I don't know if you have heard of "Adam Ruins Everything" a series of telecasts that may have started out on YouTube but now seem to be part of "TruTv". Any comedian who attracts me, a 17 year old, and a couple of senior citizen is worth knowing about.
My great grandson showed me an Adam Ruins Everything video before the last presidential election. Adam Conover is listed on the web as an "investigative comedian" and he really is. The particular video that got my attention is about gerrymandering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5rul6EdF0
I read that Governor Gerry of Massachusetts in 1812 saw a way to draw voting districts so that most members of his opposition were in a single voting district while drawing several districts around his supporters. The result looked quite suspicious and somebody said the overall result looked like a salamander. Somebody else said, no, it was a "geerymander".
Adam ran through his explanation a bit too fast for me but he did alert me to the possibility that district drawing can change a minority into a majority using only district boundaries as a tool. This graphic from the Washington Post shows how to take a 60-40 split between two sets of votes and allow the smaller group to win. Take a look. It is all in the way you slice the pie:
The League of Women Voters and the Supreme Court both are paying attention to geometric gymnastics aimed at making the lesser the greater.
