGR_]

@@quantisedspace7047 yea but we call them chips instead

[@whybruh566]

@@quantisedspace7047 i doubt it

[@TheUberjammer]

Today I had back pain. I found myself humming "Back pain, back pain, back back back pain.... pain."

[@amadeosendiulo2137]

We're the pain and here's the back.

[@uncipaws7643]

I'm a ... snep fan, snep fan, snep snep snep fan ... fan fan.

[@rainbowkrampus]

Back pain, back pain, back back back pain.... ow!

[@thewingedporpoise]

​@@uncipaws7643pfp checks out

[@chaunceyfeatherstone6209]

Oh, you bastards! All of you!

[@Ikkarson]

In France we recently solved the conundrum: after the legislative vote, the president (executive) still does whatever strikes his fancy.

[@wellthatsokay8582]

Well…countless British and American soldiers died so you can indulge Camembert and prancing around

[@ThugDollXO]

@@wellthatsokay8582damn tf

[@juzoli]

That’s why he was elected. What else he would do?

[@Pan_Z]

To be fair, the Constitution of France does allow a vote of No Confidence if the president forces a law past the Assembly. It is rarely ever a concern, however, because the president's party usually has a majority. Bit different presently with Macron, who cannot invoke Article 49 without fear, since his party hasn't had a majority since 2022. Macron's government nearly crashed when he raised the pension age.

[@Bafflementation]

@@wellthatsokay8582 French soldiers are the ones who made it possible to talk about 'British and American soldiers', rather than 'British and other British soldiers'.

[@JoeBleasdaleReal]

Pronouncing it “Mah-rye-lawned” is payback for all those times Americans have called it “Westchesterfordshire sauce”

[@italiansoutherner]

I like how they pronounced Maryland (a straightforward name) incorrectly but then pronounced Illinois correctly lol.

[@Cylus024]

Wooooster sauce

[@socpancake]

you mean Westchesterfordshyer sauce?

[@Professor-fc7vc]

​@italiansoutherner As a Marylander, every Brit ive met has called the state Mary-land. Which...is kinda the actual correct way to say it. It was named after Queen Henrietta Maria, and was often called "Queen Mary Land" in the early colonial days. It sorta got Anglicized to Maryland as in one word, and its now pronounced as "Mare-land". Map Men have a great video on the subject of British counties that talks about how "cester" over time became pronounced as "ster". Language is FUN!

[@sbob17]

Whatsyoursister sauce

[@Mike-kc5ew]

As an American, I can say that the worst part of drawing voting district lines, is that we allow the party in charge to draw them. I don't care if the party doing it is Democratic or Republican, allowing political parties to draw their own voting district lines that they can directly benefit from is akin to the old statement of "allowing a fox to guard the hen house." That's really something that needs to be moved to a non-partisan committee.

[@jeffreypierson2064]

If you have an initiative process in your state, you can take it out of the politicians' hands. We did that in Arizona. We have 2 Democrats, 2 Republicans and 1 non-partisan or third party members. It works remarkably well.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

The congressmen tend to draw districts where they won’t lose their seat They’re protecting their own ass, so to speak, which is how you get someone like Nancy Pelosi being in her congressional seat about as long as most her constituents have been alive (she was first elected in 1987 and the median age in her district is 39)

[@PixelatedH2O]

I live in Utah, a Republican super-majority. The state legislature regularly does everything it's seemingly able to do legally to keep the party in power. If voters disagree with them they'll often just say they believe their plan is better.

[@ianism3]

yeah, it's insane. thankfully, in Canada it's done by an independent federal body (or a provincial or municipal body at the other levels of govt), so there's no partisanship (also, there's 5 relevant political parties, which helps a little.) however, there are also no allowances for racial minority-dominated districts, so only about 15% of MPs are nonwhite, when they actually make up about 25% of the population.

[@jaydenchrono]

You also let the incumbent party run the elections instead of an independent election service 😂 it’s like America doesn’t even want a fair system

[@robinier]

That Maryland district was pretty notorious. It was so ludicrous that a judge famously called it "a broken-winged pterydactyl lying prostrate across the state."

[@peabody1976]

I used to live in a diverse district (MD-08) that for years had a Republican rep, who was actually good and worked with both parties. Then 1996 happened and she was replaced with a Democrat, who also worked pretty well with both parties. Then 2010 happened, and the state decided that the three Republican reps needed to be diluted, especially the MD-06 -- he is a doomsday prepper and until the rise of M*G* was a more-extreme Republican. I was then redrawn into MD-06, where my part of a highly Democrat county outweighed the highly Republican western counties combined. MD-06 is still as of Sep 2024 a Democrat-held seat.

[@suhnih4076]

💀

[@alexlowe2054]

I love your style, and this is a really important video to teach people. Unrelated to the content, I wish more people knew about the incredible job I did in my US government class, where I almost broke my teacher's brain by perfectly gerrymangering my realistic digital districts with nothing by straight sided rectangles. Her first reaction when I called her over to look at my work was "That's not right, you're supposed to follow the lesson plan and gerrymander your districts". I'll never forget her long pause when I gladly said "I did!", and she stared at the straight lines perfectly packing and cracking to manipulate the results, and says "Wait, you did." I pointed out how cool my nice neat straight lines were, and watched the smile melt from her face with a simple "Huh." I think her faith in the government was a bit shaken at that moment. It's hilarious how badly some of those districts are drawn. I strongly believe if our politicians cared more about making better maps, they could gerrymander our districts without using all those nonsensical insane squiggles.

[@jurjenbos228]

More people should know about this. Some cool math going on there.

[@dominik-and-the-world]

So, you learned how to gerrymander in school? 🤔That is quite depressing...

[@MrTwarner]

Michigan is actually one of the first states to fix Gerrymandering. Through a state-wide referendum, Michigan residents took the power of drawing districts away from the legislature and gave it to a board with an even number of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. In the next election, the state went from being Republican controlled despite Democrats winning the popular vote to Democrats holding a slim majority, which reflected the popular vote. It's possible to address Gerrymandering, but not if politicians get to draw the borders.

[@rolfs2165]

German voting law includes a provision that voting districts need to follow the borders of administrative districts as closely as possible. We also have proportional representation and more than two parties, though. I don't see that happening in the US (at least on the federal level) any time soon.

[@riskinhos]

Michigan's independent redistricting commission was supposed to fix gerrymandering, but it hasn't worked out as planned. The equal number of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents on the commission has led to constant gridlock, with members unable to agree on fair maps. Those "independent" members? Turns out, they're not as neutral as they claim to be, often leaning towards one party, which has led to biased maps anyway. Even worse, because the commission members aren’t elected, there's no way to hold them accountable when they mess up. And they have-people are already taking the maps to court, arguing they're just as unfair as before. The process is so complicated that most voters don’t even understand what's going on, leading to low public engagement and little transparency. In the end, the maps are still skewed, showing that the whole system is flawed and not delivering the fair representation it promised.

[@cheeseninja1115]

what's even more interesting about it is that Proposal 2 was brought to referendum in 2018. Since the US does the national census every ten years, the process of redistricting started in 2020. However the districts weren't officially changed until the following congressional elections in 2022. So you can actually see the direct impact that the redistricting had by comparing 2020 to 2022 elections. The surprisingly short time between the proposal being voted into law and the elections taking place is a very rare case of the US bureaucracy working relatively quick thanks to good timing on the amendments introduction.

[@MandarynkiPolskie]

Pennsylvania fixed it too.

[@kndrdfndindngoudng]

We did this in California a long time ago

[@YourLocalDoctor]

I'm impressed that they managed to find that many similarities between gerrymandered districts and _those_ oddly specific depictions, let alone make them into a rhyming song

[@theshadowsagas3617]

They didn't come up with half of these, the Goofy kicking Donald Duck one for example has been a meme in the states for years now lol

[@cecerchio]

I'm pretty sure Mark did depictions and Jay the song

[@Phootaba]

This is also why we watch them!

[@TheYuvimon]

Knowing Jay, the "coming up with a rhyming song for whatever"-part just happens reflexively.

[@Mimi.1001]

Jay asked on Twitter (& probably somewhere else) if people knew districts with funny shapes, so the general idea on many of them might come from there. Specific Depictions, rhymes etc. are on them though.

[@ubadahoop]

Naming districts is actually an incredibly simple and subtle solution to help reduce Gerrymandering.

[@rikulappalainen527]

It's Gerrymandering

[@antoniokf5productions]

​@@rikulappalainen527it's actually pronounced gerrymandering

[@lpsp442]

It's a Rory Sutherland-tier brainwave!

[@TheHorrorDevotee]

how so?

[@gidget330]

@@TheHorrorDevotee When you name a district, town or most locations you usually use descriptors. But when your district is so loosely coherent on a map it gets difficult to describe it with geological features. Because of that, if a place has a ridiculous name, it brings attention to the ludicrous nature of the district border locations itself.

[@sentiel]

This is the ONLY channel that I don't skip the ads with the sponsorblock extension. The fact you actually make the ads enjoyable is funny. Never has education been so informative as well as humourous

[@FrancesRedmiaccount]

hello fellow sponsorblocker,how's skipping sponsers going

[@shugotenchi]

Also, I have an inexplicable craving for some crisps.

