Ch. 17.

1: Voting Methods
The mathematical/sociological study of voting methods is more properly referred to as
Social Choice Theory. It is a very important and hotly-debated subject, for obvious
reasons! Methods of voting have been developed and debated since democracy in an-
cient Athens (probably earlier). It was in 1785 that a French philosopher named Jean
Antoine Nicolas Caritat (the Marquis of Condorcet) published two foundational math-
ematical results, now known as Condorcets Jury Theorem, and Condorcets Paradox.
The term Social Choice Theory, however, was not coined until after 1951, with the
publishing of Social Choice and Individual Values by American economist Kenneth
Arrow. These two men are often credited as the founders of the modern theory.
In this section, we will look at seven dierent methods of casting and evaluating votes:
i. Majority Rule
ii. Plurality Rule
iii. Borda Count
iv. Hare Method
v. Pairwise Comparison Method
vi. Approval Method
vii. Tournament Method
Here on, we consider the general problem in which a group of n people must choose
exactly 1 option (e.g. C) from a list of distinct options (A,B,C, etc.). These options
could be candidates running for oce, bills, legal decisions, etc. The one that is chosen
we shall call the winner.
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Plurality Voting
In plurality voting (also called rst-past-the-post voting in reference to horse races),
each voter casts exactly 1 vote in favour of just 1 option. The winner is the option
that earns a certain number of votes.
Majority Rule:
The winner is the option that earns more than 50% of all votes (a
simple majority). If the number of votes, n, is even, then a simple
majority is at least
n
2
+ 1.
If n is odd, then a simple majority is at least
n + 1
2
.
Plurality Rule:
The winner is the option that earns more votes than any other candi-
date individually (a plurality).
Example 1: Imagine we have a group of 15 people that are voting on taking 3 dierent
courses of action, A,B,C. Suppose the results of the vote are as follows:
Preference: ABC ACB BAC BCA CAB CBA
No. of Votes: 3 1 5 1 0 5
Here, each person casts a vote by writing their order of preference (top line). For the
majority/plurality methods, we will assume that for each vote, the 1st choice (left-most
letter) gets the entire vote, and the others we ignore (for instance, 5 votes for the order
CBA, means 5 votes for C alone; A and B are not counted). Which alternative won
by plurality? Majority?
ANSWER: We start by tallying up the total number of votes for each option:
Option No. of Votes
A 4
B 6
C 5
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From this, we immediately see that option B wins by plurality, since B got the more
votes than any other option. Since the total number of votes, 15, is odd, we need at
least (15 + 1)/2 = 8 votes for a simple majority. However, none of the options got
more than 6 votes, so there is no majority winner.
This example shows us that an election does not always produce a majority winner. It
is even possible for there to be no plurality winner, if, say, two options get the exact
same number of votes. However, if there is a simple majority winner, then that option
will also be a plurality winner.
Preferential Voting
In a prefential voting system, voters are required to rank candidates in order of rela-
tive preference (like we did in the above example). The winner can then be determined
with a variety of methods. One method is called the Borda Count, invented in 1770
by the French mathematician and physicist Jean-Charles, chevalier de Borda.
The Borda Count:
Each voter ranks all candidates in order of preference. If there are
m candidates, then for each vote, m points are assigned to the 1st
choice, (m 1) points are assigned to the 2nd choice, and so on.
The candidate that receives more points in total than any other is
declared the winner.
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Example 2: Suppose 6 people vote on 4 dierent candidates (A,B,C,D) by ranking
them in order of preference (4=highest preference, 1=lowest preference). If the results
of the vote are the following:
Ballots
Candidates #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 Total Points:
A 2 3 1 1 4 4 15
B 3 2 4 3 1 1 14
C 1 1 3 4 2 3 14
D 4 4 2 2 3 2 17
then we would conclude that candidate D won the election by the Borda Count, because
she earned the most total points (17). Notice that if we only counted peoples 1st choice
votes, then we would have A and D with 2 votes each, and B and C with 1 vote each
then there would be no plurality winner.
Since the Borda Count is more sensitive to voters preferences, it is technically possible
for an option to win a majority of 1st-choice votes, and yet lose in a Borda Count.
Example 3: Suppose 3 candidates (A,B,C) are running for an election, and there are
100 voters. Suppose we list the results as we did in Example 1:
Choices: ABC ACB BAC BCA CAB CBA
No. of Votes: 25 26 2 8 4 35
Who won according to the plurality method? Who won by the Borda Count?
ANSWER: As we did before, we can tally all 1st-choice votes for each candidate:
Candidate No. of Votes
A 51
B 10
C 39
We clearly see that A wins by simple majority. For the Borda Count, we must tally
the points given to each candidate by all voters:
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Points for A: 25(3) + 26(3) + 2(2) + 8(1) + 4(2) + 35(1) = 208 pts
Points for B: 25(2) + 26(1) + 2(3) + 8(3) + 4(1) + 35(2) = 180 pts
Points for C: 25(1) + 26(2) + 2(1) + 8(2) + 4(3) + 35(3) = 212 pts
Now, C wins over A by a few points. The reasoning here is that while A was supported
by over 50% of voters, a comparably large fraction, 43%, voted A as their last choice.
