WEBVTT

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If you've ever had the suspicion
that your vote doesn't really count

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and the deck might be stacked
against you, you might be right.

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In many places in this country,
we don't have a functioning democracy.

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People might go to the polls,

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but they might not have a real choice
when they get there.

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In 2010, the people of Florida
were trying to do something about this.

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They passed a ballot initiative
with almost two-thirds of the vote:

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a new state constitutional amendment

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requiring that districts be fair
and not biased based on race or party.

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It didn't work.

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The state legislature sued to try
and get out of these new requirements,

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and in subsequent court battles,

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the maps they made were found
to be racially and partisan biased.

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Florida is just one example

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of our national problem
with gerrymandering.

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Gerrymandering is when you
take a few people from one place

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and a few people from another place
and draw a line around them on the map

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to create a district
with some specific demographic goal.

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Here's an example world with 25 people:

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60% green people and 40% purple people.

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If you split that up into five simple
districts of five people each,

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you can preserve that ratio in the outcome

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and have three districts
won by green people

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and two districts won by purple people.

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But if you pack enough green people
into just two districts,

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then you can flip that outcome

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and wind up with three districts
where there's a purple majority.

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Or you can crack the purple people
and split them up just right

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so that they don't have
a majority anywhere.

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These strategies of packing and cracking

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are being used in dozens of districts
throughout the country.

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That bright blue district
in northeast Florida

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was found to be racially biased

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because it packs too many
black people into one district,

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diminishing their influence elsewhere.

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That was Florida in 2012,

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but gerrymandering
has been going on for a long time,

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since at least 1812,

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when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry
signed into law a map

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that was drawn into a political cartoon
as a monstrous, dragonesque salamander,

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and thus was born the gerrymander.

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But it's gotten a lot worse lately.

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The joke is that instead of voters
picking their politicians,

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politicians are picking their voters.

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Why is this a problem?

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When you have too many seats

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that are gerrymandered
to be safe for one party or another,

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the political process
breaks down in some ways.

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I have one personal example.

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In 2006, I was a webmaster

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for a congressional campaign
in California.

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We were in a district

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that was gerrymandered,
say, for the other party.

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And the incumbent in that party

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didn't feel the need
to take part in the campaign

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and wouldn't agree
to show up for any debates.

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He just felt he didn't have to.

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And our party wouldn't send any help;
they figured we were a lost cause.

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Come election day, the incumbent
got the expected 60/40 result.

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In other places, it's even worse.

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In 2014, there were 32 congressional
districts that went unopposed -

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no one else on the ballot.

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That's over 20 million Americans

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with no effective choice over
who their representative in Congress is.

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In some places,

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the incumbent faces a more extreme
challenger from within their own party.

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And whether you have an extremist upstart
or a long incumbent safe seat,

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that politician might not feel the need
to reach out across the aisle

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and compromise on anything
because they're safe,

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and the legislative process
grinds to a halt,

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and voters get more cynical.

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What if we could have impartial districts?

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What if we defined what a good
district was mathematically

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and didn't let anyone else's
agenda interfere?

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Florida's map might look
something like this.

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About 10 years ago,

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computers got powerful enough
to solve for this kind of map

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that follows the legal requirements
of having equal population per district,

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contiguous districts
that are each all one piece,

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and in this case,
solving for compact districts

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that try to tightly represent
one location or region.

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But I didn't know
it would work when I started.

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Previous work in this area

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had been on tiny toy maps
like the one I showed you earlier,

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and they didn't think it would scale up
to a full state worth of data.

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But I figured I was a pretty good engineer
and I'd give it a shot,

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and I think it worked out pretty well.

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So, when the 2010 census data
starting coming out,

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I set my home computer to work,

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and over the next six months,
it came up with 137 maps

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for state legislature
and congressional districts

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all over the country.

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And I think the results are pretty good.

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Let's see another one.

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First, the old way.

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North Carolina has also been
in almost constant legal battles

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since their maps came out
a little over four years ago.

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Most recently,

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they were thrown out for racial bias
just as primary season was spinning up.

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New maps were hastily drawn up,

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and the primary had to be pushed back
from March until June.

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Voters and candidates
were left in disarray.

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That red district in the northeast

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reaches into and around
three other districts.

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That pink district in the middle
pinches down as narrow as possible

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while reaching out to grab other areas.

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This is nuts.

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These are the visual telltales

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of districts that have been distorted
toward some political end.

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The opposite of a sprawling,
non-local gerrymandered map

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is a compact map, like this.

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I hope you can see the difference.

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You can also measure it.

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I measure compactness

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as the average distance per person
to the center of their district.

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In the old North Carolina map,
that distance was 38 miles;

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in my map, it's 25 miles.

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You can measure how sprawling
and non-local a gerrymandered map is

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and how compact a compact map is.

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So, it's technically possible.

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How's the political situation?

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You might expect that there would be
some resistance to this kind of change,

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and there is, but there is
also some demand for it.

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The republican governor of Maryland
has recently called out for national help

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in overturning his state's
democratic gerrymander.

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That is one of the more contorted messes

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of tentacled horrors of districts
I have seen in any map.

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(Laughter)

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I don't know if this is the best map,

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but I submit that it is
a legally viable map,

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without some of the obvious runaround
and drawbacks of the old map.

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There are a lot of states
with divided government,

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with the two parties
fighting over redistricting.

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But this shouldn't be
something to fight about.

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Redistricting should be
a bureaucratic, boring process,

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where you get in new census data,
you turn the crank,

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and you get out new maps
for the next 10 years.

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In the last few years,

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California, Arizona, Ohio, and Florida
have passed reform of one kind or another.

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That shows that it's possible.

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Those reforms might not be perfect,
and they might still need some tinkering,

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but we can do it.

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This is technically possible.

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Open-source software, free and verifiable,

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running on home computers
that anyone can use

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can solve for these kinds
of impartial maps,

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and the results are pretty good.

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This is politically possible.

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People want reform -
even some elected officials want it.

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And the legal mechanisms are achievable.

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If we could have a change now,

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we could have a big effect
on the future of our political process.

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If reform comes to enough places,

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enough states,

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we might even be able
to get a national standard.

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And a national standard might let us
really hold up our core value

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of equal protection under the law for all.

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(Applause)