In MAKING DEMOCRACY COUNT: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation, mathematician Ismar Volić argues that “democracy is not just a human forum, it is also a system, a piece of civic infrastructure that runs on mathematics.”
His 381-page book is divided into 15 parts, with headings that include “The Best Way to Choose the Winner,” “The Impossible Democracy,” and “Math v. Gerrymandering.” Volić comprehensively analyzes all voting systems, from the Borda count to the Condorcet method to range voting and many more obscure methods. Without becoming too mathematical, he thoroughly explains the advantages and disadvantages of each system, usually illustrating his argument with real-world examples from the United States and other countries.
Volić’s goal is to reduce, if not eliminate, the fundamental defect of election systems used in most democracies: “People who have earned the support of only a minority of voters represent all of the voters,” he writes. “What we’re seeing is, at its root, a problem in mathematics.”
However, he is aware of the danger of proposing purely mathematical solutions to political problems. “When math operates within human systems, it’s subject to a web of constraints—political, of course, but also legal, physical, and social, among others,” he notes. “The key is to keep a grip on the mathematics without ignoring the context in which it’s embedded.”
This statement is somewhat ironic, since Volić also writes that “math curricula at all education levels need to be updated in a way that reflects the injustices, discriminations, and intolerances of the world.” The books he recommends, however, push a specific agenda based on the demonstrably false premise that all human beings have the same inherent capacities and, therefore, all inequalities are the outcome of social, economic, and political disadvantages.
Volić thus commits the error of not questioning his priors. He also sets up strawmen to make his argument. For example, listing the defects of the Electoral College in the US, he quotes Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 68, concluding that “[t]he subtext is very near the surface: ordinary people are too ignorant for such a consequential task.” However, the Founding Fathers invented the Electoral College to solve a problem identified by the inventors of democracy (the ancient Greeks): mob rule.
Thus, while MAKING DEMOCRACY COUNT is an excellent mathematical overview of voting systems, it is not an objective guide to the most effective political systems. That remains the purview of philosophy and policy analysis.
Ismar Volić’s MAKING DEMOCRACY COUNT: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation is a useful guide for improving voting systems to avoid the problem of minorities choosing governments.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader