Voting: Issues, Problems, and Systems. Voting I 1/36

Voting: Issues, Problems, and Systems Voting I 1/36

Each even year every member of the house is up for election and about a third of the senate seats are up for grabs. Most people do not realize that there is mathematics involved in voting, besides counting ballots. Most people also do not realize that there are many different voting systems, used both in the U.S. and in other countries. We will discuss four voting systems and problems with each. We will also conduct several votes and see how they turn out depending on the voting system used. In particular, we ll see that, with close elections, the outcome can depend on which voting system is used. Voting I 2/36

Voting theory has been considered for centuries. However, it appears to have become a concern of theoretical study in the late 1700 s. Jean-Charles de Borda and the Marquis de Condorcet are often credited with founding voting theory. Borda proposed a voting system, which we will study. Condorcet discovered some problems and paradoxes of voting systems, which we will also study. We ll first check out a Simpson s video about voting in the 2008 presidential election. 2008 Voting Voting I 3/36

Plurality Voting The method we use in the U.S. to decide most elections is called Plurality Voting. In this method, a voter chooses one candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins. It is nearly the most simple method of deciding elections. Having a single person (e.g., a dictator) decide who wins would be simpler than plurality voting. However, every other system less simple than plurality voting. Voting I 4/36

Plurality voting satisfies the following three properties: 1 All voters are treated the same. If two voters were to exchange ballots before turning them in, this would not affect the outcome. 2 All candidates are treated the same. If every voter were to reverse their preference for two candidates, the outcome would be reversed. 3 If a single voter were to change their ballot from being for the loser to the winner, and everybody else were to keep their vote the same, the outcome would not change. Kenneth May, an American mathematician, proved in 1952 that plurality voting is the only voting system which satisfies all three of these properties. Voting I 5/36

Clicker Question Do we use plurality voting when we elect a president? A Yes B No C I don t know Voting I 6/36

Answer One place where plurality voting isn t (exactly) used is in the U.S. presidential election. The Electoral College is used. It is true that plurality voting is used in each state, but the final decision of who wins is done through the Electoral College. However, plurality voting is used among electoral college votes to decide the outcome. Voting I 7/36

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution (Abridged)... Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress... The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves.... The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed;... Voting I 8/36

The Electoral College 2012 Voting I 9/36

There are 100 senators, 2 per state. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. Then there are 538 electoral college votes; Washington D.C. gets 3 electoral college votes even though it has no congressional representation. If a presidential candidates receives at least 270 electoral college votes, they ll have more than half, so will win the election. The balance of electoral college votes depends on the population of the country. Each ten years a census is conducted, and the number of electoral college votes a state has can change. The map on the previous page shows the change from 2000 to 2010. Voting I 10/36

Elections with Two Candidates If an election has just two candidates, there isn t much of an issue. It turns out that every reasonable voting system will give the same outcome, so using plurality voting is the most sensible thing to do. As we will see, complications with this method occur when there are more than two viable candidates. We will look at several examples of elections, how they came out, and how other voting systems would have affected the outcome. Voting I 11/36

Red or Green? Which do you prefer? A Green Chile B Red Chile Voting I 12/36

Elections with Three or More Candidates There are many situations where an election has more than two candidates. Democratic and Republican state primaries are just two such examples. Even the U.S. presidential election has had more than two candidates who received a fair portion of the votes. This happened in 1992 and in 2000. In both cases the presence of a third party candidate likely affected the outcome of the election. Voting I 13/36

Let s Have a Vote With More Than 2 Candidates Use your clicker to vote for one of the following Avengers characters. A Hulk B Thor C Capt. America D Iron Man E Black Widow Voting I 14/36

Some Examples of Plurality Voting Perhaps the election which most clearly shows issues with plurality voting is the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election. In that election, Jesse Ventura defeated Hubert Humphrey III and Norm Coleman. Voting I 15/36

Jesse The Body Ventura Jessie Ventura was a pro wrestler and actor before he turned to politics. Voting I 16/36

Some Movie Trivia Ventura acted in the 1987 movie Predator. The star of the movie was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went on to become Governor of California in 2003. It remains to be seen if any other actor from the movie will be elected Governor of some state. At least one other actor from the movie has run for governor. Voting I 17/36

Back to the Election In the 1998 Minnesota governors race, Jessie Ventura defeated Hubert Humphrey III and Norm Coleman. Ventura received 37% of the vote to Coleman s 35% and Humphrey s 28%. Most of those who did not vote for Ventura, when polled after the election, indicated their strong disapproval of the election of Ventura. Thus, nearly 2/3 of the voters were unhappy with the outcome. A variant of plurality voting is to have runoff elections. In the main election, if no candidate receives over 50% of the votes, the top two candidates compete in a runoff election, and the candidate who gets the most votes in the runoff is elected. Many countries use runoffs to decide presidential elections. Voting I 18/36

Runoff elections are used in many places in the U.S., including statewide elections. Lots of cities also use runoff elections. If Minnesota used a runoff election, then Coleman and Ventura would have competed. Coleman would have almost certainly been elected in this case. In addition, if it were a two person race between Ventura and Coleman, then Ventura would surely have lost. Voting I 19/36

