new instagram app for children. the photo sharing platform is owned by facebook and has been heavily criticized over a lack of safety controls for young users. us politicians and campaigners had urged the company to drop its plans for the new app, which would target children between the ages of $10.12. ah. now reminder of the top stories on al jazeera, germany's social democrats have claimed election victory. now lean beating the block of outgoing chancellor, angular merkel, whose c d u party has been the dominant political force in the country for 3 decades. i'll show says his s p. d party is ready to form a new coalition government with the greens and the free democrats. the s p d is predicted to win 25.7 percent of the vote. the villa villa

of sic loggers of tory, had spoken very clearly. they said who should form the next government, the strength and 3 parties, the social democrats, the greens and f d p. this is therefore the clear mandate that the citizens of this country have given these tree should form the next government in san tension is the clean between the military and civilian factions. of the transitional government. it was created under a power sharing deal to oversee the countries move to democracy. but protests there is say they want the administration dissolve, the choosing the military of tried to seize power. the armed forces have accused the civilian politicians of failing to govern properly. the international criminal court prosecutor wants to resume a war crimes investigation is we're gonna stop focusing on the actions of the taliban and the isis k group. the investigation was put on hold by the african government last year. meanwhile, the norwegian refugee council is warning about the impending humanitarian

catastrophe that africans are facing the council. the secretary general young ag land says hundreds of thousands of afghans will urgently need housing, food, and clothing to survive the winter ahead. people on the eastern coast of la paloma have been ordered to stay in doors as lava from an abrupt in volcano, in the west approaches the water and releases toxic gas. hundreds of buildings have been destroyed so far on the spanish island since the eruption began. 8 days ago now, nearly 7000 people have been forced to leave their homes. those are the top stories that stay with us. the stream is coming up next asking if gerrymandering is ruining us politics. and i'll have more news for you here on half an hour and half, and we'll see you then bye bye. mm

ah, hi of m e r k today on the stream legal vote rigging. kind of, we're going to be looking at the way that some politicians in the us aside across the strategy to make sure votes go in their favor by re shaping voting districts. this is known as gerrymandering. i have so many questions for our panel. i'm sure you have as well. if you're on youtube, you can jump to the comment section to be part of today shows me hello david. hello, walter. hello, katie. okay. have you here? i'm really looking forward to picking your brain to talk about gerrymandering and

all of the things associated with it. but 1st of all, david, please introduce yourself to audience who you are and what you do. hi, my name is david dailey, i've written 2 books on the redistricting, including one called while your vote doesn't count other called unreal. tell americans are battling back to save democracy. i'm a senior fellow at fair, but get to have you had i was a please introduce yourself drive us around the world. i am one of the co chairs of the maryland citizens redistricting commission, which brings together citizen, voluntarily more on the state of maryland to redraw our state's district. i'm also a senior fellow at the cato institute. good to have you and katie. i love you on the, shall tell everybody why introduce yourself. hi, i'm katie k. here i am, the executive director of an organization called the people. and i started a constitutional amendment to change how re districting happened in my state of michigan so that we could end gerrymandering. all right,

so i'm going to give you 2 assignments, david gerrymandering, katie redistricting, all right in 30 seconds. david g start. sure redistricting is a great idea. busy right, because populations change and people die and new voters come into the system. so you want every district to be equal. the trouble is when you are politicians, draw those lines and determine where they go. they can create lines that favor their own side. that's when redistricting becomes gerrymandering, and it has become what used to be a dark arch in american politics has become a dark science. katie your take? yes. and because they live in a representative democracy, that means that we get to elect people who represent us in our state capitols as well as in washington, d. c. who those representatives are and which of your neighbors have the same representative is the process of re districting the lines of this or

a man who is your representative get changed once every 10 years at our nation does expenses so it equates for different population shifts and theoretically, it should be how we actually get accountability for our community being represented in the state capital and in washington dc. i love that we're the radically water pick up when it because what happens? well, what happens in practice and this has been going on for a long time, is that the leadership of the legislature goes behind closed doors and they decide who their friends are and who their enemies are. and they give districts to their friends that they can win and ought to their enemy, you know, they give districts, they can't win. so you can benefit your party. by doing this, you can get revenge for old quarles by writing your worst rival out of his or her district. it is full of opportunities for mischief. i used to work. yeah. i,

i was talking to my produce a little bit early on and i said it's sneaky and shot. oh, i don't think we should do sneaky. what's a better word or a sneaky, a good word to use. i think 6 is a perfectly good word because what happens says they do this in secret and then they announced the mouth at usually too late for the public to have much of the same about it. and so we found in maryland, when we were doing our hearings, that this had been used to take revenge on particular people buy from sample, drawing the district. so i had a finger of land, so it didn't include their house. so legally they couldn't rock, they couldn't run in their old district because there had been a little line drawn around their house, so they weren't legally entitled to run into anymore. it's crazy, but they do it. i said, i'm going to just show in, tell this is from fair about fair. so i'm going to show you of my laptop, and we're going to go through these 3 graphics just very simply. so what do we have