[@Ten_Thousand_Locusts]

Nah I still skip them, fuck ads.

[@orion7763]

As a Californian, the reference to Schwarzenegger was an effort- which passed while he was governor- to create a citizen's commission for redistricting. While this new system still isn't perfect, it takes away the ability for the politicians to draw the maps and puts it in the hands of a citizen group. In California we feel this has been a good step in the right direction.

[@TheGahta]

Yeah, its a known thing that both parties abused, good to see the voters taking that back a nudge at a time Perhaps it helps getting third party a little push

[@vijay-c]

This is how it's done here in the UK - the electoral commission (edit: sorry boundaries commission, the electoral commission runs elections) draws the boundaries, not political parties & it's been like it for my whole life. Thankfully, gerrymandering in the same way hasn't made it over here. Not that the Tories haven't tried - they tried to put pressure on the electoral commission, but then went & had their worst election in a century. They also introduced voter ID laws which they basically copied from the US - the result being that Tory voters were more impacted than others so it ended up with them suppressing their own vote...

[@TheGahta]

@@vijay-c interesting, completely flew under my radar 🤣

[@jamiepayton1574]

Helpful info

[@Richard-dc5he]

@@vijay-c Indeed, the "best" part of this is that notable Tory fake-posh-boy and ex-MP Jacob Rees-Mogg even went on public record saying that their attempt at gerrymandering had backfired. Just before losing his seat. Actually no, the best part is that their ID rules have prevented more Tory MPs from voting in their own elections than people prosecuted for voting fraud in the last decade or so. Proving just how utterly stupid the concept is.

[@juffinhally5943]

1:27 No, no new song by Tchaikovsky; your paper is from 1812, and my man's been born in 1840, and the 1812 overture's been published in 1880

[@JayForeman]

Neeeeeeeerd!!!!

[@Konomi_io]

@@JayForeman to be fair, you make youtube videos about maps

[@ErdTirdMans]

@@Konomi_io He's got you there, Jay

[@vladimirarnost8020]

One should appreciate the fact that Mark had to shave for this shot... On the other hand, he had 212 years to re-grow his beard. :)

[@melody8923]

@@Konomi_io that's why it's funny... whoooshhh

[@stoutyyyy]

There’s also the issue of unilateral disarmament. Neither party wants to be the first to tackle gerrymandering because banning it *only in the states they control* would give the other party a huge advantage.

[@itayeldad3317]

That kind of what happened in 2010 in some blue states. Than in 2020 they gerrymandered those states again. Than scotus decided to strike down some of these districts (but not many republican ones, although it did make Alabama draw a second black majority seat)

[@crash.override]

Hence why a lot of the voting reforms that have been made, were made via an initiative/referendum process, that bypasses the politicians in the state legislature.

[@mistrants2745]

And this is episode 1245123 of "a two party system is the absolute worst version of democracy and once you have it there is no practical way to get rid of it"

[@woodfur00]

@@mistrants2745 Ranked voting would solve the worst of it in a few election cycles but NO

[@laurencefraser]

@@mistrants2745 Ehh, it's not just the existence of the two party system that makes getting rid of the two party system difficult. There's a bunch of other factors that play into it too. But it sure doesn't help!

[@hwhy2]

my brain is so stimulated in map men videos from the information, state of the art graphics, hidden jokes, wit, advertisements, history, politics 🥹❤️ (also what a cheeky way of calling out americans for mispronunciation 😂)

[@asetto15]

5:25 It must have stung particularly badly that they left Britain off that globe since they even remembered New Zealand

[@AlphaGeekgirl]

Good catch!

[@fhjack25]

They always miss Tasmania though

[@Trixtah]

Came here to say I noticed the exact same thing! A first in the history of leaving reasonably-sized landmasses off maps?

[@asheep7797]

@@AlphaGeekgirlwell, they wrote it in the corner

[@griffinshorts785]

@@asheep7797but the commenter was referring to the inclusion of NZ specifically

[@josepholiveira2873]

Time to be That Guy, with a small correction: 'Undecided voters' are pretty rare in the US, and not very impactful in elections. People tend to either know exactly who they want to vote for, or are unplugged and uninterested in voting at all. The real 'swing' votes are people who *have* a preference, but can't be bothered to vote; turnout of a given party's loyalists is much more impactful than convincing people who Want to Vote But Don't Know Who For. Most electioneering is less about persuading the undecided, and more about getting party loyalists to get to a polling station on a random Tuesday that's not a holiday for some reason.

[@notme222]

In general that's true. However, according to the American National Election Study, 6% of all voters who supported Trump in 2016 had voted for Obama in 2012. (And 2% went from Romney to Clinton.) That's a more significant swing than we typically assume.

[@BlakeTheDrake]

Hence why neither party even bother to go "This is all the great stuff we'll do if we're elected!" anymore - going "This is all the awful stuff THEY will do if THEY'RE elected!" is a lot more effective at that purpose, perhaps unsurprisingly.

[@readyforlol]

And that is why compulsory voting eases tensions. Most people have a preference, but not one strong enough to dedicate an afternoon to drive to the booths or mail their votes. In that scenario, the most effective way to get votes is appeal to people who already think you're the best choice, but need more motivation to act on it. Riling them up with extreme rhetoric like "vote for me or society will collapse !" is the best way to get elected. So politics devolve into shit-slinging competitions about who can sell the most egregious conspiracy theories about their opponents. If voting is compulsory, everyone must go voting. They'll be at the booth whether they believe the world will end if they don't vote for you specifically or not. The incentive then is not to get your base in a fury to go vote, it's to get a bigger base. Instead of trying to turn your base into extremists that worship the ground you walk on and believe your opponent is literally Satan, you just need to convince a bigger amount of people your party's policies are better than the other guy's. This leads to much more constructive discourse and a more involved and politically educated population. It probably also reduces corruption down the line, because people elect more qualified candidates rather than whoever screams the loudest about how much better they are at playing golf than their opponent.

[@alveolate]

@@notme222 these sorts of deindividualised stats unnerve me. i'm pretty sure if you go deeper into the voters who jumped ship, you will find that they clump around clear indicators, such as folks who got foreclosed on by banks after the 2008 financial crisis and saw obama bail the banks out. i.e. there is always cause and effect, and voters are (mostly) rational self-interested actors. the uniparty has a nasty habit of blaming the voters when either side loses, instead of realising their system is fucked and can't support so many diverging opinions (which is inconsequential since the opinions that matter most come from the 1% anyway).

[@Mimi.1001]

Why the hell isn't voting day a holiday anyway? Should have been made one as soon as like voting based on wealth was abolished. You don't even need to make said Tuesday a holiday by itself, you could just move elections to Sundays like in many other democracies. Doing that would likely be beneficial to the economy (which many politicians care so much about), as millions of people don't have to take the day off or have to otherwise leave work for a while in the middle of the week. So why has (seemingly) no one proposed a reform? Just partisan politics?

[@aeronautic2374]

4:48 OOOOOOOOH that was smooth!

[@Mostirrelevant]

Nope, it was actually brilliant

[@jamestoman6706]

​@@Mostirrelevant No it was actually surfshark

[@apgray]

This is a non-issue in Canada. Electoral district borders are determined by a non-partisan public commission whose members are experts, not politicians, based on census data and with public input on any change proposals before they adopted, and they generally reflect natural neighbourhoods/communities/regions as well as can be expected, under the constraint of roughly equal population. We debate the value of first-past-the-post-in-a-geographical-riding as a voting system in general, but given that that's our system, nobody thinks the electoral district boundaries themselves are a problem.

[@cubisttubist]

Lyrics for the Gerrymandering song: A showerhead, A car with wings, One of those old-fashioned hand drill things. A dinosaur, A watering can, The shape on the flag of the Isle of Man. A metal detector, A bale of hay, A knight sitting on his horse the wrong way. A rabbit in a hat, And a Bop It And a spoon Super Soaker, seahorse, Cameroon! A plume of steam from a mug of tea. Donald Duck being kicked by Goofy. A carpet stain from a naughty pub. A mouse leaning over with a big thumbs up. Snake, dog, bat, dog, snake, duck snake. We'll be right back after the break!

[@omgwtfcake]

Yeah, a big thumbs up is what I see as well

[@mattkennedy9308]

4:17 start

[@pascalras9421]

Oon available on Spotify?

[@Justanotherconsumer]

Cameroon suggests that discussing how the maps in Africa are drawn that way might be worth a chat.

[@FootballCentro]

I think it's "naughty pup"

[@ArdisMeade]

Chiming in from part of the former Florida 5th district, now gerrymandered into the Florida 4th district, despite it being explicitly illegal to do that here. It doesn't matter if there are laws in place to stop gerrymandering if the people in charge won't follow them.

[@talideon]

There are voting systems that are resistant to gerrymandering and in addition, countries that don't have this problem use independent commissions to do districting. It's already a solved problem.

