I just played the coolest game ever: The ReDistricting Game. If you like the lame MS Minefield game, then you're going to love this one. You pick your political party (Republican or Democrat), and you engage in hardcore gerrymandering.Gerrymandering, if you're not familiar with the term, is what politicians (like our various Congressional House Representatives) do to concentrate partisan votes in a geographic zone. These zones are not determined by streets, but rather by population and party affiliation. Simply put, congressional districts get reorganized in order to consolidate electoral votes. These votes matter come election time, and it could be said that the person who draws the district has more political power than the campaign manager or the average Joe Sixpack casting his vote at the neighborhood polling center.
The game is pretty cool in that you are able to work out different scenarios of gerrymandering. I take it as a chance to see the cognitive processes involved in such a venture, so that you're a more informed voter/American. This way you don't feel like you got screwed out of an election - you'll know it was completely out of your hands thanks to g-manding! Yay!
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