0:00:17.422,0:00:21.552
If you've ever had the suspicion[br]that your vote doesn't really count

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and the deck might be stacked[br]against you, you might be right.

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In many places in this country,[br]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[br]when they get there.

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

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They passed a ballot initiative[br]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[br]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[br]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[br]to be racially and partisan biased.

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Florida is just one example

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of our national problem[br]with gerrymandering.

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Gerrymandering is when you[br]take a few people from one place

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

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to create a district[br]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[br]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[br]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[br]into just two districts,

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then you can flip that outcome

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

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

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so that they don't have[br]a majority anywhere.

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These strategies of packing and cracking

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are being used in dozens of districts[br]throughout the country.

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That bright blue district[br]in northeast Florida

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was found to be racially biased

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because it packs too many[br]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[br]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[br]signed into law a map

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that was drawn into a political cartoon[br]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[br]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[br]to be safe for one party or another,

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the political process[br]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[br]in California.

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We were in a district

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that was gerrymandered,[br]say, for the other party.

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And the incumbent in that party

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didn't feel the need[br]to take part in the campaign

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and wouldn't agree[br]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;[br]they figured we were a lost cause.

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Come election day, the incumbent[br]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[br]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[br]who their representative in Congress is.

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In some places,

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

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

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

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and compromise on anything[br]because they're safe,

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and the legislative process[br]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[br]district was mathematically

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and didn't let anyone else's[br]agenda interfere?

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Florida's map might look[br]something like this.

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About 10 years ago,

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computers got powerful enough[br]to solve for this kind of map

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

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contiguous districts[br]that are each all one piece,

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and in this case,[br]solving for compact districts

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that try to tightly represent[br]one location or region.

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But I didn't know[br]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[br]like the one I showed you earlier,

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

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But I figured I was a pretty good engineer[br]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[br]starting coming out,

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I set my home computer to work,

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

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for state legislature[br]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[br]in almost constant legal battles

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

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Most recently,

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they were thrown out for racial bias[br]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[br]from March until June.

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Voters and candidates[br]were left in disarray.

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That red district in the northeast

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reaches into and around[br]three other districts.

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That pink district in the middle[br]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[br]toward some political end.

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The opposite of a sprawling,[br]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[br]to the center of their district.

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In the old North Carolina map,[br]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[br]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[br]some resistance to this kind of change,

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and there is, but there is[br]also some demand for it.

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

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in overturning his state's[br]democratic gerrymander.

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That is one of the more contorted messes

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of tentacled horrors of districts[br]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[br]a legally viable map,

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without some of the obvious runaround[br]and drawbacks of the old map.

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There are a lot of states[br]with divided government,

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with the two parties[br]fighting over redistricting.

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But this shouldn't be[br]something to fight about.

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Redistricting should be[br]a bureaucratic, boring process,

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where you get in new census data,[br]you turn the crank,

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

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In the last few years,

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California, Arizona, Ohio, and Florida[br]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,[br]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[br]that anyone can use

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can solve for these kinds[br]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 -[br]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[br]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[br]to get a national standard.

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

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of equal protection under the law for all.

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(Applause)