[@ArdisMeade]

@@talideon Re-read my second sentence.

[@KyleJMitchell]

​@@talideon You're saying that gerrymandering is a solved problem, and that may be true, but the comment you responded to is discussing the problem of corrupt politicians ignoring laws for the benefit of their own power, which is clearly _not_ a solved problem.

[@TheFranchiseCA]

​@@KyleJMitchell Exactly. There's an ongoing court case in Utah, where the voters passed an initiative to create an independent redistricting council and the legislature simply decided it still had the right to pass their own maps.

[@jasonhaven7170]

It's called racism

[@mattfulmer2093]

Oh hey, I’ve lived in one of the districts you guys talked about all my life and even when I moved, I stayed in the district

[@mattfulmer2093]

It was the long one that covers portions of San Antonio and Austin

[@mattfulmer2093]

The most interesting part is from my old house where I grew up to my current apartment, where I live now you can drive the whole way and be in the district the whole time between them. The thin parts are the areas along I-35 where it goes along to connect the two cities and it sort of bulges out at the cities of Kyle, New Braunfels, and Bouda. you also left out that it includes the entire city of Boerne, my hometown, which also has an interesting map because it looks like a shot-up tin can with a lot of exclaves.

[@mattfulmer2093]

The reason for a lot of those exclaves is that in the states, smaller areas and communities can just declare themselves part of larger communities like a city through a process called incorporation, which is one way how a lot of those smaller exclaves joined the borders

[@avi12]

This is the only channel in which I explicitly don't skip intros and sponsorships because they're gold

[@julianodriozola]

they do a really good job at making the sponsors feel as part of the video and not actually ads. I don't know any other youtube channel that does this

[@Gigaamped]

for me, this and Internet Historian are the only two 😮‍💨

[@DinendalLeralonde]

TomSka and Friends does this too, fairly explicitly for SurfShark. And Jay has appeared on that channel at least once.

[@stephenlee5929]

Jago Hazzard can be good in this way, And Evan Edinger Note I find them both interesting anyway, but their adverts are well constructed and funny.

[@NicolaW72]

Exactly the same with me.

[@JarkkoHietaniemi]

The obvious unmentioned elephant in the room of why gerrymandering is effective and possible is the two-party system. With more parties the packing/cracking becomes insanely difficult.

[@3st3st77]

Well, the reason why there are only two parties is because the outcome is looked at separately for each individual state rather than looking at the outcome on a national level. So getting rid of the two-party system would require getting rid of all state borders for election purposes which would in fact make gerrymandering impossible. So that's technically correct.

[@Kanbei11]

The two party system is a result of first past the post where one usually has to vote against who they don't want to win. In Great Britain we have a similar issue which isn't as bad yet thankfully but getting there.

[@javiersaneiro6412]

​@@3st3st77 The main reason of a two-party system is having a system of winner take it all. With a proportional vote system, the votes could remain separated by state, there will be more than two parties, and there won't be gerrymandering. A system used in many European countries, including mine, consists in assign a number of representatives per province and then assign the seats to every party based on their percentage of votes with respect to the total of votes. That also allows every vote to be meaningful because right now in America in a State with 75% population being Democrated the 25% of Republican votes would be worthless, but with proportional system it will mean a 25% of representatives of that State in the Congress, Senate and Presidential Electoral College.

[@San_Vito]

@@3st3st77 Or... get rid of the electoral college and just have proportional representation.

[@CaptainSunFlare]

​@San_Vito that's a terrible idea. It disenfranchises non urban voters, which is already an issue in some states

[@philipkelly7369]

I am so, so glad that they took a moment to say that "not all squiggly districts are the result of partisan gerrymandering" because that is something I've been harping on about for years.

[@iamthinking2252_]

And likewise not all compact districts are non-gerrymandered

[@TonyTheYouTuba]

Yep this was something I learned specifically from this video

[@michaelmclachlan1650]

Our hosts do their research and make the results entertaining. Enjoyably informative!

[@michaelmclachlan1650]

Our hosts do their research and make the results entertaining. Enjoyably informative!

[@feralcatgirl]

they did miss the mark with the maryland example though. maryland isn't a case of (partisan) gerrymandering, the population distribution just shakes out that way. if you load up a redistricting program and draw your own districts, you'll find you have to get pretty squiggly to draw more than two republican districts (and the most natural outcome is one)

[@devincolborn523]

Can we take a second to appreciate that these 2 swapped voices in the Surfshark ad for really no reason other than it would be funny. 😂😂😂

[@JWhitePWC]

it's impressive how well they managed to sync each other's voices for the advert

[@sirLJson]

Holy shit I didn't even realise. I knew something was off and just thought the audio track was not synched properly.

[@Sillykat420]

@@sirLJson I'm sure it's not the first time they've done it either, I remember a skillshare ad with the same joke

[@soundscape26]

Yep, that was quite impressive. Amazing the level of craftsmanship that goes into every one of their videos.

[@Mr.Cupcake]

I love that it serves absolutely no purpose to switch voices, they simply thought it was a funny thing to do so they did it.

[@m3shgg]

politics unboringed x map men collab ⁉️⁉️

[@vesteel]

Since its American politics its Politics unYEEEEHAWWWW'd🦅🦅🇺🇲

[@luky7570]

jay foreman's multiverse madness

[@FixTheWi-Fi]

Now all we need is a Politics Unboringed episode that's about something in London that was never finished, then we'll have the full trilogy.

[@jakubchloe]

​@@luky7570real

[@jakubchloe]

​@@FixTheWi-Fijust a video about british politian's promises.

[@yaygya]

Never thought I'd hear Edmonton mentioned in a Jay Foreman video.

[@goodpeopleoftheworldunite]

He really put it on the map, men.

[@lazarusmekhane439]

The British Empire: Nobody can draw better straight lines than me! Gerrymandering: On the contrary! Also, love the musical interlude!

[@dash_o_pepper]

Clearly we were so resentful of our former overlords that we took the straight lines and made them as "unstraight" as possible!

[@Uchqunbekuz]

British: Hold my coca cola

[@bane2201]

@@dash_o_pepper We hired Jackson Pollock to draw our lines and he collaborated with M.C. Escher.

[@acey457]

swing and a miss

[@Anonymous-df8it]

@@dash_o_pepper Fractal districts!

[@unearthly9995]

always reminds me of a font called Ugly Gerry, where each letter is taken from the shape of a gerrymandered district

[@NathanEllisBodi]

Sharing crisps with 'a friend with benefits'. The benefits being that they bring the crisps.

[@AarushBhandari_]

Also the dip

[@topmandog1]

@@AarushBhandari_ who has dip with crisps??? you must be american

[@kieraleahy6795]

@@topmandog1 Not sure about them but "chips and dip" (i.e. crisps with dip) is a classic kiwi snack. The traditional dip is to mix a can of reduced cream with a packet of onion soup and maybe a little bit lemon juice, it's actually pretty good for how simple it is.

[@SashArovot]

I live in Utah. Recently, a ballot measure passed with an overwhelming majority requiring the state to create a review board for fair, nonpartisan redistricting. The state shot it down and simply refused to do it, and now there's a new ballot measure pretending to increase the strength of ballot measures but actually just codifying that the state is allowed to ignore them so they don't get sued next time.

[@testinhaa]

I saw the Cameroon joke and remembered "oh wow Jay made a tweet about it right?" then i remembered it got blocked here in Brazil. Then, the sponsor being Surfshark was actually kinda useful!

Didn't VPN (like Surfshark) got blocked in Brasil too (at least for some time)?

[@lucadipaolo1997]

I'm not sure, but using a VPN to access X/Twitter is currently carrying a hefty fine (R$50000, nearly 9k USD)

[@testinhaa]

yeah but it was so not well recieved they went back on the decision. i have no idea if we could use it to bypass the geoblock but its an option i guess

[@512TheWolf512]

brasil is so strange. on one hand, it supports nazi russia, and elon musk also supports nazi russia, but they still beef between each other.

[@filiperosa7496]

They are trying to give a fine for anyone who uses VPN to access Twitter

[@ImJustDigital]

babe wake up new map men episode

[@evilgibson]

Cringe

[@ImJustDigital]

@@evilgibson How so?

[@spytf2-pb3yo]

​@@evilgibsonHush, young one

[@ajbro6428]

​@@evilgibsonnew gen 👦

[@ThePixel1983]

Have a look at the German variant: We vote for a party and for a local candidate. The winning candidates all go to parliament and then more list candidates are added until the percentage of the oarty votes is achieved. Advantage: A party that gets 52% of the votes will get about 52% of the seats. Disadvantage: Parliament can become quite big.

[@Running_Colours]

The thing is this would allow third parties to gradually prosper, and both the democrats and republicans don't want that. But yes, you are correct, that would work.

[@electron8262]

@@Running_Colours I think this sort of legislation could be forced through in some states by voter-initiated referendums.

[@rogerstone3068]

Except that many candidates then owe their allegiance to the party that decides how high up the list they are; NOT to the people.

