Making Democracy Count
How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation
Description:... "In engaging with modern representative democracy, particularly in the United States, it is essential to understand the mathematics that underpins it-to see both how its systemic flaws exacerbate negative trends such as polarization and disenfranchisement and how it might be changed to encourage more equitable outcomes. In Counting on Democracy, Ismar Volić demystifies for a popular audience the mathematical mechanisms that drive systems of voting and representation, and examines how well or badly their design embodies our stated ideals. The goal is to inform and empower readers to engage with reform efforts, undeterred by claims that things are too complicated to understand or fears that any change is secretly partisan and that only the status quo is safe. The book starts with the atom of democracy: voting to fill one office. Already this context provides a lot of mathematical meat, through different balloting and tallying methods that enable voters to express their preferences more fully. Volić introduces the math at a carefully judged pace, with historical context and examples, reaching the famous impossibility theorems from social choice theory and discussing their conceptual as opposed to practical importance. Having set readers on their mathematical feet with voting, the book then tackles representation, that is, how seats in a representative body can be allocated to a represented population. Volić explains the mathematics, first, of apportionment methods and their fascinating history, then, of districting methods and the rich U.S. tradition of gerrymandering. Here, readers learn of consequential new mathematical techniques, persuasive in several recent court cases, for demonstrating illegal gerrymandering. The book concludes with the perfect storm that is the U.S. Electoral College. Along this journey, the book shows how many of the mathematical choices that shape our political mechanisms are flawed at best-outdated, partisan, and often outright discriminatory-and argues for new voting systems based on better choices. Readers will learn how political quantitative literacy is essential for repairing democracy in America, providing a toolset for citizens to advocate for a political system that is more objective, nonpartisan, and reflective of the U.S. population"--
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