2017-06-15

[public] 132K views, 5.46K likes, 55.0 dislikes audio only

PBS Infinite Series

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What is the best voting system? Voting seems relatively straightforward, yet four of the most widely used voting systems can produce four completely different winners. Get 10% off a custom domain and email address by going to https://www.hover.com/InfiniteSeries

*Correction: The ballots at 1:20 were labeled incorrectly. At 1:20 the top ballot should read 1 Green, 2 Blue and 3 Purple and the bottom ballot should read 2 Green, 3 Blue and 1 Purple. Thank you to Hoarder who first noted this.

*Correction: What's stated is the converse of the Condorcet Criterion. Oops - Stating conditionals can be tricky! For more details, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/6hh9sb/voting_systems_and_the_condorcet_paradox_infinite/diyft53/

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Previous Episode

Pantographs and the

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Written and Hosted by Kelsey Houston-Edwards

Produced by Rusty Ward

Graphics by Ray Lux

Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)

With access to a complete set of ranked ballots - which means we know every person’s opinions - it seems like a clear winner should emerge. But it doesn’t. The outcome of the election depends critically on what process you use to convert all those individual’s preferences into a group preference.

Further Resources:

Voting and Election Decision Methods

http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-voting-decision

The Mathematics of Voting

https://www.math.ku.edu/~jmartin/courses/math105-F11/Lectures/chapter1-part1.pdf

The Mathematics of Voting, Power and Sharing

http://web.math.princeton.edu/math_alive/6/Notes1.pdf

CGP Grey Voting Playlist

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLej2SlXPEd37YwwEY7mm0WyZ8cfB1TxXa

Comments answered by Kelsey:

FossilFighters101

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Abi Gail

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Lucas Hoffses

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