[@ThePixel1983]

@@rogerstone3068 Do you have a better suggestion that correctly represents the % of votes in parliament? In many local and regional elections you can choose individual candidates from that list to get them ahead. (Panaschieren und kumulieren) That's just very clunky, the ballots get huge and people make errors.

[@frakturfreak]

Small correction. They've changed the rules for the next federal election. We still vote for a constituency representative and party, but if a party manages to win more direct constituency seats than their share according to the proportional vote, which lead to the Bundestag getting bigger and bigger in the last couple of elections, the worst performing ones will be missing out. So not all constituency winners are guaranteed a seat in the next Bundestag.

[@DrEnzyme]

Well, I think you've done it. You've dethroned Yakko Warner as king of map songs.

[@johnchessant3012]

The place that has _actually_ fixed gerrymandering is Germany (and any other country that has a mixed-member proportional system). In Germany, _it doesn't matter_ if the districts are gerrymandered, because after the election, at-large seats are added to the parliament until the result is proportional to the popular vote. (The extra MPs are chosen from lists drawn up by the parties in advance; e.g. if it is determined that Party X should get 5 at-large seats then the first 5 names from that party's list become MPs.)

[@zwibak]

Wasn't this Techniker of Überhangmandate deamed unpropper and in need of legislation to change it?

[@AxGerm756]

We didn't fix it. The electoral system is a different one. And therefore it's just totally useless. So nobody is doing it because it would not change a thing thanks to the second proportional vote

[@hendrickziegler8487]

It was. But the important point here is a proportional election system and that will be kept.

[@KevinKanji]

New Zealand chiming in as the only other MMP system (I think!)

[@laurencefraser]

@@KevinKanji NZ's MMP system has it's own issues. Definitely a huge step up from FPP, and gerrymandering doesn't seem to be a problem (honestly, I don't know how much of a problem it was Before MMP, because I think the idea of having the electorates drawn by a body that Wasn't controlled by the various politcial parties is actually older...), but it's not problem free.

[@MuchWhittering]

Inevitable comment about how we need proportional representation in the UK, and how this is one of the reasons.

[@BecauseICantEdit]

Fun fact fair ranked voting is mathematically impossible so a different system would be needed

[@Nalehw]

@@BecauseICantEdit True, but be careful about taking that criticism too far. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem means that trade-offs will always be necessary, but it _doesn't_ mean that there's no point trying, or that all systems are equally bad. Any serious ranked voting system still fulfils a lot more fairness conditions than First Past the Post does. Edit to add: Personally, I prefer proportional systems like MMP like we've got here in NZ, or STV like in Australia's Senate. But I think a basic instant runoff ranked voting is probably the one with best odds of getting anywhere in the US. I don't know which options have any momentum in the UK.

[@recklessroges]

PR needs better PR so that people don't "well actually" and leave us with the worst system, that could be better, even if it, "can't be mathematically proven to be perfect". End first past the post!

[@peter65zzfdfh]

To make any voting system’fair’ is mathematically impossible. Ranked voting is substantially more fair and less polarized. The outcomes are just better. You can offset any perceived unfairness by having each ‘house’ use a different selection method, eg proportional for one and ranked for the other.

[@hughjanes4883]

I live in a Ireland, which while still pretty diffrent is comparable with England, we have PR and it does make a great difference in how we all vote and I think has had a noticeable impact on the country in a good way. Its nowhere near perfect with some of the crazies getting power even though most people think their crazy but it leads to many smaller parties with their own interests (labour, green party, shin féin) that dont try and take on too much cultural ground if that makes sense. Again britland is diffrent but from my perspective PR could do some good. But also im not british so theres a non zero chance im talking outta my ass

[@anonymousinternetuser7519]

You and John at Autoshenanigans are the number one British youtube channels for education entertainment. I can't really describe what you do, but you're both brilliant at it. e.g. Your first explanation of Gerrymandering is the best I've ever seen ever. Team Smartie Party ftw

[@Cdr_Mansfield_Cumming]

11:16 “Glad we dont live in a country like that” It cuts to two members of the unelected House of Lords laughing. You're right boys!

[@robezy0]

Then cuts to me sweating profoundly in Singapore. No need to look at our electoral districts, it's just very hot here, okay?

[@iamjustafisj]

Smash cut to me sweating in Germany "Why did I tuck myself in blankets?"

[@Psyk60]

The House of Lords is pretty stupid, but the way the House of Commons is elected is a much bigger problem. At least the Lords has very little power. Compared to the Commons, where a party with only about 1/3 of the votes has pretty much 100% of the power.

[@NicolaW72]

@@robezy0 Yes, I understand.

[@Cdr_Mansfield_Cumming]

@@Psyk60 I agree. I believe the concept of an upper chamber is made up of people who have life experience, business experience and special knowledge you cannot get as a career politician. How one gets that without appointing cronies is what we have to work out.

[@lordlouckster2315]

4:52 There's no reason for them to swap their voices, and I love it!

[@Asidders]

This is why I actively watch their sponsored content 😍

[@haunter6682]

How in the world did I not even notice that?!

[@lordlouckster2315]

@@haunter6682 You haven't watched enough Map Men, son!

[@alexray230]

The UK: has an upper house that's undemocratic The US: has a congress that pretends its democratic

[@speleokeir]

In a proper democracy power is split between the 'Three pillars of Deocracy': 1) The Government who make policy and do the day to day running of the country. 2) parliament/senate, who make the laws. 3) The Judiciry who enforce the laws. The idea is that no one person or group has absolute power to ensure you don't get an autocracy. Amerca fails this test because the President appoints the members of the suprme court so can pack it with their cronies and for example do something like rule the President is above the law and can do what the hell he likes thus leaving the door wide open for a dictator to grab power. Here in Britian as you say the House of Lords isn't elected. However I theory I don't have a problem with that if it's filled with people representing various parts of society and experts in their field. e.g. Health workers, scientists, people with experience in the forces, law, business the arts, sport, etc who can point out problems with bills passed by the Commons and suggest amendments. I'd prefer that to elected members who can be any idiot, out of touch public school boy, extremist, conspiracy theory nutter, etc. The problem with the Lords is life peers and dodgy party doners who have paid for their seat for serve their own interests. But how do you choose these people? That's the big question. It has to be by an independent panel, perhaps peolle could apply/be invited to an interview which looks at things like their qualifications and experience. Once chosen they should be reviewed say every 5 years and have to re-apply. The trick is to ensure the process isn't corrupted by the political parties, or anyone else with vested interests like the corporations, etc.

[@TheKraken5360]

To be fair though, I think the UK's upper house does basically nothing. I think they can suggest revisions to law, but the lower house can just ignore them.

[@TheAmericanPrometheus]

The UK's lower house is pretty undemocratic too. What with Starmer winning 66% of its seats with only 33% of the popular vote.

[@ffotograffydd]

@@TheAmericanPrometheusEvery government has done that mate. It’s almost a century since any party got an overall majority, and it’s only happened once since universal suffrage. Which is why we need electoral reform. But at least the seats themselves aren’t deliberately rigged.

[@nunopereira6092]

​@@TheAmericanPrometheus For how many years have the Conservative party ruled the UK without any general elections for the people to decide who should've been Prime Minister until 2024?

[@luka9609]

Mississippi is a very interesting case study. It is 38% African American. There’s 4 congressional districts and they have a majority in 1. The lines could be drawn to make 2 or 3 districts competitive, but Republicans argue that would violate the Civil Rights Act because African Americans voters could end up with no representation instead of an easy, reliable district. So the status quo is they get 1 of 4 congressman in the House of Representatives, and 0 of 2 Senators. The elections are never close, so most of the campaigning is done in the primaries, which even less people are aware of.

[@xway2]

I love it when people make rules to "help people" that instead do more harm. So much red tape exists because of things like this and it often amounts to nothing.

[@davidl63]

And just like the UK, this is when you get the loonies voted into power 😭

[@conatser]

Not surprised by the state that still had gerrymandering in school districts until 2016/2017 to keep segregation alive.

[@Justanotherconsumer]

@@xway2when it comes to the US and race, especially in the former slave states, if it can be twisted, it will be.

[@christianheinzel2089]

Just as a small note, "Democrat Party" is a pejorative for the Democratic Party intentionally popularised by GOP officials over the 20th century and is probably not ideal if you aren't a RW partisan or otherwise intending to express contempt.

[@jakubchloe]

6:33 North Caroleena 💀 6:40 Oheeyo 💀💀 6:47 Mar rye lawned ☠️☠️☠️

[@pseydtonne]

Seconded. I think they're taking the crisps.

[@drewp.weiner5708]

What's next? Ar-kan-SAW?

[@pierremaggi8661]

Flo rye day

[@yellowishnesses1138]

The stats show that intentionally pronouncing things wrong increases engagement. Also, they pronounced Illinois correctly.

[@pseydtonne]

@@drewp.weiner5708 Indeed. Meanwhile we Ameristani say "MARE-uh-Lind" because it was the UK's Queen Meryll.

[@lijmoo]

10:27 "people support political parties like football teams" this is so bang on. Throw in the "celebratory factor" and this is why politics stinks in a good chunk of the world.

