The Mathematics of Voting

This workshop explores the mathematics behind voting systems and collective decision-making.

Every election promises to reflect the will of the people — but what if the voting method itself could change who wins?

Using interactive elections and historical examples, students will investigate how different voting methods can produce different outcomes from the same set of voter preferences, including:

• Plurality
• Ranked-choice voting
• Borda count
• Condorcet methods

Same voters, same preferences, different outcome — just by changing how the votes are counted.

The workshop culminates with Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, demonstrating the mathematical limitations of designing a perfectly fair voting system. You'll leave with a sharper understanding of why "fair" elections are more complicated than they seem — and the math that proves it.

Hosted by Academic Support