Papers
You must write two papers for this class, each 500-1000 words in length (the length does not include a bibliography, written in whatever format you choose). You should be able to start writing after you complete the Week 2 videos and assignment; you should be able to finish writing them after our Week 2 class on 1/12. You must pick one of options A and B to submit 1/16 at midnight EST and one of options C and D to submit by 1/22 at 5pm EST.
Option A: Gather data about the nationwide popular vote in the presidential elections from the year 2000. Assume that only George W Bush, Al Gore, and Ralph Nader were candidates. Make some assumptions about voter preferences. (Election data can tell us only about voters’ first choices, so do some research to make an educated guess about voters’ second choices.) Now analyze your data via the various voting methods we’ve discussed. Can you envision any reasonable voting procedure via which Nader, according to your assumptions, would have been declared the winner?
Option B: Pick either the first past the post method, the Borda method, or the approval voting method. Consider the five different voting criteria we discussed: majority, Condorcet, Pareto, monotonicity, and independence. Explain why (or why not) the method you chose satisfies (or does not satisfy) each of the criteria. For the method that you chose: what are the advantages and disadvantages of the method from both a mathematical and a political view?
Option C: FairVote advocates for ranked-choice voting (we called this instant runoff in class) while The Center for Election Science advocates for approval voting (AV). How do these two groups make the case for their preferred system and what disadvantages of their systems are they not presenting on their websites? Which of these two methods would you prefer to implement locally? Why? Consider both mathematical and political factors.
Option D: FairVote presents statistics showing higher representation by African- Americans and women on the City Council and School Committee in Cambridge, MA after converting their elections to RCV (we called this instant runoff in class). Is it true that RCV improves political representation among historically under-represented groups? Why? What other factors are involved?