[LT9030] Mathematics for Social Sciences HOMEWORK 2

First and Last Name NHU-THAI VO

Matriculation 903756

1. Consider the following preference schedule:

Number of voters 10 12 8 4
First choice A C B B
Second choice C B A C
Third choice B A C A

(a) Find the winner of the election using the plurality with runoff.

(b) Suppose that 4 voters in the last column decide to flip their first two preferences, making
their first choice C and their second choice B. Who is the winner in this situation using
plurality with runoff?

(c) This example proves that plurality with runoff violates one or more important properties of
voting methods. Which ones?

In general, the plurality with runoff method is one of the modifications of the plurality method (also
known as first-past-the-post voting method) that tries to avoid the problem of splitting votes among
similar choices. Usually, the plurality method would only consider each voter's first choice and the
candidate with the most first-choice votes would win. However, in cases where there are more than two
candidates, it is possible that the winner does not have a majority (more than half) of the votes, and
that therefore the voters who preferred other candidates are not well represented. The plurality with
runoff method adds a second round of voting (or a runoff election round, in other words) if no
candidate has a majority in the first round. In this second round, only the top two candidates from the
first round are considered while the rest are eliminated, and the candidate with the most votes in the
second round wins. The voters who supported the eliminated candidates can now vote for one of the
remaining two candidates, based on their second or third preferences.

(a) To find the winner using plurality with runoff, we first look at the first round. From the provided
preference schedule, the number of votes for each candidate would be:

● A: 10
● B: 12
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 ● C: 12

Since there are 34 voters in total, a majority would be more than 17 votes. None of the
candidates has a majority, and there is a tie between B and C for the most votes, so we need to go to
the second round of voting, where A is eliminated.

Since there is no data for this assuming second round, we will instead update the preferences of
the voters who ranked A as their first choice. First, we need to move their second choice to their first
choice and their third choice to their second choice. In other words, we would ignore the preferences of
the voters who chose A as their first choice, since they have no say in the runoff stage. For example, the
10 voters who ranked A first, C second, and B third will now rank C first and B second. The updated
preference schedule now would be:

Number of
10 12 8 4
voters

First choice C C B B

Second choice B B C C

In the second round, we count the number of first-choice votes for each candidate:

● B: 16 = 8 + 4
● C: 22 = 10 + 12

Now, since C has more than half of the total votes (22 > 17), therefore C is the winner of the
election using the plurality with runoff method.

(b) If 4 voters in the last column decide to flip their first two preferences, making their first choice C and
their second choice B, the preference schedule will change as follows:

Number of
10 12 8 4
voters

First choice A C B C

Second choice C B A B

Third choice B A C A

In this case, the number of first-choice votes for each candidate would be:

● A: 10

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 ● B: 8
● C: 16

Like in the previous case, since no candidate here has more than half of the total votes (34),
therefore we need to eliminate the candidate with the least first-choice votes, which is now B. The
voters who preferred B now would have to vote for their second choice, which is A for 8 voters and C for
4 voters. We have a second round of voting with the updated preference schedule:

Number of
10 12 8 4
voters

First choice A C A C

Second choice C A C A

In the second round of this particular case, the number of first-place votes for each candidate
would be:

● A: 18 = 10 + 8
● B: 16 = 12 + 4

Now, A has more than half of the total votes (34), therefore in this case - where 4 voters in the
last column of the original preference schedule decide to flip their first two preferences, making their
first choice C and their second choice B - A is the winner of the election using the plurality with runoff
method.

(c) This example proves that plurality with runoff violates the monotonicity property and the
independence of irrelevant alternatives property.

The monotonicity property states that if a candidate wins an election, and in a re-election,
some voters change their preferences to rank that candidate higher, while the rest of the voters do not
change their preferences, then that candidate should still win the re-election. In our cases, C was
already the winner of the election in (a), but in (b), some voters changed their ballots to favour C by
literally making C their first choice instead of their second choice. However, this change caused C to lose
the election to A, which absolutely violates the monotonicity property.

The independence of irrelevant alternatives property states that if a candidate wins an

election, and in a re-election one of the other candidates is removed and the ballots are adjusted
accordingly (in other words, a non-winning candidate withdraws or a new candidate joins, while the rest
of the candidates and the voters’ preferences among them do not change in a re-election) then that

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candidate should still win the election. In our cases, C was the winner of the election in (a), but if we
remove B from the election and adjust the ballots accordingly, the preference schedule will change as
shown in (b):

Number of
10 12 8 4
voters

First choice A C A C

Second choice C A C A

Here, A will win the election with 18 first-choice votes, while C will only have 16 first-choice
votes. This means that the presence or absence of a candidate (B) affected the outcome of the election,
which, therefore, violates the independence of irrelevant alternatives property.

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 2. The following functions gives the population of four towns with time t in years

(a) A = 600(1.12)t (b) A = 1,000(1.03)t

(c) A = 200(1.08)t (d) A = 900(0.90)t

(a) Which town has the largest percent growth rate? What is the percent growth rate?

(b) Which town has the largest percent initial population? What is that initial population?

(c) Are any of the towns decreasing in size? If so, which one(s)?

The functions given in the question represent the exponential growth models of the population of four
towns (a), (b), (c), and (d) over time 𝑡 in years. The general form of an exponential function is:
𝑛
𝑃𝑛 = 𝑃0(1 + 𝑟)

where 𝑃0​is the initial population, (1 + 𝑟) is the growth factor (or growth multiplier and common

ratio) and 𝑟 is the per cent growth rate (or decay rate if negative) per year.

To answer the questions, we first need to compare the values of 𝑃 and 𝑟 for each function. We get the
following table:

Initial Per cent

Town Function population growth
(𝑃) rate (𝑟)

𝑡
(a) 𝐴 = 600 × (1. 12) 600 12%

𝑡
(b) 𝐴 = 1000 × (1. 03) 1000 3%

𝑡
(c) 𝐴 = 200 × (1. 08) 200 8%

𝑡
(d) 𝐴 = 900 × (0. 90) 900 − 10%

Having this table, we can answer the questions as follows:

1. The town with the largest per cent growth rate is A, with a rate of 12% per year.
2. The town with the largest initial population is B, with a population of 1000 in the initial year.
3. The only town that is decreasing in size is D, with a per cent growth rate of − 10% per year.
This means that the population of town D decreases 10% every year.