This Clever Game Will Teach You A Thing Or Two About Gerrymandering

Primers and explainers on partisan redistricting, a.k.a. gerrymandering, tend to pop up around elections as a sad reminder that many "fair" and "representative" democracies don't live up to those descriptors. Gerrymandering is unconstitutional… on paper. In just a few weeks, the United States Supreme Court will hear an appeal of a Wisconsin decision to reject a voting map for gerrymandering — the only rejection of its kind for over three decades.

With that in the news, there's no better time to play District, a free in-browser game by Christopher Walker.

District plays out across ten small chapters that illustrate the growing pains of a two-party democracy (in this case, red and blue just represent favorite colors, so check your IRL political associations at the door). In the first few stages, the population is small enough that you can't chop up the map in unfair ways.

Of course, at a certain size your chosen party wins and is tasked with drawing the districts. Then you can start packing your opponent voters into inefficient districts and cracking up the rest such that you win more seats, even with a minority — just like real life. Fun!

Actually though, District is super satisfying. It scratches a similar itch to the mobile game "Flow," and thanks to the easy-to-use level editor there's more gleeful gerrymandering to do after you've gotten to the game's end. Walker has extended the life of his creation by posting challenging levels to Twitter (I haven't successfully completed this map for a blue win).

At the end of the game, Walker provides links to groups that advocate for proportional representation. When you consider that eleven states are entered into the National Popular Vote compact, we might not be that far from seeing big changes to voting in America at the state and national levels. If voting gets a little more fair, then maybe enjoying a game about gerrymandering won't have so much of a "guilty pleasure" tinge to it.

[District]

Want to have more fun learning-by-doing? Check out these interactive music theory lessons.