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The algorithm that could help end partisan gerrymandering - Video học tiếng Anh
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The algorithm that could help end partisan gerrymandering
The algorithm that could help end partisan gerrymandering
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Phụ đề (46)
0:01
Every 10 years after the Census, states redraw the borders of their legislative districts.
0:07
In most states, politicians get to control that process,
0:10
And if they’re clever about how the districts are drawn...
0:13
they can make it easier for their own party to win more of them.
0:16
It’s called “partisan gerrymandering” and it’s bad for democracy, but the Supreme
0:21
Court hasn’t intervened in decades.
0:23
the Supreme Court has yet to settle on a standard or definition of political fairness.
0:27
They just simply don't want to declare a partisan gerrymander without some way to measure them.
0:31
That’s what Cho’s research team is trying to fix...with a supercomputer.
0:36
[Vox] So we're trying to build a measurement tool
0:38
to help the court measure whether political parties have manipulated a map to gain an
0:42
unfair advantage.
0:43
In other words, they’re making a gerrymandering ruler.
0:46
So when you re-district there's a phenomenal degree of possible manipulation.
0:50
Almost any shape you want to make is possible.
0:52
That’s led to a bunch of oddly shaped districts.
0:55
The court wants to be able to determine the intent behind the district maps.
0:59
Basically they want to read the mind of the map drawer.
1:01
It doesn't have any way to do this.
1:03
The team started developing their tool by identifying what criteria are important to
1:07
the court.
1:08
Some criteria are required by law for instance we have to have about the same
1:12
number people in every district,
1:13
and all districts have to be contiguous.
1:16
Contiguous means they can’t be broken up into a bunch of pieces, with some exceptions.
1:20
The court wants districts to preserve political subdivisions like cities, counties, municipal
1:25
boundaries...
1:26
Whenever you find an identifiable community of like minded individuals, the court likes
1:30
it when those people are kept together in the same district.
1:33
Wendy’s team is using a supercomputer to generate district maps based on those criteria.
1:39
so we can create a million or billion maps using only the criteria required by law, and
1:43
the traditional districting principles.
1:44
And we don't use any political information.
1:47
... So these are by definition non partisan maps because they don't use political information.
1:51
If the current map doesn’t look like any of the possibilities generated by the algorithm...
1:56
That’s a good indication a partisan gerrymander has occurred.
1:58
If a billion of these different possible nonpartisan maps are really different from the map the
2:03
court is evaluating then the Supreme Court has some evidence that partisanship was part
2:07
of the motivation behind the alleged partisan gerrymander.
2:11
If we then have a computer draw another billion maps where we we actually code in partisan
2:14
information in addition to these other criteria that the court likes and those maps actually
2:18
appear similar to the map in question then the Supreme Court can rightly infer partisan
2:22
motivation.
2:24
Right now, there’s no guarantee that this particular algorithm will ever be used as
2:28
evidence in a court argument.
2:29
But a handful of cases could be heard by the Court this year.
