The USA is not a democratic country it is clearly a corrupt country at its core. That is reflected in its very corrupt judicial and political systems. Until something is done about the political and judicial corruption including gerrymandering and laws enacted to not allow convicted felons to run for president there will be nothing democratic or great about the USA.
I don’t think they are. Like the video said, 2/3 voters are sick of it. But I don’t know how many of those voters closely follow state politics. It’s the state legislatures that’d have to fix it. There’s a referendum in Ohio to lock in the composition of a politically balanced independent commission, perhaps something in other states.
We aren't. I'm in Illinois, where Dems do the gerrymandering. I don't like it. But it also meant I wasn't changed to a district where the rep literally quoted Hitler. Look up Mary Miller. I'm just a few miles from having her be my rep.
Because the GOP is staunchly against it. If Democrats unilaterally disarm, they're simply giving away power for no reason while the GOP continues to gerrymander. Dems have introduced multiple bills to ban gerrymandering federally and the GOP has blocked all of them. Multiple Democratic states use independent commissions
The gerrymandering does absolutely drive the polarization. But I also think the polarization drives gerrymandering in a feedback loop. Each turn through puts more of the extreme in power. And with the trust between the sides at zero, I honestly don't know how we get out of it.
Radical forgiveness and love of individuals on the other side. The radical laying down of our own fears, all around. That's it. Giving up the hardline "us-versus-them" ideologies. But fear, greed, and the lust for power while appearing as the "good guys" is a huge block to that.
Election rules , voting rules , ID requirements , qualifications , donation rules , fundraising , rallies etc should be the same across the entire country .
When talking about gerrymandering, it’s important to remember the conditions that made it possible in the first place: federal laws that require a state be divided into equal-population districts and each district can only have one Representative. Under such conditions it is quite impossible for a single Representative to fairly represent 100% of their constituents; and thanks to First-Past-the-Post voting that the vast majority of districts use, a candidate only needs a plurality of votes - not a majority - to win the seat. The solution to this is two-fold: abolish districting and use multi-member proportional representation, and switch the voting system to a multple-choice system such as Single Transferrable Vote.
In Australia we have federal election boundaries, that the states have no control over, they are under the auspices of a totally independent organisation, who makes their decisions based on purely mathematical requirements. No political party has any say in how the federal electoral commission divides up the totally 100% fair electoral boundaries. I find the whole US electoral system to be rigged and easily gamed.
That would require a constitutional amendment. "An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification." Good luck. Did you forget that each state is effectively a country, and thus the degree of sovereignty they each hold is high? Higher than Wales, Scotland and England, for example? The word "state" was once used to mean what we mean by "country". The United STATES of America. As a result, those states didn't want it to be too easy to be dominated by the federal government or other states. Hence the high bar to pass amendments. The EU has rules that lead to similar results for the same reason.
@@thysonsacclaim But isn't redistricting _not_ the federal government's concern? US constitution just says, Texas has 38 seats (based on the last census). It doesn't say Texas has to divide itself into 38 districts, each of which will elect one house rep, right? That's for the state government to decide, right?
There's the "Fair Representation Act" that's been introduced. Combines districts and uses proportional rank choice voting. Not sure if it will ever come to a vote though.
@@thysonsacclaim It's funny to say the states are free to choose their own rules when all of them are stuck using the same dumb system. Even Nebraska and Maine, that at lest have some variation, still stick to winner-takes-all on a district level. I'm just glad that's not my problem. XD
What a revolutionary suggestion. Neither inexpensive nor inconsequential. I did like the idea of an independent commission on distracting. Incumbents shouldn't be in control of districting; maybe the census bureau can be expanded for this purpose, or a new agency created by Congress.
Perhaps a starting position would be to remove all politicians from all aspects of the voting process. What worries me is how the right to vote can be removed to advantage a political party. How can USA claim that all citizens are equal when some citizens can be denied the right to vote through unethical means? Glad we have our Australian voting system.
🇦🇺💙💛✌ 🇺🇦 Yeh, nah, nah America has never been OK. Most democratic countries are indeed cumbersome and slow. The USA is at best, a prime example of a dysfunctional democracy and ready, willing and able to become the current, most powerful, fledgling autocracy. Slava Ukraini!
Love this series, well done ABC. Now... if you could just explain WTF is this electoral college thing..? Can they really overturn the results of a popular vote?
