Math 1030- Voting project 2016 Names of members in group: Emma Lalaian

Due: 2/26/2021

The Iowa Caucuses

Part 1:
The process of electing the president of the United States starts with primary elections and

caucuses. Primary elections allow voters to determine state delegates and the presidential candidates,

whereas caucuses are on a more local level. A caucus is like a meeting organized by party leaders where

they determine what candidates they want to support and also discuss what issues they support. The

most important caucus for the United States is the one in Iowa.

Depending on the party the caucuses handle their meetings in different ways, although both

start their meetings early and run several hours, that is all they have in common. Meetings for the

Republican party are simple, in which a supporter for a candidate can give a speech, and then registered

voters cast their ballots. The final votes are tallied and then sent to the state representatives. For the

Democratic party, their meetings are much more complex, where voters group together to show their

support for a specific candidate. They then announce the votes at the meeting and after counts have

been taken if a candidate doesn’t have more than 15% show of support they are taken off the list of

possible candidates for president. Once the final candidates are known another vote takes place and

these results are sent to the state representatives.

The Iowa caucuses started as a way for the democratic party to get the younger generation

involved in the election and politics. The Iowa caucuses are important because they are known for their

ability to pick presidential candidates that appeal to everyday people in middle- America. It also helps

with testing the candidates to see how good their platform is and if Americans are appealed to it.
 Part 2:

Part 3:

As a delegate from Precinct W1-P2, I support Marco Rubio as my candidate of choice at

the Cerro Gordo County Convention. When using the plurality method, Donald Trump won the

elections however he didn’t win a majority vote and only had 39% of the votes which violates

the majority criterion, also with every other method he ranked last. When using the IRV method

to determine who won the majority it was Ted Cruz, with 61% of votes, but this method violates

the Condorcet criterion so I had to decide my winner using the other methods available.

My decision to support Marco Rubio was based on both the Borda Count and Copeland’s

method, with both processes, he was the clear winner. With the Borda count, he had more votes

than any of the other candidates and he was also the Condorcet winner when comparing the

candidates one-on-one. Because of this, the Condorcet criterion wasn’t violated, and although he

didn’t have the most first-place votes he did have the most second-place votes with over 94% in

his favor. Arrow’s impossibility theorem states that we can’t satisfy every fairness criterion, but

in choosing Marco Rubio as the candidate we can satisfy two out of the four criteria. Marco

Rubio seems to be the best candidate to represent the precinct.