Making Democracy Count (eBook)

How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation

Ismar Volic (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2024
408 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-24882-0 (ISBN)

Infos

How we can repair our democracy by rebuilding the mechanisms that power itWhat's the best way to determine what most voters want when multiple candidates are running? What's the fairest way to allocate legislative seats to different constituencies? What's the least distorted way to draw voting districts? Not the way we do things now. Democracy is mathematical to its very foundations. Yet most of the methods in use are a historical grab bag of the shortsighted, the cynical, the innumerate, and the outright discriminatory. Making Democracy Count sheds new light on our electoral systems, revealing how a deeper understanding of their mathematics is the key to creating civic infrastructure that works for everyone.In this timely guide, Ismar Volic empowers us to use mathematical thinking as an objective, nonpartisan framework that rises above the noise and rancor of today's divided public square. Examining our representative democracy using powerful clarifying concepts, Volic shows why our current voting system stifles political diversity, why the size of the House of Representatives contributes to its paralysis, why gerrymandering is a sinister instrument that entrenches partisanship and disenfranchisement, why the Electoral College must be rethought, and what can work better and why. Volic also discusses the legal and constitutional practicalities involved and proposes a road map for repairing the mathematical structures that undergird representative government.Making Democracy Count gives us the concrete knowledge and the confidence to advocate for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.4.2024
• Zusatzinfo: 46 b/w illus. 3 tables.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Mathematik ► Angewandte Mathematik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Staat / Verwaltung
• Schlagworte: amend • American Mathematical Society • apportionment • Apportionment Act • Approval voting • Arrow Impossibility • Arrow's Theorem • Assembly • Balinski-Young • Bolt • Borda • Borda Count • Bosnia • Bosnian • Bureau • cardinals • cardinal voting • Census Bureau • Civil Rights Act • Common Cause • Commons • compactness score • Condorcet • Condorcet method • Congress • Constitution • Constitutional Convention • Copeland • Counting on Democracy: The Mathematics of How We Vote, Where We Map, and Whether We Count • Cube Root Law • Cumulative voting • Democracy • democratic • Democratic-Republicans • Democrats • D’Hondt method • Districting • Efficiency Gap • Election Science • Electoral College • electoral vote • Eurovision • Fair Representation Act • FairVote • Federalists • foreign film • framers • French Academy • Gerrymandering • Green Party • Hondt • House of Representatives • Huntington-Hill • IIA • instant runoff • International Skating Union • Ismar Volić • Isoperimetric inequality • janey • Jowei Chen • Labour • Latino • libertarian • Louis • majority • Markov • Massachusetts Republicans • MCMC • multi-member district • National academy • National Popular Vote Interstate Compact • Nobel prize • Nobel Prize-winning • Olympics • parliament • Pennsylvania Supreme Court • perfect voting system • plurality • Political power • Polsby-Popper • Pope • popular vote • proportional representation • quantitative literacy • range voting • Ranked choice voting • Reapportionment Act • REDMAP • Reock • Representation • Republican • rights • Rucho • Sainte-Laguë method • Schwartzberg • Senate • simpson • Single Transferable Vote • single-winner district • Social Choice Theory • Supreme Court • tuskegee • two-party system • Voting • Voting Rights Act • voting strategy • White House • Whitford • World Cup • Wyoming Rule • Yugoslavia
• ISBN-10: 0-691-24882-6 / 0691248826
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-24882-0 / 9780691248820