Person of the year
It's your turn to run an election! You are going to set up and run an election to name the most influential person of the year. You will choose four well-known figures to have on your ballot, collect votes, and then name a winner.
Step 1: Develop the ballot.
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Choose at least four living people to place on your preference ballot for Most Influential Person of the Year. Create a preference ballot so that voters can rank each of the personalities. Be sure that the people on the ballot are well-known enough that the voters will recognize them.
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Who do you expect to be the winner of your election?
Step 2: Decide on how you will choose your winner.
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Which fairness criteria do you think is the most important in your election? Why?
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Based on your answer above, choose two counting methods from those covered in Chapter 13 that you will use to determine a winner: Majority Rule, Plurality, Borda Count, Plurality with Elimination, or Pairwise Comparison.
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Do you anticipate that both of your chosen methods will produce the same winner? Why or why not?
Step 3: Collect data.
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Ask at least voters to rank the personalities in order of the most influential to the least. Try not to influence your voters in any way as you collect their choices. List the results in a preference table.
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What are some factors that might have affected the way people voted in your election?
Step 4: Analyze your results.
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Determine a winner using each of the methods you chose in Step 2.
Step 5: Discuss your results.
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Did both counting methods produce the same winner?
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If the counting methods you chose produced different winners, which method do you think best reflects the "will of the people"? Why?
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Who do you think would disapprove the most with your results? Why?
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What do you think would change if there were more candidates in your election? What if there were fewer candidates?