in number one, this 1st graphic here? well i think what you are seeing here is that if you've got 60 percent of the people in 60 percent of them are on team blue and then the other 40 percent is on team read, you would imagine that if, if things were drawn evenly, right, you would also then have a $6040.00 a result, but the way that lines are drawn can determine winners and losers. and that's what is so dangerous about gerrymandering. you could draw these lines in such a way that you have 5, a blue districts and 0 red district, or you could draw them in some wild other ways that even creates 3 blue yesterday rack a even though there's 60 percent red eye. and this is how communities get cracked and it's also how maps no longer become responsive to partisan changes. so you could just slice it, sort of evenly like a cake or you could do and i can no,

but here you can have to cherry. you can have this big junk tie t that is, that is very strange. how did you experience that kate bring divided up in a very bizarre way? well, there's actually an example right by my house where on one street there are 6 houses and they are in 3 different house of representative districts. so those people, their kids ride the same school west, they have very similar concerns. they have the same water, the same services, and when they go to vote, they are voting for 3 separate people, even though they live on the same street. and that is one of the ways that even practically, it can be really confusing and hard to understand who your representative is because of gerrymandering. i did say to audience that you can be part of the conversation you on youtube. so let's go to the huge comment here. this is from 72 marsh flour 15 especially given that they count prison population in rural areas. the prison is on allowed to vote for that's partisan. strange that's happening in redistricting and home is says jerry,

managing is based on political discrimination. the minority it discriminates against it's the political minority was that you want to go on that 1st on that you can get all of your wellness guess i will because on the 1st point, my state of maryland, i believe, was the 1st one to enact a law in response to that potential on turner to of rural areas with persons having much more representation than they would otherwise because they count the prisoners even though they can vote. so we passed the law to redistribute those people back to the community. as they have lived i it's a little bit more paperwork, but all our lead place she saw that it's for nanda. second point. it's let me pass it on actually to the others. on january, danny had a sure i'm happy to jump in there. i think that's what we have seen in this country over the course of the last decade or so is that the technology has become so good

as these mapmakers draw their lines that they are able to your, your commenter is concerned about a majority discriminating against the minority of voters, and i think that what we have come to see is that some of our most competitive states are most 5050 states, places like pennsylvania and ohio, michigan states that are ordinarily, very, very competitive have been drawn in such a way that even a majority of citizens cannot change their own legislature when they stand together . after our 2018 elections, there were 59000000 americans who lived in a state where one or both chambers of the state legislature were controlled by the party that one fewer votes that year. that's nearly one and 6 of us. so i think that one of the dangers of gerrymandering is that it has exacerbated minority rule

case. yeah. and i, i would miss add to that that, you know, the foundation of a representative democracy is that the voters should be able to hold the government accountable. when these lines are drawn in such a way that they are pre determining who is going to win. and what party is going to win because they've looked at the math and they've seen okay, we're guaranteeing this many kind of them. voter that we want is here and this view number of voters are over here. then people can on the left, ineffective representative. or if a representative is going and trying to make sure that maybe there's somebody of the same party rang again. and they are looking at where the other house is of that competitor and drawing them out of the district. you're also having incumbents who are deciding that they want to rule regardless of how the voters feel, which is the complete opposite spirit of why we even have a democratic republic in this country. and let me look. yeah, let me say a word about polarization also because in a cleverly don jury mentor, you will take the opposition part of the part of that is out of power. and you will

pack their voters. you will find where they live in. you'll draw districts just to run them in and make those, let's say a quarter or a 3rd of the districts in the set. now it's very good for winning yourself the majority. but that means that the minority party, they're the, they out there, people are very concentrated and they tend to become work stream. because the legislators that are locked in that party have to listen to this super, an ideological function of voters in their best. they don't get the benefit of being in an electorate that has more people from both sides. and so this contributes, i think, to what has been seen in the polarization of american politics, in which there are fewer people wanting toward the center of the political spectrum . and there is a very crude and description of what packing means. so you put the voters of color into district. so they oversee when those 2 districts, for instance. but then all of the other districts around them will then become non

