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Daily Syllabus - Math 217 Voting Theory - Spring 2012

Be sure to check back, because this will be updated during the semester.

The items in blue are the reading assignments for the day. The primary readings for the course are:

  • Felsenthal and Machover, "Enlargement of the EU and Weighted Voting in its Council of Ministers"
  • Jones, "The Geometry behind Paradoxes of Voting Power"
  • Balinski and Young, Fair Representation
  • Álvarez-Rivera, "The Republic of South Africa Electoral System"
  • Saari, Chaotic Elections! A Mathematician Looks at Voting (on reserve in the library)

Monday Wednesday
1/25 Welcome to Voting Theory
1/30 Penrose measure and Banzhaf index
RA: Felsenthal & Machover, Chap 1 		2/1 Treaty of Nice and proposed EU Constitution
RA: Reread Felsenthal & Machover, Chap 1
Honor Code onCourse assignment due
2/6 Paradoxes of power indices
RA: Jones		 2/8 Geometry of paradoxes
RA: Reread Jones
Homework due
2/13 Two-tiered systems and Equitability
RA: Felsenthal & Machover, Chap 2 		2/15 Majoritarianism
RA: Reread Felsenthal & Machover, Chap 2
Homework due
2/20 Introduction to methods of apportionment
RA: Balinski & Young, Chaps 1-4 		2/22 Apportionment paradoxes
RA: Balinski & Young, Chaps 5-6
Homework due
2/27 Methods of Dean and Hill
RA: Balinski & Young, Chaps 8-10 		2/29 Evaluating the apportionment methods
RA: Reread Balinski & Young, Chaps 8-10
Title for Book Review due
3/5 Proportional representation
RA: Balinski & Young, Chaps 11-12 		3/7 PR in South Africa
RA: Alvarez-Rivera
Exam 1 due
3/12 Spring Break 3/14 Spring Break
3/19 Measuring compactness in Congressional districts
3/21 Elections with three candidates
RA: Saari, Preface (pp ix-xiii) and Sections 1.2, 2.1, 2.2 (pp 17-45)
Progress report on Book Review due
3/26 The representation triangle and procedure line
RA: Saari, Sections 2.2, 2.3 (pp 40-52) 		3/28 Guest Lecture by Professor Marcus Allen
RA: TBA
Homework due
Topic and outline of Project due 3/30
4/2 A fundamental decomposition of R6
RA: Saari, Sections 5.3 (pp 129-135) 		4/4 Creating and decomposing profiles
RA: Saari, reread Section 5.3
Book Review due
4/9 More on creating and decomposing profiles 4/11 Elections with more than three candidates
RA: Saari, Sections 2.5, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 (pp 60-84)
Homework due
4/16 Arrow's Theorem 4/18 Arrow's Theorem
Exam 2 due
4/23 Some proposals for voting reform 4/25 Spatial models of voting
Paper for Project due
4/30 Student presentations 5/2 Student presentations
Final Exam Due
Friday 5/11, 4:00 pm

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