Math 217 - Voting Theory - Abstracts for Student Presentations

  • Keith McGinley, Lindsay Tirrell, and Meghan Tracewski
    Our subject is Electronic voting systems. Our plan for the presentation is investigate these new systems. We are looking into who uses these systems, and what the outcome has been, i.e did they find them to be beneficial? If at all possible we are researching how exactly these systems work. Is there a specific voting procedure used on these systems? We have found many sources and the website of the new e-voting system called Diebold which takes you through a simluation of the voting process at these "voting machines" which resembles ATM machines. There is an obvious controversey in whether these systems are better than the traditional voting systems. There are many risks and benefits to these systems which we plan to discuss with the class.
  • Liz Jacques, Danielle Kyes, Brian Walker, and Charlotte Wong
    The Miss America Pageant that has been running for many years incorporates interesting voting methods that are judge dependent, similar to the scoring of Olympic Figure Skating. In our presentation we will cover the following key- points of the Miss America voting method: First we will discussion the general overview of the pageant and show how different categories are weighted and how the elimination process works. Also we will show how which of the three groups that the pageant is broken down into (mu, alpha, and sigma) may affect the outcome. The winner of the Miss America Pageant today is determined much differently then it was in the 1920s. We will show the differences of the voting methods from then and now. We will cover the types of judges that are involved in the Miss America pageant and finally show a paradox to how this voting method may be corrupt like other methods we've seen throughout the tenure of the semester.
  • Leigh-Anne Cioffredi, Meg Dombi, and Tara Slivinski
    Alternative Vote in Australia
    Ever wonder why Australians are so happy? (i.e. "Good day mate!") Maybe it is because they are the only place left that still uses Alternative Vote (AV) as their primary method for electing their House of Commons. However, is everything as happy as it seems? Is this method really "fair"? We will first discuss Alternative Vote in electing single and multiple members. We will compare AV for single members to the fairest voting system, Borda Count. This will somewhat determine how fair AV actually is. We will then show how easily manipulation can occur in electing single members from actual election results. We will examine the pros and cons of this system as well.
    Finally, we will briefly discuss the reformed version, Alternative Vote Plus (AV+). We will give an overview of how it could work and the pros and cons of enforcing such a voting method. We will determine whether Alternative Vote Plus is a better method than Alternative Vote.
  • Debbie Case and Kyla Hobbie-Welch
    The European Council (of the European Union) currently uses a yes/no voting system, qualified majority voting. This system is not too shabby for the current states involved. Some have more power than others, but is this avoidable? What will happen to the union with its recent expansion? How will the council take into account the joining Eastern European nations? Our lecture will give a detailed description of the current state of the council (including power indexes), as well as a look at the plans for future voting.
  • Cheryl Areson, Reed Tinsley, and Jennifer Weiser
    Our project deals with different voting methods in different cites around the world. We understand that there are a variety of methods that could be used to elect someone, such as city officials. Throughout the project we will attempt to look more in depth at which method major cities have chosen to use as their "best" voting method. For example in San Francisco they use instant run-off voting and in France they use "same day" run-off voting. We also plan to look at different types of voting procedures (how voters will show their preferences) such as punch ballots, postal voting, touch screens, and voting machines. This is am important part of the actual voting method because as we have seen in past elections, the efficiency of how a vote is cast can weigh upon the outcome of the election.
  • Cayla Kuhs and Erin Savolainen
    In the sport of figure skating, the outcome of a competition relies on a panel of judges who rank the skaters to determine a winner. Each skater starts out with 6 points, and judges deduct points based on the skaters' performances. Once every skater has performed, the judge's scores are used to rank the skaters. There are many different ways to use the judge's rankings to determine a final outcome, however, and different methods can give different results. In our presentation, we will discuss the scoring method that is currently used in professional figure skating and compare this method to several others that have been proposed. We will also use examples of scores and rankings to show how each method can result in a different outcome for a given ranking of skaters. Similar to voting procedures, some scoring methods are better than others, and we will discuss which methods can prevent problems such as block judging, where groups of judges decide ahead of time to support a certain skater.
  • Bethann Bruno, Jonathan Lister, and Matt McKenna
    Before 1980, the 177 members of the Illinois House of Representatives were determined by a unique voting method called cumulative voting. There are 59 different regions in Illinois and each regioin puts 3 members into the 177 total. The way that this method words in these regions in that each voter is given 3 votes and has 3 different options on placing these votes. He or she can either put all 3 votes on one canidate, give 1.5 votes to 2 different canidates, or simply give 1 vote to 3 different canidates. The Illinios system not only allows voters to support a canidate, but give strong support to a canidate.
    In our project, we want to explore cumulative voting and the positives and negatives that go along with it. We plan to analyze this system like we have analyzed other voting methods in class. We will discover where this voting method fails Arrow's Theorem as well as some other political flaws that forced this method to be voted out of the Illinios government in 1980. We will also discuss the certain advantages cumulative voting has, such as allowing minority groups to have more power in the election. We hope your project will give the class a better understanding of cumulative voting.


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Last modified: Friday, December 5, 2003, 10:35 AM