Jana Behm Math 320 July 7, 2010

 Voting Systems and how they can effect outcomes  *Majority Rule  *Plurality Voting  *Electoral College

*Straight forward *Excellent for choosing between 2 candidates *Most votes wins *No single vote counts more than any other *Potential problem: TIES (usually broken in some pre-arranged way) *Another potential problem: difficult in a multi- party system

*More than 2 alternatives in an election *Simply count the number of 1 st place votes *Possible that no candidate has the majority of the votes cast

*Majority voting: simple majority >Votes cast: 100 with 2 candidates– winner needs a simple majority which is (100/2) +1 or 51 votes to win the election. *Plurality voting: simple math >Votes cast: 100 with 3 candidates – winner simply needs the most votes, not necessarily a majority of the votes cast.

Example: 1992 US Presidential Election  Total VotesClintonBushPerot  104,425,01444,909,32639,103,88219,741, %37.45%18.91% Therefore Clinton was the winner, but did not receive the majority of the votes cast Source:

*Each state is given an electoral numbers which equals the number of US representatives + the 2 senators that they have *How are the representatives divided? *Is this fair? *2009 estimates US population to be 307,006,550 people

State Population % of US pop Electoral votes % of electoral votes MT % % IA % % IL % % FL % % NY % % TX % % CA % % US Population = 307,006,550Electoral votes possible: 538 Source for population numbers:

2000 Presidential Election Candidate Popular Vote % Electoral Vote % George W. Bush 50,460, % % Albert Gore Jr. 51,003, % % Neither candidate had a simple majority as there were 6 candidates on the ballot. Plurality voting is not in effect in the United States President Bush won 2 large electoral states, but MANY of the smaller states that added up for the electoral win Mr. Gore won largely populated states, but not enough of them for electoral victory. Source:

 There are 538 electoral votes possible  Candidates must get a simple majority  538/2 +1 = 270 votes  Therefore, they can have a simple majority of electoral votes without having a majority of votes cast in an election or even the most votes cast.

 register/electoral-college/calculator.html register/electoral-college/calculator.html  obama_vs_mccain/?map=1 obama_vs_mccain/?map=1

 Does math effect election outcomes?  Can one state change the entire course of an election with as little as 3 electoral votes?  How many configurations of states will give you the 270 needed to win? Are the big states mandatory, or do they just make it easier?