[@liam3284]

some of them behave like football fans, too.

[@truejim]

One technique to fix gerrymandering is to use the same technique that you and your sibling use to split a cookie. Iterate: Party A draws districts. Party B gets to freeze one of those, then redraw all the others. Then Party A gets to do the same. Back and forth, until all the districts are defined. It’s just like splitting a cookie: since the other sibling gets to choose which half of the cookie they want, you as the splitter are incentivized to try to make things fair.

[@recurvestickerdragon]

downside: further entrenches and legitimizes the 2-party junk, cuz now they have to send more officials and delegates all over

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

This only works if there's a set number of parties. Which there really really really really shouldn't be.

[@BabakoSen]

​@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 thanks to Duverger's Law, we do effectively have a fixed number of parties (2). The only way that can change is if we change our voting methods from first-past-the-post to preferential or proportional ballots, and career politicians have every incentive not to let that happen.

[@truejim]

"Gerrymandering and the Geometrical Splitting of a Cookie" by mathematicians Jonathan Mattingly and Greg Herschlag, if anybody wants to learn more about the approach.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

@@BabakoSen True, but I like to feel optimistic that you might one day get out of it. Probably will require some social unrest though.

[@user-qx9bt9tr6t]

So many Americans arguing that US is not a democracy, it is a republic. I have encountered similar comments under other similar videos. All I need to say is that if the US is not a democracy, ask all your politicians and presidents to stop lecturing others on how their democracies are or should work and stop trying to 'deliver' democracy and 'freedom' to people in other countries. It is obnoxious and double standards will not stand. If you are not a democracy yourself, you do not know how it works hence the lips should stay sewn on it.

[@Argusthecat]

It's a democratic republic.

[@FlourishPorridge]

Its a democracy and a republic

[@pointly]

I live in Texas and we have some of the worst acts of Gerrymandering in the country. There was a vote to redraw the district lines but it didn't pass because most voters enjoy living in a district where their choice of candidate always win. I think in order to fix Gerrymandering, we need to eliminate the 2 party system and encourage more political parties in elections. I think it should start in DC before it can be fixed locally.

[@cnupdates]

Or just give the job of drawing the districts to a non-politically controlled entity

[@LordJimsworth]

Northern Ireland had the worst gerrymandering ever in 1920!

[@pjl22222]

The two party system will continue to exist forever as long as elections are decided by first past the post.

[@coyotelong4349]

What the US needs a proportional, parliamentary system, instead of a rigid winner-takes-all 2-party system American interests would be much better served by many parties winning seats in Congress and forming governing coalitions

[@Falltangle]

8:00 made me choke on my tea with how abrupt that was. Good work lads

[@DocAnnie]

the reverse-dub in the ad break is so freakin funny

[@BecauseICantEdit]

I just found it weird and confusing

[@PHDiaz-vv7yo]

@@BecauseICantEditoh have a crisp

[@JanVP1]

And performed very well.

[@Mimi.1001]

I somehow completely missed that on the first watch, because it's so well synced (and it's an Ad, so I didn't pay that much attention).

[@bentilley5412]

​​@@Mimi.1001 This is not just an ad, this is a *_Map Men_* ad...

[@SmeiskAudio]

This is like Monty Python meets education. I am all about this channel, I am glad the algorithm decided to show me this. You have earned a subscriber!

[@theemissary1313]

"To make congress reflect America's true diversity instead of it's true racism." there's a lot of depth to that sentence.

[@robezy0]

It's pretty straight forward tho

[@cypzzz]

Not really though? America has both

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

​@@robezy0It's deep, not wide

[@jabber1990]

racism was pretty much on its way out until the late 2000's

[@joebagel9715]

It seems that the proposal has had the opposite effect to what was intended, with the minority only voting for the leader who has a similar race to them.

[@joermnyc]

The real problem is just how entrenched the two party system has become in America. A 3rd party would need a unbelievable amount of funding and an ARMY of volunteers in every part of the nation to just gain enough of a foothold in all the local, state and national elections to maybe win more than 5% of the vote. Meanwhile the DNC and RNC are both stuffed with cash constantly.

[@Wasserkaktus]

If Trump loses, there may be an actual movement to split the GOP between the MAGA loyalists and those who hate Trump and MAGA. If that happened there's a good chance the Democratic party could split as well (although that would take more time).

[@matthewbooth4612]

That’s primarily a consequence of FPTP. Everybody afflicted by it needs to ditch it.

[@Mimi.1001]

That's mostly a result of the first-past-the-post electoral system. If the Winner takes it all, people fear the other major candidate would inevitably win if they don't vote for the one they are leaning to anyway, even if they would like to vote for a 3rd party which represents their values more. There have been relatively strong 3rd party candidates in the past like Ross Perot, but even they usually have massive funding, don't win a single seat/state and ultimately just split the either right-wing or left-wing vote. I suppose other countries with FPTP like the UK or Canada have more than two parties, but there the major parties don't think of one another as mortal enemies where the rule of the other would be like the end of the world for their supporters. Oh, and much less cash is involved.

[@abydosianchulac2]

A 3rd party would also need to focus on getting elected to state and local seats and not just the presidency. No one will vote a party into the White House that hasn't even demonstrated they can run city hall.

[@evancombs5159]

The problem isn't getting 5% of the vote, the Libertarian party gets that sometimes. The difficulty is having enough supporters concentrated in a single district to win the district. To get third parties you need a proportional system.

[@bvthebalkananarchistmapper5642]

why did the ad bit feature Jay facial movements with Mark's voice and Mark facial movements with Jay's voice lmfao

[@JayForeman]

Funny story... The audio went slightly wrong for both of us when we filmed the ad. Neither was noticeable in isolation, but when we put them together it sounded awful. (One was clipping, one was muffly). So, since we had to re-dub both parts anyway, we decided we might as well swap voices to really add to the unsettling feeling the ad already had.

[@aswifte5743]

@@JayForeman Was that the same reason for swapping voices in 'Why every world map is wrong'?

[@BiggerR10]

@@JayForemanand im glad you did😂

[@moaningpheromones]

@@JayForeman dubble trouble

[@captaingeoffrey7750]

Only channel where I actively watch the adds because they're funny

[@angelalbagallego704]

“A link in the comments to a video of yourself with a towel over your head, flapping your arms like a chicken, singing the theme tune from Sesame Street.” I love you guys. (9:12)

[@Mackifold]

If there's something we can learn from this video, it's that we need to start pronouncing it Garymandering instead of Jerrymandering. I really think that'd fix everything.

[@TheXev]

It didn't work for GIF being pronounced JIF (like the peanut better) even though it is technically correct according to the original developers of the image standard. I don't see Jerrymandering going away any time soon as how you say it. 🤣

[@bloepje]

It's Gerrymandering... But yeah, I somehow learned it as Garymandering, not as Jerrymandering, nor as GerryMandering.

[@Mackifold]

@@TheXev The reason I pronounce it GIF and not JIF is actually because of the peanut butter brand called JIF, which is short for jiffy.

[@QuantumPulsar]

@Mackifold it's Larrymandering

[@quantisedspace7047]

What we need is a method of specifying that a G be a hard one, in written text, a bit like an inverse cedilla.

[@ALTnOtes]

6:08 Crisps.

[@ChetasRecipe]

♿️

[@KingToast124]

@@ChetasRecipe🫘

[@seranes_silence]

USA: „How do we separate them? This way?? This way?? This way??? Aaaah there’s just no perfect solution!!!“ Germany: „… just don’t separate them lol“

[@benneem]

The solution is simple. Abolish single member districts and implement proportional representation. There's much quibbling about what specific proportional representation system would be best in general, or best suited for the USA specificially, but they're all way better than the status quo. EDIT: Some replies are suggesting their favoured system, so I will as well. Have multi-member districts with candidates listed by party. Voters just put an X next to one candidate and that vote counts for their party. If a party earns 1 seat their most popular candidate wins it, if they earn 2 seats then their next most popular wins as well, etc. Each state should be divided into districts of 3, 5, or 7 members each (states where that's not possible just have a single at-large district that elects all representatives). This is simple to vote in, candidate focused, roughly proportional for parties, conducive to 3rd parties being stable and viable, makes all districts competitive, naturally allows racial minorities to have the ability to elect representatives (you only need 25% to elect somebody in a magnitude 3 district), and is not too challenging to modify for states that allow preferential ballots ("RCV") to create full-on STV like Ireland or Malta. STV is much more complex to understand and count but it does have other desirable effects, it's just a bit much to impose on the whole country all at once.

[@karlsturm9698]

I'd like to see two member districts. Implement ranked choice voting to eliminate all but two candidates, then send them to congress with voting power equal to their vote share. 45% = 0.45 votes. It introduces proportionality while keeping things local.

[@morat242]

Yeah, there are several good systems. I'd go with one where the voters pick the candidates (i.e. not a closed party list method), but I wouldn't be that picky. It's even been mathematically proven that you can't get all good features in one voting system. Pick a good one and just do it.