If voters had ranked the candidates, then Coleman would have been preferred head to head against either candidate. In this case Coleman is called a Condorcet winner. A voting system satisfies the Condorcet winner criterion if the Condorcet winner, if there is one, always wins the election. The Minnesota election shows that plurality voting therefore does not satisfy the Condorcet winner criterion. Voting I 20/36

An Example Suppose we have the following election between three candidates: Votes Rank 1 1 1 First A B C Second B C A Third C A B Then there is no Condorcet winner since A beats B head to head, B beats C head to head, while C beats A head to head. So, no matter who is elected, 2/3 of the public prefers somebody else to the winner. This is called the Condorcet voting paradox, meaning that, collectively, A can be preferred to B, who is preferred to C, but C is preferred to A. Symbolically, A > B > C > A. Voting I 21/36

The 1992 and 2000 Presidential Elections Third party candidates affected the U.S. presidential election in significant ways in both 1992 and 2000. In 1992, the main candidates were George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote, Bush received 37%, and Perot 19%. Since Perot s support came mostly from Republicans, it could be that his presence in the race cost Bush the election. Voting I 22/36

In 2000, the main candidates were George W. Bush, Al Gore, and Ralph Nader. Bush won 47.9% of the popular vote, Gore won 48.4%, and Nader 2.7%. The election came down to Florida. In Florida Bush received 2,912,790 votes, Gore received 2,912,253 votes, and Nader 97,488. Out of 6 million votes in Florida, Bush and Gore were separated by only 637 votes. Since Nader s support came mostly from Democrats, his presence probably cost Gore from winning Florida, which then cost him the election. Voting I 23/36

Other voting systems We will discuss three other voting systems, each of which is used in various places. They all have voters rank all the candidates rather than vote for just a single candidate. These systems are the Borda count, Sequential Pairwise Voting, and the Hare (or instant runoff) system. Voting I 24/36

The Borda Count The Borda count, created by Jean-Charles de Borda, is commonly used in sports, along with being used in a few countries. For example, it is used to pick the Heisman Trophy winner, the most valuable player in professional baseball, and make to various NCAA rankings. In this system voters rank order the candidates. If there are n candidates, each first place vote is worth n 1 points, each second place vote is worth n 2 points, and so on, down to 0 points for last place votes. The person who received the most points wins the election. Voting I 25/36

For example, suppose that there are three candidates, which we will list as A, B, and C. Suppose that 60% lists A first, B second, and C third, and the remaining 40% lists C first, B second, and A third. To make the arithmetic easier, let s assume there are 10 ballots. Number of Voters Rank 6 4 First A C Second B B Third C A With 3 candidates, a first place vote gets 2 points, a second place vote gets 1 point, and a third place vote gets 0 points. Voting I 26/36

Clicker Question Q How many points does A receive? Number of Voters Rank 6 4 First A C Second B B Third C A A Candidate A receives 2 points for each of his 6 first place votes, and 0 for each of the 4 third place votes. His total is then 12 points. Voting I 27/36

Clicker Question Q How many points does B receive? Number of Voters Rank 6 4 First A C Second B B Third C A A Candidate B receives 1 point each for all of her 10 second place votes. She then has a total of 10 points. Voting I 28/36

Clicker Question Q How many points does C receive? Number of Voters Rank 6 4 First A C Second B B Third C A A Candidate C receives 2 points each for all of his 4 first place votes. He then has a total of 8 points. A then wins the election by having 12 points while B and C have 10 and 8, respectively. Voting I 29/36

This example shows a flaw in the Borda count. Suppose that the 4 voters who rated C > B > A instead vote B > C > A. This gives the following chart: Number of Voters Rank 6 4 First A B Second B C Third C A Note that nobody switched their preference between A and B. Voting I 30/36

Clicker Question Q Who gets elected with this set of votes? Number of Voters Rank 6 4 First A B Second B C Third C A A Now B has 6 1 + 4 2 = 14 points, while A has 6 2 + 4 0 = 12 and C has 1 4 = 4, so B is elected. Voting I 31/36

This example shows that the Borda count does not satisfy the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives: It is impossible for a non-winning candidate B to change to winner unless at least one voter reverses the order in which they listed B and the winner. Voting I 32/36

Using Borda with the Marvel Comics Ballot Rank the five Marvel Comic characters. With your clicker, enter your top-ranked character. The characters are Iron Man (A), Captain America (B), The Hulk (C), Thor (D), and Black Widow (E). Now enter your second-ranked character. Enter your third-ranked character. Enter your fourth-ranked character. We ll see who won the election with the Borda count. Voting I 33/36

Using the Different Voting Systems Let s have another vote where we rank the candidates. We ll see who wins with each of the systems we ve studied. Our candidates are the four Beatles, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Voting I 34/36

We ll analyze the vote next time. In order to use the different systems we need to rank the four Beatles. To enter your vote, enter four letters using the first letter (J, P, G, R) of the four Beatles names. Enter them in the order you prefer them. For example, entering JPGR means you prefer John, then Paul, then George, then Ringo. There are 24 possible ways to order the four Beatles; this is why we ll analyze the vote next time rather than today. Voting I 35/36

Next Time Next time we ll look at two more voting systems, Sequential Pairwise Voting and the Hare System. We ll interpret the Beatles vote with all the systems, do some more voting, and look further at the 1992 and 2000 presidential elections. Voting I 36/36