I'm short: yes. The candidate that wins the popular vote doesn't necessarily win the presidential election. That's happened several times (Bush in 2000, Trump in 2016 are just two examples). The Electoral College is "delegates" from parties assigned to vote on behalf of people in each state. The number of delegates is assigned based on congressional representation (one per House seat, one per Senate seat). The "magic number" is based on 51% of the allocated seats (currently 270 out of 538). Because of this, large population states like California have less influence on the election of the President and rural minority states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, etc) have outsized influence ("swing states" that could fall for either party). Add in "first past the post" voting where the candidate with the most votes in each state (with only Maine and Nebraska as outliers) wins all the delegates in that state, you can see where the system is terribly flawed. It's gross and we hate it, but it's in the bloody Constitution, so we're stuck with it.
the short answer is that you don't vote for the president, a number of delegates given to the state vote for the president. Most of those delegates are bound to elect the person their state does. However some states get more delegates per capita than others, which is why the popular vote doesn't indicates who wins.
@@PamperedDuchess you may already know this, but the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" is perhaps a more plausible reform. Essentially, states mutually agree to assign all their Electoral College votes to the candidate who won the *nationwide* popular vote. This agreement only takes effect once enough states (i.e. summing to at least 270 EC votes) have signed up. The federal Constitution doesn't specify how states apportion their EC votes, hence why Maine and Nebraska are exceptions to the "winner-takes-all" rule of the other states. Theoretically, this means the compact doesn't need a federal Constitutional amendment before taking effect, though there is legal debate over this. So far, 17 states have signed up (plus D.C.), worth a total of 209 EC votes (77% of the 270 needed). Of course, those states are mostly blue, so the last 23% will be much harder to secure ;-)
@@wereoctopus The Dems were all for that when there were more registered Democrats than Republicans nationwide. But, believe it or not, the MAGA populist push has changed that. There are now more Republicans registered than Democrats. Somone should do a deep dive into that!
So far this has been the best series on ABC on the US election, period. One caveat though is that there is simply no way to guarantee a non-politically motivated civil service. In Australia yes we have so called “independent” bodies, but it’s clear when you zoom in to the details there are biases because of the people involved - they’re fundamentally citizens of this country and can sway the system from the inside in very subtle and legal ways.
Have a look at ABC's Planet America - unbiased commentary that covers a lot of underpinning topics not just the splashy headlines the majors want to promote.
Don't think it happens on the scale or as biased as what goes on in America. Mostly changes here are because of growing populations , not because some politician decides it's a good idea. We also do not have the long list of problems that exist in US on other matters.
Of course there are biases. But there are also systems in place to check those biases. No one person in the civil service will draw an electoral map. It will be an effort involving many people checking each others' work. At the very least, there is no direct incentive for civil servants to draw unfair boundaries, because their job isn't on the line. Not to mention the fact that most civil services who draw electoral boundaries use computer programmes these days, which are completely dispassionate (when coded well), so the process is even further removed from politics.
@@redrock1963 It's not unbiased. It just isn't biased towards either Republicans or Democrats in the way US political media usually is. It's biased to a worldview of people outside the United States looking in. With an outside perspective, most people can see how absurd it all is, and so lean anti-Trump because he is the centre of that absurdity. They do an excellent job of holding both sides to account and I catch every episode they post, don't get me wrong, but they have their biases as do we all.
There is no good why to create a democratic map. The entire system is fundamentally flawed. We need to adopt a new system that awards seats proportionally, not based on arbitrary lines created by the people in power.
That’s a bit of a mismatch of words they’re not doing anything illegal. They are doing something very wrong. Illegal and wrong are not the same thing.!
that info about packing and stacking is something i hardly see explained in many videos on election issues... maybe if i was looking more about gerrymandering it might be. good job with this series!
Something that might be worth adding to the discussion: the total number of districts, 435, has been frozen in law for the last century. This means that a district that used to represent around 200k people now represents 800k. It's impossible to please everyone in a district that large, no matter what it looks like.
The Nordic countries do this better with proportional representation. They vote for parties that ally with their views and representation is assigned based on the proportion (percentage) of the vote each party wins. Basically, the USA desperately needs a new constitution.
We have a mechanism for changing it, but of course it requires 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of all states to agree. Which will never happen in this climate.
