The Mathematics of Ranked-Choice Single-Winner Voting Systems. Can Different Systems of Voting Affect the Results?

Scientific Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Mathematics - Statistics, grade: 7 (IB), , language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent different systems of voting can affect the results and the distribution of votes in single-winner elections. Moreover, during elections, there are always politicians who hold extreme beliefs and are either loved or hated by people and those who hold tempered beliefs but are tolerable by society. Consequently, the research also examines which of the two mentioned characteristics a candidate should have to increase the chances of winning by applying basic statistical measures such as mean or standard deviation.

The subject is relevant because it allows us to get a mathematical insight into single-winner electoral systems and can show whether a particular system of voting is only a tool, or directly contributes to the results. The paper analyses 4 different methods of voting that are or were used in the world to elect a President or other representatives for single-member posts: Supplementary Vote (SV), Instant-runoff voting (IRV), Bucklin Voting, and Coombs¿ method.

It is worth adding that these systems are ranked-choice systems, that is voters rank their candidates from the most favorable one to the one that in their opinion is completely not suitable to accede to a particular office. Ranked-choice systems were chosen because this paper does not investigate only who wins the election but also how the situation of candidates in other positions changes.