MATH 1030 - Voting Project 2016 Breanna Melton

The Iowa Caucuses

Part I: Research the Iowa Caucuses and explain how they work. Your response should be a
one-page (250-word) narrative. Be sure to include a brief history, how a caucus
differs from a typical primary election, and why the Iowa Caucuses play such an
important role in American presidential elections.

The Iowa Caucuses are much different then any other state, there are no voting
booths, but people gather in schools and libraries to cast their vote. In the
summer, they decide the proportionate delegates each party will have. In
Democratic Caucuses, the committed ones split off and gather in groups of people
who believe their candidate should win while trying to convince their
uncommitted friends and family to come to stand with their preferred candidates.
You must have 15% of caucus goers to stay, if you don’t have at least 15% you
must disband or convince others to come join to make it 15%. The head of the
caucus tallies numbers and calls in the results to headquarters. Republicans just
use paper and call it a secret vote. They write down who their voting for and the
ballots are counted and reported, and they get to go home, making their process
much easier than the democrats. Keep in mind that there are 1681 precincts that
all follow this same procedure which cannot be easy at times. This process
eventually determines the state parties’ delegates to the national convention.
Iowa plays a huge role in deciding who will be a credible candidate as the process
continues, they are the first state to cast ballots in the presidential election. Most
elections across the United States consist of voting booths and electronic ballots,
making things seem much easier, but Iowa is sticking to it’s ways and continuing
with what they’ve been doing for so long.

Part II: Imagine you live in Mason City, Iowa and attend a Republican caucus for Precinct
W1-P2 at the Highland Golf Course. The meeting organizers ask the voters to select
their preferences for four candidates. The following preference schedule
summarizes the results of the poll.
 # Voters 19
6 B R C T 36
39 R B R R
1st
C C B C
2nd
3rd T T T B
4th

B is Jeb Bush, C is Ted Cruz, R is Marco Rubio, and T is Donald Trump

Use this preference schedule to answer the following questions about various
voting methods. Vocabulary words in bold are defined in the Voting Theory section
in Math in Society .

i. How many people voted?

100 Total Voters

ii. Who wins by Plurality Method?

Donald Trump wins by
Plurality Method.
Part II: (Continued)

iii. Suppose we use Instant Runoff Voting. Remove the candidate with
the least 1st Choice votes and show the preference schedule.

# Voters 19
6 B B C T 36
39
C B B C
1st
2nd T T T B
3rd

iv. Remove the candidate with the least 1st Choice votes and show the
preference schedule.

# Voters 19 6 36 39
 1st C C C T
2nd
T T T C

v. Who wins by
Instant Runoff Voting?
Ted Cruz wins by Instant
Runoff Voting.

vi. Calculate a Borda Count for each candidate.

B:205 C:272
R: 306 T:217

vii. Who wins by Borda Count? Marco Rubio wins by Borda Count.

viii. How many points does each candidate get using Copeland's Method?

B: 1 C:2
R: 3 T:0

ix. Who wins by Copeland's Method? Marco Rubio wins by

Copeland’s Method.

x. Is there a Condorcet Candidate? Y or N

xi. If so, who is the Condorcet Candidate? The Condorcet Candidate is

Marco Rubio.

Part III: Imagine that the members of your group are selected as the delegates from
Precinct W1-P2 and you must agree on one candidate to support at the Cerro
Gordo County Convention. Write a one-page (250-word) discussion explaining
who won the election. The discussion should include your interpretation of your
calculations in Part II and which fairness criteria helped you choose a winner.

There is no right answer (see Arrow's Impossibility Theorem). As a group it is your

job to make a decision and defend that decision in your discussion.
Arrow’s impossibility Theorem states that it is not possible for a voting method to
satisfy every fairness criteria that has been discussed, keeping that in mind, the
fairness criteria that helped me to choose a winner was the Copeland’s Method.
This method is best explained by Math in Society by saying, in this method, each
pair of candidates is compared, using all preferences to determine which of the
two is more preferred. The more preferred candidate is awarded 1 point. If there is
a tie, each candidate is awarded ½ point. After all pairwise comparisons are made,
the candidate with the most points, and hence the most pairwise wins, is declared
the winner. By going along with Copeland’s Method, Marco Rubio is the winner of
the election. I like this method the best because the comparisons that need to be
made includes every single one of the candidates and we get to compare one to
another, so we determine in smaller groups who is the better one out of the two.
Then we get to compare those answers to the others, and we come out with one
big winner after all the comparisons are made. This method seems to be the most
accurate and fair out of all of them too me and I would definitely continue to use
this method throughout the voting process because like I mentioned before, it
seems to work the best and be the most fair.