By contrast, a majority of the supporters of A and B chose C as their 2nd-choice.
Thus, candidate C is, in some sense, the best compromise.
The Hare Method is named after a 19th cen. English political scholar, Thomas
Hare. It seems to be more commonly referred to as Instant-Runo Voting, or the
Plurality with Elimination Method. This last name describes the process nicely:
basically, it involves several rounds of plurality voting. At the end of each round, the
option with the fewest votes is eliminated from the race, and the remaining options are
voted on in the next round. This continues until some option obtains a majority.
Instead of several rounds of plurality voting, the same theoretical result can be obtained
with just one round of preferential voting (and multiple rounds of vote counting), as
indicated here:
Hare Method
Each voter ranks the candidates in order of preference on a ballot;
each ballot counts as exactly 1 vote for the highest-ranking candidate
on that ballot that has not yet been eliminated from the race.
If at the end of a count, no candidate has a majority, then the can-
didate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated, and the vote
is recounted. This process continues until some candidate receives a
majority, and they are declared winner.
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Example 4: Consider the following election results:
Choices: ABC ACB BAC BCA CAB CBA
No. of Votes: 0 7 5 3 4 1
Determine a winner using Plurality with Elimination counting.
ANSWER: There are 20 votes in total, so a majority requires at least 11 votes. We
begin with the same counting method that we used in Example 1: we tally the number
of 1st-choice votes for each candidate, and get the following results:
Candidate No. of Votes
A 0 + 7 = 7
B 5 + 3 = 8
C 4 + 1 = 5
For the 1st round, no one wins a majority (though B does win a plurality). Thus, we
eliminate the contender with the fewest number of votes, C:
2nd Round Choices: AB AB BA BA AB BA
No. of Votes: 0 7 5 3 4 1
A recount of these new preferences gives us:
Candidate No. of Votes
A 0 + 7 + 4 = 11
B 5 + 3 + 1 = 9
For the 2nd round, A has a majority, and is therefore declared the winner.
Note that even though B won a plurality in the beginning, he still lost the election
because the C supporters were allowed to change their vote. One of the great benets
of the Hare Method is that a vote is hardly ever wasted on an unlikely candidate i.e,
strategic voting is not as eective as with the plurality method or Borda Count.
The Pairwise Comparison Method is a system of voting specically designed to
satisfy the Condorcet Criterion that well see in the next section.
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Pairwise Comparison Method
Each voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. Each can-
didate is then given points depending how they rank against every
other candidate.
If A is more often voted for ahead of B, then A gets 1 point, and B
gets 0 points. If A and B are tied, then they each receive
1
/2 point.
The candidate with the most points in total is the winner.
Example 5: A club of 30 members needs to elect a president. There are 4 candidates:
Kenneth (K), Linda (L), Mike (M), and Nora (N). Assume all 30 members vote, and
the results are:
Choices: KLMN KNLM LNKM LNMK NMLK MKLN MLKN
No. of Votes: 9 1 5 3 2 8 2
Who wins according to the Pairwise Comparison Method?
ANSWER: Lets start with Kenneth and Linda: we see from the table above that K
is voted over L in 9 + 1 + 8 = 18 ballots. Thus L is voted over K in 30 18 = 12
ballots (since there are 30 votes total). Hence K gets 1 point, and L gets 0 points.
We do this for each possible pairing of the 4 candidates. An easy way to keep track of
this is with a table:
K L M N
K (12) 0 (15)
1
/2 (10) 0
L (18) 1 (12) 0 (3) 0
M (15)
1
/2 (18) 1 (11) 0
N (20) 1 (27) 1 (19) 1
Total: 2.5 2.0 1.5 0.0
(Each column lists the votes and points earned against each candidate on the left).
We see that Kenneth is the winner with a total of 2.5 points, more than any other
candidate.
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Approval Voting
In contrast to preferential methods, approval voting is more similar to the plurality
method, except that voters can vote for not just one, but many candidates at once, if
they so desire.
Approval Voting Method
Each voter may give up to 1 vote for each option that meets his/her
approval. The option earning more total votes than any other option
is declared the winner.
Example 6: Imagine a ski club with 9 people. Suppose they need to choose the des-
tination for their winter ski trip. Members of the club nominate 5 dierent dierent
resorts, and they all hold an approval vote. The results are:
Ballots
Resorts #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 Total:
Tussey x x 2
Montage x x x x 4
Snowshoe x x x x x 5
Lake Tahoe x x x x x x x 7
Beaver x x x x 4
We see that Lake Tahoe wins the vote, having the most approvals.
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