districts of color. they basically white and black. yes, it can work very much that way. and of course it can also work with, let's say, liberal versus conservative. if it's the conservatives doing the mapping, they may tech college towns for example, that, you know, traditionally very liberal. and, you know, maybe they'll draw a district that has all the college con strung together and they get rid of a lot of their most committed voters into one district. so you pack your opponents software and what you are luck with. it will often have a working majority of your own voters, even if you're on voters or not a majority. and don't said david, how we tackle this? if, if i'm, i'm going to play t, you some thoughts about gerrymandering and the impact on communities of color haven't listened to the video and they mediately respond. that's take a look. redistricting is when we reach our political boundaries to account for population shift we see in the census every 10 years. but at its core redistricting

is about power. that's why every cycle we see some groups registered, puget, we manipulate or jerry mander, the process to increase their own power at the expense of others. they'll do this by dividing those other groups into multiple districts so that they can collectively use their power or by packing them up into one district so that they don't have a voice in multiple districts. that most often happens the communities of color and not having their communities voices heard effects the laws that are possible to be passed in the direction that our entire country is going to take. so we would encourage community to come together organize, make sure that their voices are heard during the redistricting process to ensure that our country moves forward in more fear and just and equitable way. i think that's exactly right. i mean, i think that we are a multiracial nation. the last u. s. census showed it and we are going to see through this redistricting process, whether it's possible for us to become a multi racial democracy,

which i'm not sure we've ever had great success with in the history of our nation. you could see this in texas just today when the new congressional maps were announced there. the population growth in texas has been driven by communities of color, 95 percent of the population growth there. that one the state an additional 2 seats in congress. this cycle was driven by latino, asian, and other population growth. and yet what you see on the maps that were drawn today is that actually the number of white majority seats increases. the number of latino seats decreases and the number of black majority seats moves from one to 0. that is just how powerful these lines can be. i think the important part to really remember as part of that is that when politicians are drawing these lines, they are just thinking about the election and they are thinking about how do i get

at a guaranteed 51 percent of the vote. they don't care then about the other 49 percent of the people who are living in their district and what, how that really impacts minorities is they not only don't have a person of color who's representing them and who, who has shared worldview. they're thinking about their perspective in office, but you now have a representative who feels pretty sure that for the next 10 years they can actually ignore that community. and they only have to keep their base happy. they are actually looking at all of the constituents that they represent, which again, i would say goes against kind of that core piece of what our democracy supposed to be. you should be looking out for the communities that you are representing, not just a voter of one type or another. yes, i have so many questions for you. want to hold that thought, if you, if you, if you, if you would let me give you this point to andrew because everybody can see that you've got so much excellent knowledge. i guess it's nice to have you here. andrew says this has been discussed for years. how is it that nothing changes water you

take that the question is always who can change it? and at the state level of, in most states, you have to go to the state legislature and ask them to change their law to deprive themselves the power. most of them say no, that's why most of the interesting reforms that have gotten to in the last 20 years have gotten to, to the so called initiative process in which voters in california and other states can sign petitions to put a law on the ballot. well, that's a way of getting around the politicians and as far as congress goes, congress has some powers under our constitution. it hasn't used them for reasons that i guess could be hard to explain or could be easy to explain what i'm scared to say. try may be, you know, people don't realize, but for a period of american history, ah, there was actually a law passed by congress, totally constitutional saying the districts had to be compact. now we haven't

introduced that word yet, but it's a huge difference between reasonable districts and unreasonable districts is that if they're compact or more likely not to be a journeyman or well, they could pass that again. but again, the question is, can you get a majority of the house of representatives to vote for something that might make it a little less likely for them to get reluctant? i that's why i like the idea of the public learning about this. putting pressure on their representatives, saying, we know that you're letting this go on. we want to stop. i got another question on new chips and good questions you to keep them coming. is there anyone, any party that defends gerrymandering? david. everyone's because what i didn't say, what i should have said earlier, is that republicans, deborah amanda, and democratic stir. rhonda some parties though, back to rotate than others payment on to the question. we have had gerrymandering

in this country as long as we've had politicians. mosquito, you can trace it back to, you know, patrick henry trying to cherry manage games. madison out of our very 1st congress. it gets its name from eldridge gary who was the governor of massachusetts back in 1812. his party tries to draw the state senate seats around boston in such a way that a political cartoonist bought. they looked like a salamander, and the jerry mender was born in port eldridge goes down in infamy. what i would say is that in many ways, from patrick henry's time, all the way up until 2000. in many ways, what you had was the minor leagues of gerrymandering. you had politicians who were trying to draw lines that kept themselves in their pals in in power. walter often calls this a buddy mander, which is a term i love, and i'm thrilled that i was able to sneak and 1st ahead of him. but i think that in, in 2010 something a little bit different happens. and that is in many ways because the technology of

