WEBVTT 00:00:15.537 --> 00:00:19.250 Most people have heard the word "gerrymandering" once or twice, 00:00:19.250 --> 00:00:22.000 probably during a presidential election. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.215 What exactly is gerrymandering? 00:00:24.215 --> 00:00:29.649 Essentially, it's the process of giving one political party an advantage over another political party 00:00:29.649 --> 00:00:31.631 by redrawing district lines. 00:00:31.631 --> 00:00:34.982 It's like Democrats trying to gain an advantage over Republicans, 00:00:34.982 --> 00:00:38.898 or Republicans trying to gain an advantage over Democrats. 00:00:38.898 --> 00:00:42.532 You see, each party wants to gain as many districts as possible 00:00:42.532 --> 00:00:45.115 so they can do things like control the state budget, 00:00:45.115 --> 00:00:48.865 or set themselves up to win even more districts in the future. 00:00:48.865 --> 00:00:53.249 So to understand how this process began, and how it continues today, 00:00:53.249 --> 00:00:56.882 we must go back to 1812 in Massachusetts. 00:00:56.882 --> 00:01:02.681 Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts, supported and signed a bill to allow redistricting. 00:01:02.681 --> 00:01:06.417 That is, redrawing the boundaries that separate districts. 00:01:06.417 --> 00:01:10.465 The catch? The new lines would favor Gerry's own political party, 00:01:10.465 --> 00:01:13.715 the Democratic-Republican party, which no longer exists. 00:01:13.715 --> 00:01:18.432 You see, Gerry wanted his party to win as many state Senate seats as possible. 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. 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. 00:01:27.231 --> 00:01:31.697 They were so strange looking that someone said the new districts looked like a salamander. 00:01:31.697 --> 00:01:34.648 The Boston Gazette added Gerry's name to the word salamander, 00:01:34.648 --> 00:01:37.132 and voilà! Gerrymandering, 00:01:37.132 --> 00:01:42.749 the process of dividing up and redrawing districts to give your political party an advantage. 00:01:42.749 --> 00:01:46.583 So how exactly does someone go about protecting their own political party, 00:01:46.583 --> 00:01:49.115 and actually gerrymandering a district? 00:01:49.115 --> 00:01:51.167 There are two successful practices. 00:01:51.167 --> 00:01:52.350 Packing a district, 00:01:52.350 --> 00:01:54.381 and cracking a district. 00:01:54.381 --> 00:01:58.965 Packing is the process of drawing district lines and packing in your opponents like cattle, 00:01:58.965 --> 00:02:01.316 into as few districts as possible. 00:02:01.316 --> 00:02:04.466 If more districts equals more votes, the fewer the districts there are, 00:02:04.466 --> 00:02:07.365 the fewer votes the opposition party will get. 00:02:07.365 --> 00:02:11.966 Packing, then, decreases the opponent's voter strength and influence. 00:02:11.966 --> 00:02:14.048 Cracking is the opposite: 00:02:14.048 --> 00:02:17.098 taking one district and cracking it into several pieces. 00:02:17.098 --> 00:02:20.917 This is usually done in districts where your opponent has many supporters. 00:02:20.917 --> 00:02:23.931 Cracking spreads these supporters out among many districts, 00:02:23.931 --> 00:02:26.417 denying your opponent a lot of votes. 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, 00:02:30.149 --> 00:02:32.132 those folks are known as a voting bloc. 00:02:32.132 --> 00:02:35.249 Cracking is a way to break that all up. 00:02:35.249 --> 00:02:39.432 So when would a party choose to pack their opponent's districts rather than crack them? 00:02:39.432 --> 00:02:42.116 Well, that really depends on what the party needs. 00:02:42.116 --> 00:02:45.699 To dilute your opponent's voters, you could pack them into one district 00:02:45.699 --> 00:02:49.333 and leave the surrounding districts filled with voters of your own party. 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, 00:02:53.482 --> 00:02:56.632 you could redraw districts and crack up a powerful district 00:02:56.632 --> 00:03:00.432 and spread your opponent's voters out across several neighboring districts. 00:03:00.432 --> 00:03:05.048 So, Governor Gerry in 1812 wanted to gain an advantage for his party, 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 00:03:09.600 --> 00:03:14.097 and way of thinking about how political parties can gain advantages over their opponents. 00:03:14.097 --> 00:03:17.866 Politicians think of creative ways to draw districts every few years. 00:03:17.866 --> 00:03:20.548 So the next time an election comes around, 00:03:20.548 --> 00:03:22.731 and politicians ask people to vote, 00:03:22.731 --> 00:03:27.398 be sure to look up the shape of your district and the districts that surround it. 00:03:27.398 --> 00:03:30.365 How wide does your district stretch across your state? 00:03:30.365 --> 00:03:33.583 Are all of the districts in your state relatively the same shape? 00:03:33.583 --> 00:03:36.549 How many other districts does your district touch? 00:03:36.549 --> 00:03:39.182 But always be sure to ask yourself, 00:03:39.182 --> 00:03:41.599 does my district look like a salamander?