All the people saying "to be fair, the other side does it too"... that doesn't make it fair! Did your parents never teach you that two wrongs don't make a right?
@@BigBoiiLeem I think that's a given, but if your opponent is legally rigging the system what is the benefit of you not doing this? Remember the supreme court has ruled that it is legal.
There is zero benefit of unilaterally disarming from gerrymandering (which multiple Democratic states have been foolish enough to do) while the GOP continues to gerrymander and blocks all federal legislation to ban gerrymandering. Blaming it on both sides without looking at who wants to ban it and who is staunchly oppoosed to banning it is just running cover for the GOP
You're correct that the focus of elections, especially presidential ones, often overshadows critical races for congressional seats. The electoral system in the U.S. can create advantages for incumbents, making it difficult for challengers to unseat them. This can contribute to the perception of a "rigged" system, as established parties benefit from name recognition, fundraising networks, and institutional support. The importance of congressional races cannot be overstated; they shape the legislative agenda and determine how effectively a president can implement their policies. For example, if Joe Biden secures a second term but Congress remains divided or controlled by the opposition, his administration may face significant obstacles in enacting its agenda. Moreover, issues like gerrymandering, voter suppression, and differing state election laws can further complicate the electoral landscape, influencing the overall outcome. It’s essential for voters to recognize the significance of every race on the ballot, not just the presidential one, as these positions can profoundly impact governance and the direction of the country.
Yes there are different ways…just look at what they’ve tried or pulled off so far. Scary thing is what to they still have planned? That’s ok because you’re not going back so keep moving forward!!! 🙏💙🇺🇸🙏💙🇺🇸🙏💙🇺🇸
Odd shapes to electoral districts is in itself not evidence of gerrymandering. This can happen due to natural landmarks such as rivers or the odd shapes of state borders. Heavily gerrymandered districts can also be drawn with mostly regular shapes (you could re-draw Florida's old 5th district with a perfectly rectangular shape for instance). And yes, an independant commission to draw electoral maps is the best way to do it, but don't for a moment imagine that it fixes all the electoral and political problems.
Most regular folks have heard of this now, and then, but often forget especially if they only vote in presidential elections. But this has to stop. As the old man in the lawn chair indicated, this is from a bygone era. Bottom line, if you are a legal resident of a given state, then you should be able to vote for any elected official from your state. Like Arnold said, this needs to be terminated.
Our electoral system is fine but … AEC hopefully has better funding than it did in the last election where some voters were disenfranchised because registered workers turned the job down because they weren’t paid for the previous election. It was costing them more to man the polls in petrol even if they were paid for the job. And the internet has meant that too many lies are circulated. Not that they were much good at stopping terrestrial violations in the first place. But yeah, we are relatively lucky.
given how the republicans like to cancel voter registration i'm confused why everyone isn't registered as republican. I assume some silly rule prevents people doing so?
First job of the new Potus. Go immediately (for your own safety), to Public Referendum. It is the solution. The absolute power of the people will move as one 1. Get rid of gerrymandering, 2. get rid of Electoral College. 3. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1565">26:05</a> One state, one governor. All that obeseness has overwhelmed politics. We are their employers. They work for us and they offer their service to us. The media glamorising politics is unconscionable. “We the People” need to set a constant live-trend referendum focussed on the state of the nation. Communication is the key. It serves as a guide, narrowing decision-making for those who have offered themselves to serve. The media need to pull back massively from covering Trump. Please. Poverty, housing, strong social services, trend graphs, a good and unbiased read of our wellness is so much more important. Economic wellness is something humanity should strive toward. Peace.
The thing is, the whole situation is a mexican stand off. If one side starts reforming the system, they have to start in their states, risking losing them to the less reform-willing side.
California did it; majority vote Blue, Governor is blue. We’ll see how that went come November. When Silicon Valley are financing Trumps campaign to the point where all of the canvassers are professionals on a payroll, not the usual volunteers, it does seem like a risk.
Great report! Would you be able to do a similar report covering how state and federal electorates, with a segment on Bjelke Petersen's gerrymandering in Qld and an update and explanation as to how Kylea Tink's seat of North Sydney is being redistributed and whether that is gerrymandering, intentional, unintended etc? What rules apply, what data changed in the Census to make this happen? Great work - you always make difficult topics comprehensible and accessible AND entertaining.