[@geisaune793]

I know the “expand the House of Representatives to 435,000” suggestion was a joke, but you’re not too far off. Expanding the House is something that should happen anyway and _did_ happen after every Census until the 1920s when it was capped at 435. One representative for every ~700,000 people is by far the highest among western democracies. Having more districts, each with fewer people, would make it harder to gerrymander _and_ there’s the added benefit of making it easier for each representative to stay in touch with their constituents. And I think we can be radical here. I don’t think 1,000+ representatives is unreasonable. They’ve built more seating in the House chamber they can do it again

[@ritz2467]

hope Congress uncaps the number and adopt the Wyoming rule

[@DebatingWombat]

Well, the obvious problem with comparing the US to “other Western democracies” in terms of MPs/population is that the US population is orders of magnitudes larger than the “other Western democracies” and parliaments can get quite unwieldy when the number of MPs get very large. It’s telling that other parliaments representing large populations have chosen to cap their number somewhere in the 700s: 720 in the European Parliament. 788 in India of which only 543 sit in the lower chamber. 711 in Indonesia of which 575 sit in the lower chamber. 594 in Brazil of which 513 sit in the lower chamber.

[@AndyZach]

I lean toward 10x expansion: 4,350 representatives, one for every 70,000 people.

[@patkison]

For those who don't know, the Wyoming rule is to divide the population of the US (331,449,281) by the population of the smallest state, which in 2020 was Wyoming (494,300) to get the number of US House representatives. That would be: 331,449,281/494,300 = 670.5 or 671 US Reps.

[@WyvernYT]

For those outside the US (or who forgot this from school), we stopped adding representatives for the most boringly practical reason imaginable: the building was full. Really; there's no more room in the chamber for more people. Making the US Capitol building twice as big as it is now would require money, interest, and the ability to stick to that plan for the ten years or more the project would take; we haven't had all of those at once in the last century.

[@JETAlone12]

I think something a lot of people might not've noticed is that your example song had several districts from Texas, a state that most people assume is as Republican as the day is long. But in fact we're pretty damn purple, and it's the use of gerrymandering (alongside a number of other voter suppression efforts) that keeps the GOP rigidly in control of a state that doesn't actually support them with much enthusiasm.

[@RaptieFeathers]

EXACTLY THIS. Dallas Morning News is one of the more progressive papers in the US, even, and I say this as someone living in Portland, Oregon. The GOP is so terrified of the fact that Texas has gone blue that they're finding excuses to through out entire swathes of votes from certain districts. Texas's electoral votes would have gone to Biden in 2020 if it weren't for the election interference the GOP outright admitted to.

[@quantisedspace7047]

Seriously, Texas has a strong Democrat contingent ? I find that surprising, given it's Lone Star get-out clause, its g_n enthusiasm (even compared with) and its border with M.

[@doomsdayrabbit4398]

​@@quantisedspace7047There is no Lone Star get-out clause.

[@ASlickNamedPimpback]

Comment says one thing (Republicans are actually unpopular in Texas, “not being supported with much enthusiasm”), Reddit TikTok and Twitter say otherwise

[@calypso]

Democrats do the same in other states, stop whining and go back to California

[@throughthewoods416]

Honestly one of the best KZbin channels. Silly, informative and great attention to detail.

[@SeanBoyce-gp]

The other thing is that the current cap on House seats is totally arbitrary, and arguably unconstitutional. The law doesn't actually limit the apportionment to this number, they just decided to freeze it here. If we cut the number down to 1 per 100,000, we'd wind up with a much bigger congress, but cases like Illisnois's 4th would be solved, because those two would turn into 5 more districts, allowing them to remain both communal and competitive. It's also not necessary that we treat every new seat as a full seat with oversight and committee privileges. We could go up to, say, 538 (weirdly specific) full members and 2152 junior members who would enshrined the 538 by proxy with their votes. Thus, in, say, Chicago's 4th and 7th districts, you'd have probably 4 sub districts with junior members who would remain local and be briefed by the senior member, they would vote on matters, and the senior member would cast their vote according to the vote of the junior membership. Then you have to gerrymandering 2690 districts, and it gets a lot harder. But you'd have a lot more locality involved in congressional representation. PARTICULARLY if the individual subdistrict reps actually just did ranked choice voting for the set of congressional reps assigned to the state, you'd get a more proportional representation. E.g. If MD breaks down into 26 smaller districts but we have 13 reps, then the choice of the 13 reps becomes ranked choice voting done by the 26 individual district reps, who send those 13 to congress. So if 9 of those are republican and 13 are democrat and 4 are independent, each is way more likely to get at least one rep in from their interests. But it's "not how the framers envisioned it". Even though they never envisioned anything we think of as mundane today either.

[@ferretyluv]

Having junior representatives who have less power would mean that everyone’s voice is not, in fact, equal.

[@favretheundead]

@@ferretyluv? their idea has you vote for both a junior and a senior representative

[@hughobyrne2588]

A serious issue with the U.S. system, which has a pretty simple solution, already implemented in many countries, is: each district has only one representative. As much as (just less than) half the population in a district gets no representation. If, however, a district were four times bigger, and had four seats, minorities as small as (just over) 20% could get a voice. It'd mean ditching the awful, awful first-past-the-post vote-counting system for proportional representation, which would be great too, but difficult to accomplish practically.

[@josepholiveira2873]

"One district, one representative" and an arbitrary max House size of 435 has also contributed to disproportionate representation. Wyoming, with about 575,000 people, has one representative. California, with about 39 million people, has 52 seats. There's a proposal for a "Wyoming Rule", where each state basically gets representatives worth multiples of the current lowest-population state; so Wyoming would retain its one seat, while California would go up to 69 seats (nice). This would necessitate increasing the House's size as the population disparity between Wyoming and the most populous states grows, currently requiring 574 seats. Unless this rule (or something like it) is implemented, voters in low-population states will continue to enjoy a disproportionately strong voice in the House. ...Let's not talk about the Senate, the Senate makes me want to cry.

[@CaptainSunFlare]

​@@josepholiveira2873which is absolutely important as the house is meant to have a big state bias as opposed to the senates small state bias

[@bluebox2000]

@@CaptainSunFlare Except 52 divided by 39m equals one Rep per 750,000 Californians, so again small states are disproportional as was intended for lower population slave states. Our original sin still haunts us.

[@OctavioMovies]

@@bluebox2000 Ah yes the great slaver states of North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The whole rural areas get more representatives per pop thing is something that is a very common thing in most countries. Its usually done so that rural communities aren't completely ignored in favor of the more densely populated ones, so per example that California and New York don't decide for the entire country. Fair or not the existence of this system is not just a tool to keep white supremacy in the south but a way to close the gap between rural and urban.

[@laurencefraser]

@@OctavioMovies Thing is, when the USA's government was created and it's various rules and systems formalised, tensions between states where plantations which were dependant on slave labour were the backbone of the economy vs states where they really weren't (and quite a lot of people wanted to do away with the practice) were basically THE major issue everything had to work around and compensate for if they didn't want the whole "united states" idea to fall over and fragment. So it's very relevant to why the system was made the way it is. Of course, many things have changed since, but the USA seems to be decidedly alergic to updating it's system to actually account for this properly.

[@georgeandrews1394]

Jay Foreman video pops up. Me: *excited noises* Video is about gerrymandering. Me, a Canadian who can do nothing but watch the neighbours fight over descending into Handmaid's Tale right now: *quiet swearing* Watches the video anyways cos I love your guys' work.

[@alexsere3061]

Couldnt they just get all the votes together? In uruguay our legislative branch has two chambers. One of them is with the "states", but there is a second one where it represents the country wide votes. it makes it so more parties can be represented.

[@notme222]

Pretty well-rounded. You guys are always great. A couple points that were under-discussed: 1) The strategy of "win most by a small amount" is in opposition with "get some guaranteed wins". Thus you get odd collusions. In the 12-out-of-16 Republican map of Ohio, you also get 4 Democrat incumbents who are thrilled not to have competition. 2) Gerrymandering only works if voters are predictable. And the "win most" strategy requires them to be extremely predictable. A small shift could have huge consequences. This is how Democrats lost the House in 1994 for the first time in 40 years. They lost 12% of their seats from the same maps 2 years earlier. 3) The Supreme Court has carved out a very niche spot regarding gerrymandering and race. Shaw v Reno (1993) said you can gerrymander in one direction but not the other. Alexander v SCNAACP (2024) said it's not illegal to accidentally do it in the other direction, only if you do it on purpose. Both require proof of alternatives before overturning a district.

[@danielbliss1988]

it's worse in Missouri. At least Democrats in Ohio don't generally collude in this process. The factions of Democrats in Missouri that benefit from this -- namely the organization around Emanuel Cleaver in Kansas City and the organization around the Clay family in St. Louis -- actively do collude in the process, with Republicans, against other Democrats. The result is a legislature consisting of a lot of white Republicans, a much smaller group of black Democrats, and very few white Democrats at all.

[@jakepotter5962]

Finding out that Gerrymandering being named after a guy named Gerry is all I wanted from this video. As soon as I clicked it I thought "wouldn't it be awesome if it was named after a Gerry" and once again the Mapmen came through for me

[@Richard-dc5he]

I think you mean Gerry, not Gerry.

