MATH 1030 - Voting Project 2016

Tanner Peterson

The Iowa Caucuses

Part l:

The Iowa Caucuses are the first elections that take place for the presidential candidates.
They determine the media and voter outlook on each person running. They have had a success
rate of: 43% for the Democratic party nomination, and, 50% for the Republican party
nomination. Some candidates that do not do well in Iowa drop out of the election soon after. The
caucuses are different from a primary election because they use in-person voting to decide the
winner of the election, rather than a ballot being cast. Most states use primary elections, but
Iowa uses a caucus. They have used this system since the 1800’s. All states at one point used
the system but most have gone to the primary form to select candidates. They switched to the
primary for one year but reverted back to old ways due to low participation and higher costs.
Caucuses are usually held at political places and can last anywhere from 10 minutes to
hours on end. The Democratic caucus-goers go into groups to show their support for their
candidate. When the groups are formed, they have around 30 minutes to try to persuade
undecided people, or those with opposite opinions, to join their side of the argument. The
Republican caucus counts the voters that support each candidate and rewards them for getting
more supporters. When the voters are tallied they go back to the parties and the results are sent
to the media and the other states. Until recently, you had to be present at the caucus to vote,
but the rules have changed to allow military members serving out of state to be present through
online means. These caucuses are very important to the presidential election.

Part ll:

i. How many people voted? ​100

ii. Who wins by Plurality Method? ​Donald Trump

iii.
# Voters 19 6 36 39

1st B B C T

2nd C C B C

3rd T T T B
iv.
# Voters 19 6 36 39

1st C C C T

2nd T T T C

V. ​Ted Cruz ​won by Instant Runoff Voting

Vi.

B. 76+18+72+39=​205 C. 38+12+144+78=​272

R. 57+24+108+117= ​306 T. 19+6+36+156=​217

Vii. ​Marco Rubio​ won by Borda Count

Viii.

B. 1 R. 3

C. 2 T. 0

Ix. ​Marco Rubio​ won by Copeland’s method

X. ​Yes​, there is a Condorcet Candidate

Xi.​ Marco Rubio ​because he was preferred in every one on one contest.

Part lll:

The candidate we believe should win this election Marco Rubio. He was the best option
because he won in both Borda Count voting and Copeland’s Method. These two methods are
important because they bring into account many factors that can’t be found in the plurality and
IRV systems. He was also able to win every one vs one competition that he was a part of which
fulfils the Condorcet Criterion. The only thing that would help his case even more are to have
more first place votes to which he had the lowest amount of. With only 6 first place votes he did
not get many voters to choose him as their top candidate. However, we believe that the first
place votes are not as big of a factor when you look at the amount of second place votes he got.
The idea that the first place votes don’t matter as much is shown in the borda count method, to
which he won handily, besting the runner up by 34 votes. In our opinion, the Borda Count
method is most comprehensive to choose a winner that most people will agree with. We believe
that those first place votes Rubio received will be enough to make his case strong enough that
he won this election. While there may not be a perfect way to determine the winner of these
elections, unless it violates Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, the candidate that we believe the
people would be most agreeable with is Marco Rubio.