On 31 January 2024, 16:00, at the AOSR headquarters, at Centre of Excellence “Emil Palade” for the Initiation of Young People in Scientific Research (T.C.S.), which is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research unit within the Academy of Romanian Scientists (A.O.S.R.), Mr CS.I, Dr Doru-Sabin Delion, Director T.C.S. and Vice-President A.O.S.R. present the Project Competition “AOSR – TEAMS – III”, Edition 2024-2025, and Mrs CS. Dr. Camelia Petrescu presents funding sources for scientific research 2024, including Experimental Demonstration Project, Transfer to Economic Operator Project and Centres of Excellence.
Also, on January 31, 2024, at 3 p.m., Prof.univ.dr.eng. Petru Andea, Scientific Secretary of the Romanian Academy of Scientists, will hold the conference Mathematics of Electoral Systems.
The electoral system is, together with the institutional system, one of the main pillars on which the political system is built and sustained.
If we look at the multitude of possible formulas, we can see that human inventiveness has been particularly prolific in terms of electoral systems and voting methods. Even though the two main models – majority voting and proportional representation – currently dominate all combinations, all mechanisms and all calculation procedures have been considered and practised at different times in history.
One wonders what the British system would look like if first-past-the-post voting were replaced by proportional representation? What would the German regime be like without “double voting”? How would the Fifth French Republic have evolved if a proportional system had replaced the two-round majority system?
In Romania in the electoral year 2024, the four types of elections are held by proportional representation in one round – Europarliamentary, parliamentary and local elections – majority voting in one round – election of mayors and presidents of county councils and majority voting in two rounds – election of the President of Romania. It has to be said that there is no perfect electoral system that ensures a correlated result of seats allocated with the number of votes cast.
This paper illustrates how much the mathematics of electoral systems can distort the outcome of different types of elections.