[@roterdachs]

German system: Partys elect list of candidates for every state. Partys get number of seats by share of result.

[@dabbasw31]

Sometimes you just have to lose two World Wars in order to get a decent voting system*. *The system in Weimar Republic was not great either.

[@theshinken]

It's a liiiittle bit more complicated than that and a basically an unsolved problem for years. Still way better than the US though.

[@rok1007]

​​@@theshinkenYeah, our problem is that *technically* our parliament could become infinitely large... and even though it hasn't done that (yet) it has ballooned quite a bit in size in recent years due to more and more partys getting elected which messes with our weird half FPTP half PR system. In short there are districts, which are won by one person like in the UK or US. However you also get a second vote which is for a party,not a person and determines the actual seat distribution, with MPs being selected from lists submitted by their parties. And heres the problem: In theory parliament should be simply twice the number of constituencies (1 directly elected MP, one from the Lists) but this is not how it usually ends up due to the seat distribution being PR according to the second votes. Imagine a situation where one party wins all constituencies but only receives, say 30% of the second votes. This means that these constituency-seats which were supposed to be 50% of Parliament are now only 30% meaning you suddenly need a lot more MPs from the party lists...

[@robezy0]

Weird promoting your electoral system when your parliament is larger than it should be because your formula fails to distribute seats accurately so you just add some on top

[@derPetunientopf]

@@rok1007 Since the "Wahlrechtsreform 2023" thats not true anymore. Only the second vote is relevant for the number of seats now.

[@ChristianityOntheBottomShelf]

The 435 districts aren't for members of Congress as a whole, but for Representatives. Senators represent entire states, and come two to a state, so that the Senate has 100 members. And therefore Congress has 535 members.

[@Pfhorrest]

Simple solution to Gerrymandering: first, divide each state along the shortest straight line that will bisect its population. Then for each section, do that again. And keep doing that until the sections are down to the appropriate size. (If the appropriate size is somewhere between two such power-of-two divisions, the last step can be a trisection instead to split the difference, placing a point at the center of population and then picking the three lines from that point to an edge with the shortest cumulative length which trisect the population, since that generalizes the shortest-bisection method to three [or more] sections. Alternately, trisect at the largest scale first, then bisect from there. Either way you get he same number of districts.) This straightforwardly achieves the compact result. This will most likely result in major metropolitan areas being cut straight down the middle eventually, with each fraction of it lumped together with the surrounding countryside, thus accomplishing the competitiveness result contra self-sorting. And if we really need to accomplish the community result, you can let people who live on the border of a line trade districts with someone who lives on the other side of that border, thus letting communities organically shape their districts while retaining the numerical requirements.

[@Anonymous-df8it]

This needs to be pinned!

[@rosiefay7283]

Ah, Which US district is least like a square. Much more interesting than which country is most like a square.

[@JayForeman]

Wyoming at large.

[@JayForeman]

Oh. LEAST like a square! Sorry! Err… Maryland’s 3rd.

[@lillii9119]

Not Egypt

[@Silence.......356]

​@@JayForemanthat's my inheritance don't talk about Maryland like that

[@Silence.......356]

Wink

[@Picobits]

So Gerrymandering was basically invented by a guy named John Gerrymandering. Classic

[@RandyFortier]

I thought that he was a salamander?

[@bloepje]

Elbridge Gerry (governer) signed the law that was put in front of him by his helpers. Nathan Hale (reporter) named the first region a Gerrymander after his colleague Elkanah Tisdale called that region a Salamander. So actually the act of Gerrymandering was called liked that by the two reporters, after Elbridge Gerry signed it. And the act was shaping the districts like Gerrymanders for ones own benefit

[@lightningpotato8660]

@@bloepje no it was John Gerrymandering

[@melody8923]

@@bloepje always someone who doesnt speak sarcasm

[@drewp.weiner5708]

@@bloepje Didn't you watch the video? They very clearly say it was John Gerrymandering's invention

[@garyK.45ACP]

New title: "How Gerrymandering keeps minorities oppressed" By relegating most of the minority population into a few carefully crafted districts which are guaranteed to be represented by a minority Congressperson (pick a minority, any minority) it relieves all the "non-minority" representatives in the surrounding districts from minority concerns and assures that minorities will have disproportionately lower _influence_ in Congress. Example: The NRA has 4 million members. There are roughly 42 million black people in the USA. More than 10 times the number. Who has more influence on legislation? Right! Because the NRA isn't gerrymandered, EVERY congressperson has to be concerned about the "NRA vote" and even though it is a small percentage of the population, MANY Congressional seats are determined by a very small margin. This is how "special interest" groups maintain their _influence_ ...by NOT being gerrymandered. If minorities were represented in EACH district, there may (or may not) be less minority FACES in Congress, but far more minority INFLUENCE.

[@Michaelonyoutub]

Forcing them to actually name the atrocities they draw, actually sounds like a simple solution that might actually work. How can you justify a district when you can even give the region it represents a coherent name. It also would give a bit more character and accountability to the representatives, as they wont be the representative from district 7, but the representative from south springfield or something. It clearly ties representatives to the region they represent.

[@geoff5623]

Canadian ridings are mostly "city-neighbourhood" for large cities, or "city-region" for small ones, and the shapes are pretty basic. It's definitely easier to place where they're actually from when they're in the news, than just seeing "D-NY" for a US rep.

[@RobertFisher1969]

Look at the names that Congress gives to bills versus what's actually in those bills. Forcing them to name them will just mean they have incorrect, politically-driven names.

[@ferretyluv]

Maryland judges forced a redrawn map to be as compact as possible. They fixed it and it’s still majority Democrat because the vast majority of the population live in the central portion. It’s one of the bluest states in the union. Ohio used to be a purple state before gerrymandering made it entirely red. Gerrymandering is a mathematical side effect of trying to address the problem of rotten boroughs, which was a major problem with the parliamentary systems of both the UK and Bourbon Restoration France at the time (and stayed a problem until the 20th century in the UK).

[@ItsDesm]

10:09 some are already trying that 😅

[@douglasandfabianofranca1443]

Teacher: what's your favorite shape Class? That one student: ♪A shower head, a car with wings, one of those old-fashioned hand drill things, a dinosaur, a watering can, the shape of the flag of Isle of man, a metal detector, a bale of hay, a knight sitting on his horse the wrong way, A rabbit in a hat and a bop-it and a spoon, super Soaker, Seahorse, Cameroon, a plume of steam from a mug of tea, Donald Duck being kicked by Goofy, a carpet stain from a naughty pup, a mouse leaning over with a big thumbs up, Snake, Dog, Bat, Dog, Snake, Dog, Snake, we'll be right back after the break!♪ This comment is meant for memes, not songs.

[@ryandanngetich2524]

Thank you so much,,, I actually sang along 😁😆

[@annarchydeclutteranddesign413]

In New Zealand we have MMP (Germans may also have it?). We have one vote for the party we prefer, and one vote for the local representative we prefer. So seats are allocated according to the proportion of votes each party gets, beyond the successful local representatives, choosing additional representatives (MPs) from each party's 'lists'.

[@NicolaW72]

With the first Vote a Member of the Bundestag is directly elected into the Bundestag. Half of the Members of the Bundestag are directly elected, half by Party lists - not a single list of each Party but Lists. There´re 16 States and in each State a Party can draw a List - can, not must. Most Parties are drawing Lists in all 16 States. But some Parties are running for Election not in all States: the CSU is running only in the State of Bavaria, the CDU is running in 15 States, but not in Bavaria. The directly elected Members of the Bundestag are elected even if their Party has failed to climb over the 5%-Threshold - BUT (and now the first exception) if three Members of a Party who failed to reach 5% of the second Votes gets directly elected their Party is freed from the 5%-Threshold. The Party-List-Members are sorted out alongside a very complicated mathematical model between the Party Lists of the 16 States, so that it fits together with the directly elected Memeber to become the Result of the (second) Vote of Proportional Representation. If a Party gets more directly elected Members of the Bundestag then its Proportion according to the second Vote it retain this seats but the other Parties represented in the Bundestag are getting Compensatory Seats, distributed again between the Party Lists of the 16 States, so that it finally fits together. And there´s then a second exception: the SSW, the Party of the Danish Minority in Germany, is according to a Treaty between Germany and Denmark freed from all other Regulations and simply gets as much seats in the Bundestag as second Votes. And yes, that´s constitutionally. So, as a result, the Share of Power in the Bundestag is usually known a few minutes after the polls closed. But to figure out who are the Members of the Bundestag lasts usually days and sometimes even weeks. The Number of the Members of the Bundestag is changing after each Election, too. AND: The Bundestag elects the Chancellor as mentioned and is therefore the politically more important part of the Parliament. But it is only the Lower House of the Parliament. The Upper House is the Bundesrat, who is composed from the 16 State Governments - in accordance to the Population of a State with 3 seats up to 6 seats for each state. So each State Parliament Election is also a Bundesrat Election. And to get a Bill passed into a Law there´s in most cases (exceptions are Foreign Policy and Defense Policy) the consent of the Majority of both Houses of the Parliament necessary. So if the Bundesrat has another Majority as the Bundestag a Government will have really trouble to implement its Politics. And a Government is always under Election because there´re always somewhere State Parliament Elections. So it´s a really complicated political system, much, much more complicated than in the UK. I don´t know how it works in New Zealand, allthough there seems to be really some similarities at least in the Voting System.