Australia has our own racism problems, but it's incomparable to how much race plays into everything for americans. Having anything to do with a large group of americans will blow your mind as to how much race plays into everything!
@@alecesne you would only need to amend state constitutions, the federal constitution essentially says states send representatives based on their population, but it's up to them how to decide on the representatives as far as i'm aware
Single-seat districts are mandated by federal law; the only thing the Constitution says about it is “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” [Article 1, Section 4, clause 1]
… misses the point of one Representative for hundreds of thousands of people, where that Representative could be elected with a minority (just a plurality) of votes.
Colorado's first congressional district is actually the City and County of Denver, so it makes perfect sense. That being said, I've always appreciated ABC's journalism.
Surprised you didn't mention that Australia has had gerrymandering in the past. Queensland, in particular, had gerrymandering during a fair chunk of the 20th century.
We kinda did in a lot of states until quite recently. South Australia, for example, used to have the maps be voted on in State Parliament, and they were massively gerrymandered in a way to keep the Liberals in power for decades. They were independently drawn but still had to be voted on. This was changed in a 1975 amendment to the state constitution.
I am not sure when it changed in Queensland but first the Labor party and then the Nationals gerrymandered the state to stay in power.....both Labor and the Nationals stayed in power for multi decades....at an estimate 40 or 50 years each...I was born in a rural area where my friends family and neighbours vote was worth 3 times the vote of people in inner city Brisbane.
♥Gerrymandering is part of the Australian landscape, but to a lesser extent. In the early 1900's in Queensland Labour (as it then was) rigged it so the rural areas where there were large numbers of farm workers controlled the state. But as farm workers moved to the cities and farming required fewer workers the situation reversed so the Country Party (extreme right) got control and Joh Bjelke-Petersen was able to rule the state for decades.Trying to gerrymander areas can backfire if there is an electoral swing against the party doing it.♥♥♥
No it isn't. Never been part of federal elections (States don't control them in Australia) and Queensland was the last state government to put systems in place to stop it for their state elections, 30 years ago.
@@lazyfrogonalog ♥I assume you have never been involved in making a submission to the AEC on federal borders. The various parties make submissions with their arguments and the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) takes them into account. The funniest, most recent one has North Sydney (Teal independant) and Bennelong (Labor) being merged and as far as I can tell it looks like it will become a Liberal seat. Further, it appears you may not be aware the AEC is based on Divisions that are state based. Rigging elections in Australia tends to be more subtle and less apparent than the US and the media is largely pro-democracy and ruthlessly deals (in a subtle non-public way) with situations after the event where an election (federal or otherwise) can be shown to have been rigged.♥♥♥
@@vulture7918 Rigging elections in Australia is done through disinformation from the right-wing and big business. Tony Abbott's win and the failed Voice referendum are two examples I know of off-hand
@@vulture7918 Yeah, nah, to prove your point you need to show me Gerrymandered electorates that have happened since Queensland's state elections 30 years ago. Tin foil hat, off the cuff, commentary on what you think the independent experts at the AEC have done because they didn't listen to your submission, just doesn't cut it.
@@lazyfrogonalog ♥Don't need to show you anything, particularly as I have already given an example. Rigging of elections in Australia is far more limited and sophisticated than the US. You are the sort of person who believes that if a coin is flipped 20 times and comes up heads every time and believes it is random. LOL ♥♥♥
<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1340">22:20</a> the Founding Fathers strongly opposed political parties - they considered political parties as a source of division that would cause the country to crumble. BTW, people in Britain also criticize the district system over there even though it a lot more immune against Gerrymandering. (I'm from Brazil - a country that had the chance to choose a Parliamentary System with mixed district electoral system but two popular and important parties of the left decided to join the opposing team and sided with the most corrupt political parties at the time and we ended up keeping the worst political system (the Presidential System) and a flawed electoral system for the representatives (MPs): the proportional majority system that builds no connection between voters and representatives. Those two parties were the Workers Party (Lula's party, PT) and the Democratic Workers Party (Leonel Brizola's PDT). Brizola was the João Goulart's brother in law and according the 1960s legislation he could not run for the presidency while Goulart was president. The most important cause for the 1964 coup wasn't some mysterious "red menace" - it was the attempts to forcefully change the constitution so Brizola could run for the presidency. The result: Brazil is so effed up I end up spending more time watching news about the US, UK and even Australia than I do watching our national and local news. Well ... perhaps ABC could lend us a hand and, who knows, do a series like this in 2026!)
