Haley Smith

Math 1030

February 19,2020

Voting theory project

Part 1: The Iowa Caucuses. The Iowa Caucuses tend to be defined as “gathering of

neighbors”. The Iowa Caucuses are an electoral event that includes the members of the

deomocratic and republican parties. According to google, “Members of a political party or

subgroup may meet to coordinate members' actions, choose group policy, or nominate candidates

for various offices”. Instead of voting by using ballots, this method has everybody gather at a

local meeting place to discuss and vote on a candidate, as a team. These meetings tend to occur

at churches, schools, libraries, or participants houses (if willing). During the presidential and the

midterm elections, Iowans vote based on which group they are registered as a member. Caucuses

are held to select delegates to conventions and may other party activities. The Iowa caucuses

have been put down in history as the first major contest of the United States presidential primary

season. Because they are the first, it impacts the later races and provides a sort of advantage for

all other contests. People who do not do well within a couple days of the caucuses, tend to drop

out of the competition. This year, the Iowa Caucuses took place on February third. The

democratic party noticed many difficulties and errors while reporting final votes. Because of the

chaos, the democratic party chair, Troy Price resigned nine days later. This year's winning votes:

Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders both had a 26.2%, Elizabeth Warren had 18%, and finally, Joe

Biden got 15.8%.

 Part 2:

1. How many people voted? 100

2. Who wins plurality? T

3. Instant runoff:

19 6 36 39

1 B B C T

2 C C B C

3 T T T B

Repeat
19 6 36 39

1 C C C T

2 T T T C

Winner= C
4. Borda Count:

○ B: 205

○ R: 306

○ C: 272

○ T: 217

5. Winner= R

6. Copeland method:

○ B: 1
 ○ R: 3

○ C: 2

○ T: 0

7. Who wins? R

8. Is there a condorcet candidate? Yes, R

Part 3: Based on the many different methods to choose from, I decided to pick the winner

from the borda count method. According to the Wikipedia page for the borda count, “In Borda's

original proposal, the number of points given to candidates for each ranking is determined by the

number of candidates standing in the election. If there are five candidates in an election,

candidates will receive five points each time they are ranked first, four for being ranked second,

and so on, with a candidate receiving one point for being ranked last”. Then you multiply the

number of times your candidate got preferred with the place it ranked. Because I chose the borda

method, the winner is R. If I chose a different method, I believe that I would choose the

condorcet method. According to the Wikipedia page for the condorcet method, “A Condorcet

method is a voting system that will always elect the Condorcet winner (if there is one); this is the

candidate whom voters prefer to each other candidate, when compared to them one at a time.

This candidate can be found by conducting a series of pairwise comparisons, using the procedure

given in Robert's Rules of Order. For example, with 5 candidates there are 4 pairwise

comparisons to be made, since after each comparison, a candidate is eliminated, and after 4

elimination, only one of the original 5 candidates will remain”. If I would have chosen the

condorcet method, I still would have gotten R as a winner.