[@kieraleahy6795]

@@NicolaW72 It sounds pretty similar to NZ. NZ isn't federal (i.e. the whole country is just one state) but it does administrative districts which are further divided into voting districts. Kinda similar to Germany anyone who wins a district gets into parliament and then further members are added from party lists to bring the proportion of members as close as possible to the total proportion of party votes. There are concessions for the Maori minority with all that as well, I'm not entirely sure how it works but if I'm not mistaken Maori people can chose to run on a separate vote that only Maoris can vote on and get a certain number of guaranteed Maori seats that way, but if you run on the Maori roll or vote on the Maori roll you don't get to do the same on the general roll (the English version of the Treaty of Waitangi claimed that British Settlers would have full sovereignty and the Maori version claimed *they* would have full sovereignty so it's kind of a mess). Also NZ doesn't have a president, the head of government is technically the governor general, they aren't elected, represent the British crown and only have the power to veto the passing of laws which they rarely if ever use. The head of Parliament (Prime Minister) is the highest ranked voted in member of the government and they're just whoever leads the governing coalition or party (if no single party gets a majority party vote they have ally to reach the 50%+ party seats needed to form government). Someone please let me know if I haven't quite got that correct, or if there's some important nuance I've missed.

[@NicolaW72]

@@kieraleahy6795 The Federal Government is an additional Question in Germany. Federal Government because - as mentioned - there´re 16 State Governments, too. Head of the Federal Republic is the President. He´s elected for five years by a special Assembley, composed by the Members of the Bundestag and an equal number of members of the 16 State Parliaments. The President has nothing to do with the daily Policy Making, but has five important constitutional rights: He can dissolute the Bundestag before its Four-Year-Term ends (and that really means: in this case he´s the decision maker). He can refuse signing Bills into Laws. He advises the Parliament whom to elect Chancellor. He appoints the Federal Ministers. And he has the right to order a Chancellor to stay in Office if the Chancellor lost his Majority in the Bundestag. In daily politics this rights have different real importance: The Federal Governament in Germany was and is nearly always a coalition Government, often with three different political Parties. So there´re always Coalition Negotiations between political Parties after a Federal Election and when those are finished (and they can last months) and a Coalition Treaty is signed it will contain the advise to the President whom he should advise to the Bundestag. The Bundestag has then three Votes about the Advise of the President, in fact all Chancellor were elected with the first Vote. In the first and second Vote the Majority of the constitutional members of the Bundestag is needed to be elected Chancellor. In German Politics this is called the "Chancellors Majority" and it is a kind of a magic number in German Politics: It is usually expected that a Chancellor is able to get the Chancellors Majority for important Laws, even if constitutionally a simple majority would be enough. If the third vote would fail the Constitution contains some complicated regulations what to do then. But again: so far all Chancellors were elected with the first vote. By Constitution the Chancellor advises then the President whom to appoint Federal Minister. In political practice the Chancellor simply follows the Coalition Treaty. But the President appoints them (usually in a big public ceremony). There was only at a single time a single advisement which the President did not appoint into a Federal Minister. But the President has this constitutional Power. An elected Chancellor can only removed from his Office by a so-called constructive vote of no confidence, that means the Bundestag has to elect at the same time a new Chancellor with the Chancellors Majority, whom the President has then to appoint. This happened only a single time in the history of the Federal Republic. If a Chancellor lost his majority in the Bundestag the President can order a Chancellor to stay in Office. The Bundestag loses then his right for a constructive vote of no confidence and the Chancellor loses then his or her right to leave the Office voluntarily. This happened sometimes, e.g. after the 2017 Federal Elections, were Angela Merkel lost her majority but was ordered by the President to stay in office until she was able to collect another majority, what lasted fully six month. Neither the Chancellor nor the Federal Ministers must be Members of the Bundestag and it is constitutionally forbidden that they´re members of the Bundesrat - and there´re usually always members of the Government who´re not members of the Bundestag. The real daily Policy Maker is the Chancellor, who also appoints his Vice Chancellor (and not the President). Without the Approval by the President no Bill becomes a Law. The Presidents used this Power only in 12 cases since the founding of the Federal Republic, so in fact seldom - but they´ve this power. The Bundestag elects his President, who´s usually a member of the largest faction - that means he or she can be a member of the Opposition, what in fact often happened. The Bundesrat elects his President for a one-year-term from the Minister Presidents of the States, usually starting with the largest State (North Rhine-Westfalia) and ending with the smallest (Bremen). The President of the Bundesrat is also the acting Vice President of Germany. So the Government is a Story in its own in Germany.

[@ArchdukeJake]

MAP MEN’S BACK

[@muntaacas6358]

BACK AGAIN

[@DrOmegaBattleSphere]

MAP MEN ARE BACK, MEN!

[@BobbySteelanus]

MAP MEN MAP MEN

[@AWormsPurpose]

I love that they get little names based on how bad they are drawn, almost like a zodiac. I live in the Praying Mantis

[@DJSMedicate]

A big issue why Gerrymandering is not fixable, is the de facto 2 party system of the US. With more parties, it's harder to predict how a district will vote.

[@TakenTook]

Yes, this is exactly what I have been saying to people from other countries who talk about how their systems work, including the various smaller parties making coalitions. We would need to have viable smaller parties in the US for that to ever work here.

[@lpsp442]

Every episode of Map Men has at least 12 phrases that would work marvelously as names for a band, song or album. My pick for this episode is "The Ex-Dentists".

[@darkychao]

honestly, actual district names would be kinda nice. index numbers are so inherently unmemorable that even of the semi-politically-involved population I doubt most even know what districts they're actually in offhand.

[@phineas81707]

I was wondering how it felt to be a person who's been gerrymandered so often they've been in more than two different District Numbers.

[@jaynestrange]

I'm surprised that districts don't have names in the US! Here in Canada, they have names and I think it makes it much easier.

[@zappababe8577]

1:30 I love how Mark's facial expression matches the photo on the newspaper!

[@kruador]

I think the whole newspaper front page is a digital fake, added in afterwards - i.e. Mark was actually holding up a blank sheet of paper (or some other newspaper) and it was replaced in the edit. So the photo on the newspaper is actually a crop from the frame from after he lowers it. The whole scene is green-screen anyway to substitute the background. I can't quite decide whether the sign on the desk in the foreground was really there, or that's also been added in post. It wasn't until I paused this that I realised that the sign reads "Governor of Massachchussettss", with all the consonants doubled! (Your original comment seems to have been usurped by a pornbot, which I nearly replied to.)

[@StephenParlow]

I thought you guys had already done a video on this, but then I realized I thought so because I used the audio of your reactions to the variety of world maps from an earlier mapmen for a video looking at Congressional districts

[@djcfrompt]

Utah just went through this. Salt Lake City, home to most of the state's liberal voters, was cracked and filled into districts with rural parts of the state all the way to the state lines. Gov. Cox had the gall to say "well, if you don't like it, you should vote in someone else". Utah votes about 30% Democrat in Presidential elections, so you'd expect that it might have one Democrat representative, two Republicans, and one swing district. Instead it has three solidly Republican districts and one where you might get a blue dog Democrat once in a blue moon.

[@Game_Hero]

that gall is deeply american way of thinking and just rejecting concerns outright without trying to care, a way of saying "sweep yourself under the rug". Ask eastern oregonians about it.

[@djcfrompt]

@@Game_Hero Oregon at least got one congressional district that should reliably represent the minority party. So they've got it a little better. Hoping that initiative for an independent redistricting commission picks up some steam.

[@georgeowen2553]

6:22 glad the glockenspiel wasn't broken too badly by the time travel (not a sentence I'd ever thought I'd say)

[@alexryu8467]

We've been blessed with a Map Men on this weekend

[@itsmederek1]

This is actually a really complex thing to improve now that you explained all the complexities. I wonder how other countries tackle this in non-parliamentary systems.

[@novaeclipse139]

You never realize how bad Gerrymandering is until you see the ridiculous boarders of these districts...

[@phoenexus_gaming5790]

Yeah! It's ridiculous how many people are coming from far away just to temporarily live i- ... oh, you meant borders.

[@-Katastrophe]

"Wyoming is." has got to be my new favorite soundbite.

[@olivertaylor9755]

I for one welcome Sam the Eagle as our new overlord.

[@ahorrell]

This is the only channel on KZbin where I never skip the ads. Pay these guys extra, their ads are great

[@njdevilku1340]

10:00 the number of representatives was stopped in the 1920s when they couldnt agree on how to divide the new census numbers (america was massively moving to cities). The 1920 census is the only one that was never used. States had the same number of representatives from 1910 to 1930.