redistricting explodes, the computers that are used are so much more powerful. the math making software is so sophisticated, the big data that's available on all of us, the public data, as well as the private data that is available. you upload all of that into the systems and, and the politicians are able to, to quickly draw these districts that go up and down streets picking which voters they want and which ones they do not. in previous decades. we've seen that, jerry manders would sometimes lose their power over the course of the decade as politics changed the at is just the faded in as, as new voters came into the system. or as you know, some issue forced the realignment, and what happened over this last decade is the, the power of the lines, especially in state legislatures around the country, never ever weakened. and it's one of the reasons why i fear for the cycle we're

about to enter. now, one more question. i'm going to put it to katie. excuse me, water. sorry about that. from youtube. can you legislate this away? i'm asking katie because katie did exactly that. tell us just story very briefly katie. yes. so i was really frustrated knowing about gerrymandering. and i actually made a facebook post one day saying, hey, i want to end gerrymandering in michigan if you want to help. let me know smiley face at the time. what i didn't realize is that in michigan, citizens can actually write laws themselves, gather a bunch of signatures for us. that was a little over 400000. and then the people can directly vote on whether they want to change that or not. and when it comes to gerrymandering, there's kind of 3 main parts you want to change. but one is who draws the lines right now. the politicians in office are literally getting to pick and choose who they want their voters to be. so we shifted that to an independent commission of citizens that have democrats, republicans, independence,

and are not at all in the political space. the 2nd way is you want to change what is the criteria for how you draw those lines. so walter brought up compactness. that is an example of a criteria. we also could directly say that gerry mandarin should be made illegal. so our state constitution now thanks to millions of michiganders who voted yes that we needed to change this. it now is a legal to guarantee our draw these lines in a way that will advantage or disadvantage one political party or one candidate over another. and the last part is you can make it so that the data that's used you can actually track, instead of in many states with the legislators, are literally hiding in bunkers, letting people know the data or why the master drawn. and you can actually require that they have to go around the state and talk to the public, which is the other thing that we did. i'm going to bring one more voice into our conversation gas and that is the voice of brady. she is because because brady is talking about for a form, have a listen and then i really would like your very brief points on what could be done

better. because the map has to be drawn some way. doesn't his brady, i think when he made his left on it, the re districting debate and why such a contentious issue in the 1st place? stems from the fact that the number of seats in the house is honestly quite arbitrary. as it stands now, there are 435 members of the house and to remain that way since 1929. yet the population be united states is number 3 times and that of what it was. 929, number of representatives hasn't kept up the pace. i think it's time to have a serious discussion of increasing the numbers in the house. and one instance where you can see these deleterious effects, as in my home said it worked and saw wherever a 3rd of our population, both for the democratic party and of our 4 congressional districts. 0, represent by democrat increasing the number of foods in the house makes it harder for parties to draw maps that wouldn't danger themselves. and when sure, fair and accurate representation for all. so let me show you some agreed you

example is the modern gerrymandering. so rather than being compact his guess you for is this what up compact these, these districts are all over the place. how? how is this even a district in north carolina district of a 12 that is bizarre. so what do we do in order to change that briefly? water, you start? katy put her finger on criteria. you want things that just can enforce. compactness is pretty good. that way. not breaking county lines or steady lines is pretty good that way because the judges can measure it with numbers. in maryland, we go pretty far with our experiment with the citizens commission, which is we are forbidden to look even at voter registration numbers about party. we are forbidden to look at past election results or at the residence of an individual. now that strong medicine for keeping politics out of the process. but we're going to move on to

a very quick need to go ahead. i think we need to rethink our entire process and our process sort of look a whole lot more like those around the world do with the larger multi member districts that use rank choice voting to elect a number of representatives. i think you're, you're viewer was absolutely right when they talk about how 100 percent of the members and states like arkansas or massachusetts, or kansas or connecticut are red or blue. but all of the citizens are not. and that contributes to polarization as well. and i think if we had a more proportional system, we'd have better politics. and finally, katie, i think so this in should be driving these decisions. we live in a country that is supposed to have the people at the center, but the people being the ones to decide how our government is run and citizens should be deciding how many representatives do we think is there, how many districts do we feel like gives us accurate representation so that our concerns and our tax dollars that go and pay our politicians can be distributed in

a way that we think aligns and actually gives us good government and actually gives us representation. katie was said, david, thank you so much for talking to the stream about gerrymandering, redistricting and reform, and we give the last words to shelby shelby. i love what you suggested on youtube, provide people with tools to advocate for themselves and their communities. i'm going to wrap up now. thanks for watching. i'll see you next time. take everybody. ah,

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l g 0. when ever you write down to the r g. hello, barbara, sarah, london. these are the top stories on al jazeera, germany's centre left social democrats have claimed victory in sunday's federal election. the parties leader says he is ready for coalition talks with the greens and the free democratic party. the governing conservative party saw its popularity fall after chancellor angler merkel decided to step down. it's the 1st time in 16.