They were originally, at least in some states, until the Supreme Court struck that down because those states tended to choose their Representatives in blocs that unfairly skewed to one party. Apparently they hadn’t yet figured out proportional representation back then.
In Kentucky, the State Supreme Court acknowledged that voting districts are gerrymandered, but, as was pointed out here, it’s not unconstitutional, so they were upheld.
The US has also seen tremendous population redistribution from blue states to red states, resulting in blue states becoming more blue, and red states becoming more red. I'm not sure how this ever changes.
One thing to note - weirdly shaped districts aren’t necessarily a sign of gerrymandering. Districts can look weird to keep certain communities together. Not that it isn’t a massive problem, it is. But shape isn’t the only metric to look at.
There is a Black Congressman in South Florida in a majority white district so the argument it marginalizes minorities doesn't hold true. Trying to create districts where we pack minorities into one district is pure racism. It isolates them politically and dilutes minority representation. Districts should try to be balanced.
Technically Australian Governments engaged in malapportionment (voter numbers) rather than gerrymandering (boundary manipulation). While the Queensland Bjeke-mander was the most infamous with its zonal differences other Governments indulged. In 1969 the Lib-CP Govt allowed a +/-20% variation meaning some urban electorates had 40% more voters than country. The Playford government in South Africa was also infamous for weighting rural votes. Other governments ensure that conservative land owners (farmers) had more say in electing Upper houses (Vic, WA, SA). Even today in NSW out of 99 seats 33 have to be rural regardless of numbers.
A LITTLE AMERICAN HISTORY: The founding fathers did NOT get along. The southern states were out numbered by the north, both in population (large cities), and number of states. They forsaw packing, and viewed it as a good thing, because it at least guaranteed a seat at the table for the minority.
Yeah I was thinking - Maybe they like a lawn chair, maybe they’re proud of their lawn, and maybe their house looks so nice they naturally didn’t mow their own lawn and no of course you can’t go inside and breath my air.
@@creativeproducer9035 No; I would need to be British to be a member of the Labour Party. Are you British? Is that why you imagined you could say that and be taken seriously. I’m not a member of any party, including Labor.
Hey Colorado’s first just includes the unpopulated Denver international airport. (Big empty square in the upper right) since it’s basically the borders of the city!
I'm still on minute 20 and I hope there will be talk of how districting can be done (if that's possible) in a purely mathematical way. I don't think it can be done, though, and the only solution (imho) is the mixed system: half the seats come from districts and half come from the whole state.
This is only a problem in settler states like US, AUS, Can, etc. In India the states and even districts within the state organically rose throughout history and thus they are natural entities so these problems are easy to deal with. In the USA Hawaii is the only state that geographically really makes sense to exist. Outside that the rest of the states, counties, districts, etc. are mostly essentially just lines drawn with little regards to history or geography. Some of them match up pretty well though like Illinois almost perfectly corresponds to the former lands of the Illiwek Confederacy.
No,.I don't want Australia to be like Amercia and it seems strange that you would want the same. The only place where Gerrymandering occurred in Australia was with Sir Joe Bjelko-Petersen in Queensland. He rigged the state electoral commission in the same way that it was done in the USA, and did packing/staking throughout the state. Corruption flourished and he remained in power for a very long time.
Vote early and vote often was coined by the Democrats in the 19th century. I have heard it used in Australia by Labor campaign workers in the 1960s along with an explanation about how to go about it. Useful only in a marginal seat as it will add only a few hundred votes at the best. Most leftwing parties view democracy as an aberration. Venezuela merely the latest leftist government to switch to dictatorship.
Interesting show. Just wanted to say though as a neurodiverse person I found the music overwhelmingly loud and the camera zoom jolts very distracting. Accessibility was not great.
Still waiting for what when your comment just demonstrated that you haven’t touched the start arrow. What are your employers, Blitz Canvassing is it? going to think about that. Slackarsing. I guess they weren’t paying enough. They never do.
Good god. Talk Ranked Choice Voting! It’s at least as much a ballot issue as a districting issue. “Hitler had some good ideas” Mary Miller from southern Illinois defeated a moderate primary opponent when their districts were merged. Australian style ballots would have mitigated that threat.
