By Deb Otis
At a time when a record number of Americans report pessimism about the future of democracy and dissatisfaction with Congress, there’s a new spotlight on systemic election reforms. Topics like ranked choice voting and proportional representation are seeing increased interest and momentum, which leaves many readers wanting to understand more, especially those working in civics or policymaking who may need to evaluate these proposals on their merits.
Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation, by Ismar Volić, examines the mathematics that govern how our election systems work or, more often, don’t work. Volić is a math professor, but the book reads nothing like a math textbook. It stays approachable, even while diving deep into its subject matter.
This book is ideal for the many readers who have heard about topics like ranked choice voting or proportional representation and are ready to learn more in an unbiased narrative format. Even if you’re deep in this world already, I’ll bet there’s someone among your family and friends who you’ve been itching to share it with. Making Democracy Count is just the right book to pique their interest and ease them in.
I had the opportunity to interview Volić about his book in June and very much enjoyed the experience. This topic is personal for him because he’s witnessed firsthand a horrific demise of democracy. Volić immigrated to the U.S. from Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s in the midst of a war in that country and is particularly attuned to how things can go wrong. Volić’s personal experiences provide an important cautionary tale, and we should listen.
When Volić discusses his students in the mathematics department at Wellesley College, his words ring true to me. He says that after learning about these topics, students are “outraged that no one ever showed them how terrible our voting methods are, how blatantly devious gerrymandering is, how dysfunctional the U.S. Electoral College is. They are fired up about all the inequalities and discriminatory practices built mathematically into our system and are ready to get out there and do something about it.”
That mirrors my experience exactly when I started learning about these topics. It’s part of the reason I made the career change to become an election systems researcher and reform advocate in 2020. Once you start seeing our elections through this framework, so many questions about our elections and our politics finally click into place.
When this book declares a “winner” among the various methods for electing a single candidate to an office, it suggests that instant runoff voting is the method we should use. (Terminology note: instant runoff is the same method often called ranked choice voting. Volić uses instant runoff because he correctly identifies that there are multiple voting methods that could be termed “ranked,” such as Condorcet voting methods.)
My own research had already persuaded me that instant runoff voting is the method to use, so Volić’s recommendation felt validating, but not surprising. It may come as no surprise to readers that I, an instant runoff voting advocate, recommend a book that agrees with my own position! Yet the reason this book stands out among the many analyses of voting methods out there is its unbiased tone. Volić examines the voting methods fairly, including a sometimes-harsh look at their downsides. He brings a mix of academic theory and real-world political understanding that sets his analysis apart from others. Not only does he discuss drawbacks according to academic theory, but he also discusses if and how those theoretical drawbacks are likely to impact real-world campaigns, voter behavior, and outcomes.
My favorite part of this book, and a good draw for new readers, is the section on gerrymandering. Every ten years, our country becomes captivated by the redistricting cycle and associated legal battles, but many of us put it out of our minds after the maps are drawn. This book brings gerrymandering back to top of mind and reminds us that the time to make change is now. Additionally, Volić challenges some standard assumptions about gerrymandering.
First, the book challenges the idea that oddly shaped districts are necessarily a bad thing. He shows district boundaries such as the “Goofy kicking Donald Duck” district in Pennsylvania and an “upside down elephant” in Texas but does not claim strange shapes are the root of the problem. Volić asserts that “plopping down a bunch of rectangles… to please the eye” would be a disservice because it would ignore important features like demographics, population density, and geography. There are many trade-offs that district-drawers must consider, and this book pulls back the curtain on what those tradeoffs are.
Second, the book challenges the idea that every instance of skewed representation is due to gerrymandering. In the author’s home state of Massachusetts, researchers showed that there is no possible congressional map that would safely elect a Republican to Congress, despite roughly 30 percent of Massachusetts voters identifying as Republican. In order to solve the problem of political underrepresentation, drawing a better map only gets us part way there. Sometimes challenges of geography will overcome even the most well-intentioned map-drawers.
This book challenges us to explore bolder solutions: Instead of gerrymandered districts that elect one person each, we could use multi-member congressional districts, with the members elected through proportional representation. This would get fair representation for Republicans in Massachusetts, and for Democrats in places like Oklahoma. It would likely improve representation for communities of color, too. The book explores several options for proportional representation, considers how they’re working around the world, and even presents a legislative proposal – the Fair Representation Act – which Congress could act on now.
If this all sounds intriguing, then you’re probably a natural problem-solver. In that case, this is the perfect book to help you understand just how things have gotten so bad, and how to think through the menu of solutions. If you’re hearing more about things like ranked choice voting and proportional representation, this book explains why those ideas are becoming popular. It’s the perfect introduction that will get you speaking the language of democracy math in no time.
Even if you’re already tuned in, this book can help you hone your language and your arguments so you can better talk about these issues with friends and family. There’s no one better to teach this material than Ismar Volić.
Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation, by Ismar Volić, is available through Princeton University Press.
Deb Otis is the Director of Research and Policy at FairVote.
