Delegate Apportionment In The Us Presidential Primaries

This book provides a comprehensive mathematical description and analysis of the delegate allocation processes in the US Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, focusing on the role of apportionment methods and the effect of thresholds—the minimum levels of support required to receive delegates. The analysis involves a variety of techniques, including theoretical arguments, simplicial geometry, Monte Carlo simulation, and examination of presidential primary data from 2004 to 2020. The book is divided into two parts: Part I defines the classical apportionment problem and explains how the implementation and goals of delegate apportionment differ from those of apportionment for state representation in the US House of Representatives and for party representation in legislatures based on proportional representation. The authors then describe how delegates are assigned to states and congressional districts and formally define the delegate apportionment methods used in each state by the two major parties to allocate delegates to presidential candidates. Part II analyzes and compares the apportionment methods introduced in Part I based on their level of bias and adherence to various notions of proportionality. It explores how often the methods satisfy the quota condition and quantifies their biases in favor or against the strongest and weakest candidates. Because the methods are quota-based, they are susceptible to classical paradoxes like the Alabama and population paradoxes. They also suffer from other paradoxes that are more relevant in the context of delegate apportionment such as the elimination and aggregation paradoxes. The book evaluates the extent to which each method is susceptible to each paradox. Finally, it discusses the appointment of delegates based on divisor methods and notions of regressive proportionality. This book appeals to scholars and students interested in mathematical economics and political science, with an emphasis on apportionment and social choice theory.

This volume contains the proceedings of the virtual AMS Special Session on Mathematics of Decisions, Elections and Games, held on April 8, 2022. Decision theory, voting theory, and game theory are three related areas of mathematics that involve making optimal decisions in different contexts. While these three areas are distinct, much of the recent research in these fields borrows techniques from other branches of mathematics such as algebra, combinatorics, convex geometry, logic, representation theory, etc. The papers in this volume demonstrate how the mathematics of decisions, elections, and games can be used to analyze problems from the social sciences.

How we can repair our democracy by rebuilding the mechanisms that power it What’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 Volić 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, Volić 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. Volić 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.