Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Math 1030
Voting Theory Project
Part 1:
The Iowa Caucuses stemmed from a problematic Democratic convention in 1968.
Democrats were heavily criticized by how they ruled the nomination process. According to
TIME, caucuses have been around for a long time. Caucuses in the 19th century were very
poorly regulated and easy to mess with. Thus, Iowa wanted to improve the system. Early in the
20th century, officials in Iowa decided to take away voting power in the local caucuses. This
obviously did not work. This system was discarded the very next year. Iowa went back to their
old system where they were just another state among the 50, for nothing stood out to the media.
After the fiasco in 1968, the Democratic Party was forced into stock after one of the roughest
primary seasons. In 1972, when it was time to select a nominee to go against Nixon, Iowa’s
caucus date would coincidentally be the first delegate selecting conference in the country.
Because of this, the candidates campaigned in Iowa and the media naturally gave them a lot of
coverage. The Iowa caucus gave one candidate a huge step over his rivaling candidates. Jimmy
Carter campaigned in this state and made it to the White House which is how Iowa became a
huge player in the scene of politics.
The caucus is the oldest method of choose delegates and although they were once more
common, now they only happen in a few states (i.e Iowa). In a caucus, Republicans cast secret
ballots, but Democrats vote in public. Their candidates need the support of 15% of overall voters.
If a candidate falls behind this percentage, a voter can change their vote. Unlike caucuses,
primaries have become more common. Instead of secret ballots, primaries allow voters to cast
their ballots at polls. Primary has its three types; closed, semiclosed, and open.
As said before, Iowa is the first state to vote, which is why it is so important. Out of the
50 states, Iowa is the first to cast the ballot during voting season.
Part 3:
The candidate that won at the Cerro Gordo County Convention is Marco Rubio. According to my
calculations with several methods; IRV, Plurality, Borda Count, and Copeland’s Method, Rubio
was the winner in two of the methods. With the Borda count, he won 306 votes, compared to
others whose numbers were all in the 200s. With Copeland’s Method, Rubio also won with three
points unlike his rivals who all had less points than he did. To go one step further, he was also the
Condorcet Candidate, meaning with the paired off method, he was the candidate that was
preferred.
The Condorcet criterion and the Majority criterion both helped me make my decision.
Since the Copeland method satisfies both of those, even including the Monotonicity criterion, it
made my decision clear. Rubio was the preferred candidate using the condorcet criterion, but also
that is the majority of voters, in which the Majority criterion comes into play.