Elections Are One Big Math Problem

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2024

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's Election Day in the United States. Across the nation, millions of ballots are being cast. But what would happen if the rules of our electoral system were changed? Certain states are about to find out. This year, several places have alternative voting systems up for consideration on their ballots, and those systems could set an example for voting reform throughout the rest of the country. Short Wave producer Hannah Chinn and host Emily Kwong dive into three voting methods that are representative of those systems: Where they've been implemented, how they work, and what they might mean for elections in the future.

What to hear more about the math powering our lives? Email us at [email protected] and we might cover your idea on a future episode!

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If you're a regular listener of the shortwave podcast, then you probably listen to other NPR
0:05.5	podcasts too. With NPR Plus, you get perks, like sponsor free listening, bonus episodes, early access,
0:12.2	shop discounts, and more for over 20 different NPR podcasts like this one. So start supporting
0:17.5	what you love and stop hearing promos like this at plus.npr.org.
0:24.4	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:29.6	Hey, shortwaver's Emily Kwong here. It's Election Day here in the States.
0:33.0	If you can vote and you're listening to this, maybe you voted early.
0:36.5	Maybe you mailed in your ballot. Maybe
0:38.2	you're waiting at a polling place listening to Shortwave right now. Regardless, before you even
0:43.4	marked a ballot, there was a choice already made for you. And that's the choice of which voting
0:48.4	system to use. Hey, Hannah Chin. Hi, Emily. Hannah, our producer today is going to tell us about some of those voting systems.
0:56.3	Though, wait, hold on, what is a voting system? Good question. So for our purposes, a voting system is the set of rules that you use to determine the winner of an election. And there are a lot of different rules that you can use. So to illustrate this, I talked to a math professor at George Washington University in D.C.
1:15.1	His name is Dan Ullman, and for the past 20 years on and off, he's been teaching this class called math and politics.
1:22.5	And on the very first day of class, he has all his students conduct a mock election.
1:28.1	There are three candidates, and there are 99 voters in this little scenario that I made up,
1:34.2	but it's made to be a very close election.
1:36.8	The 99 voters are these made-up people.
1:39.2	Oh, so it's not the students.
1:40.3	No, no, no, no.
1:41.0	But they know all the preferences of these 99 imaginary voters. Like,
1:45.4	whether they like, say, candidate A more than candidate B or candidate B more than candidate C,
1:50.1	or maybe they like candidate B the most and they're indifferent to both A and C. Interesting. Okay,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.