1 00:00:15,537 --> 00:00:19,250 Most people have heard the word "gerrymandering" once or twice, 2 00:00:19,250 --> 00:00:22,000 probably during a presidential election. 3 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:24,215 What exactly is gerrymandering? 4 00:00:24,215 --> 00:00:29,649 Essentially, it's the process of giving one political party an advantage over another political party 5 00:00:29,649 --> 00:00:31,631 by redrawing district lines. 6 00:00:31,631 --> 00:00:34,982 It's like Democrats trying to gain an advantage over Republicans, 7 00:00:34,982 --> 00:00:38,898 or Republicans trying to gain an advantage over Democrats. 8 00:00:38,898 --> 00:00:42,532 You see, each party wants to gain as many districts as possible 9 00:00:42,532 --> 00:00:45,115 so they can do things like control the state budget, 10 00:00:45,115 --> 00:00:48,865 or set themselves up to win even more districts in the future. 11 00:00:48,865 --> 00:00:53,249 So to understand how this process began, and how it continues today, 12 00:00:53,249 --> 00:00:56,882 we must go back to 1812 in Massachusetts. 13 00:00:56,882 --> 00:01:02,681 Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts, supported and signed a bill to allow redistricting. 14 00:01:02,681 --> 00:01:06,417 That is, redrawing the boundaries that separate districts. 15 00:01:06,417 --> 00:01:10,465 The catch? The new lines would favor Gerry's own political party, 16 00:01:10,465 --> 00:01:13,715 the Democratic-Republican party, which no longer exists. 17 00:01:13,715 --> 00:01:18,432 You see, Gerry wanted his party to win as many state Senate seats as possible. 18 00:01:18,432 --> 00:01:22,448 The more members of your party who vote, the more likely you are to win an election. 19 00:01:22,448 --> 00:01:27,231 The new lines were drawn to include loads of areas that would help Governor Gerry in the future. 20 00:01:27,231 --> 00:01:31,697 They were so strange looking that someone said the new districts looked like a salamander. 21 00:01:31,697 --> 00:01:34,648 The Boston Gazette added Gerry's name to the word salamander, 22 00:01:34,648 --> 00:01:37,132 and voilà! Gerrymandering, 23 00:01:37,132 --> 00:01:42,749 the process of dividing up and redrawing districts to give your political party an advantage. 24 00:01:42,749 --> 00:01:46,583 So how exactly does someone go about protecting their own political party, 25 00:01:46,583 --> 00:01:49,115 and actually gerrymandering a district? 26 00:01:49,115 --> 00:01:51,167 There are two successful practices. 27 00:01:51,167 --> 00:01:52,350 Packing a district, 28 00:01:52,350 --> 00:01:54,381 and cracking a district. 29 00:01:54,381 --> 00:01:58,965 Packing is the process of drawing district lines and packing in your opponents like cattle, 30 00:01:58,965 --> 00:02:01,316 into as few districts as possible. 31 00:02:01,316 --> 00:02:04,466 If more districts equals more votes, the fewer the districts there are, 32 00:02:04,466 --> 00:02:07,365 the fewer votes the opposition party will get. 33 00:02:07,365 --> 00:02:11,966 Packing, then, decreases the opponent's voter strength and influence. 34 00:02:11,966 --> 00:02:14,048 Cracking is the opposite: 35 00:02:14,048 --> 00:02:17,098 taking one district and cracking it into several pieces. 36 00:02:17,098 --> 00:02:20,917 This is usually done in districts where your opponent has many supporters. 37 00:02:20,917 --> 00:02:23,931 Cracking spreads these supporters out among many districts, 38 00:02:23,931 --> 00:02:26,417 denying your opponent a lot of votes. 39 00:02:26,417 --> 00:02:30,149 When you have a large number of people who would generally vote for one type of party, 40 00:02:30,149 --> 00:02:32,132 those folks are known as a voting bloc. 41 00:02:32,132 --> 00:02:35,249 Cracking is a way to break that all up. 42 00:02:35,249 --> 00:02:39,432 So when would a party choose to pack their opponent's districts rather than crack them? 43 00:02:39,432 --> 00:02:42,116 Well, that really depends on what the party needs. 44 00:02:42,116 --> 00:02:45,699 To dilute your opponent's voters, you could pack them into one district 45 00:02:45,699 --> 00:02:49,333 and leave the surrounding districts filled with voters of your own party. 46 00:02:49,333 --> 00:02:53,482 Or, if you and your party are in power when it's time to redraw district lines, 47 00:02:53,482 --> 00:02:56,632 you could redraw districts and crack up a powerful district 48 00:02:56,632 --> 00:03:00,432 and spread your opponent's voters out across several neighboring districts. 49 00:03:00,432 --> 00:03:05,048 So, Governor Gerry in 1812 wanted to gain an advantage for his party, 50 00:03:05,048 --> 00:03:09,600 and redrew district lines in his state in such a crazy way we have a whole new word 51 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:14,097 and way of thinking about how political parties can gain advantages over their opponents. 52 00:03:14,097 --> 00:03:17,866 Politicians think of creative ways to draw districts every few years. 53 00:03:17,866 --> 00:03:20,548 So the next time an election comes around, 54 00:03:20,548 --> 00:03:22,731 and politicians ask people to vote, 55 00:03:22,731 --> 00:03:27,398 be sure to look up the shape of your district and the districts that surround it. 56 00:03:27,398 --> 00:03:30,365 How wide does your district stretch across your state? 57 00:03:30,365 --> 00:03:33,583 Are all of the districts in your state relatively the same shape? 58 00:03:33,583 --> 00:03:36,549 How many other districts does your district touch? 59 00:03:36,549 --> 00:03:39,182 But always be sure to ask yourself, 60 00:03:39,182 --> 00:03:41,599 does my district look like a salamander?