Upset About Democracy and Elections?
Start caring about political literacy and the arithmetic of voting methods.
Have you ever backed the losing party in an election, and taken a big hit to your levels of happiness? Upset usually happens when an electoral party popularly expected to win, loses. In this article, I use fiction to suggest how political literacy can help reduce the loser’s sense of misery, which can last much longer than a winner’s joy of victory in democracy.
Today, election results are being announced in the Republic of Solar, a lovely place in the Milky Way. Hamina, a young lady, is very excited. She has voted for the first time a few days ago. Will her party win?
The Republic of Solar is a parliamentary democracy. Political parties that wish to exercise power are typically forced to enter some form of pre-electoral coalition prior to the election.
Hamina has voted for the coalition JuPiTer, which includes three parties: Ju, Pi, and Ter, obviously. In fact, Hamina is a great fan of the party Pi, because its name sounds like the mathematic number π. Hamina is in love with mathematics by the way. Although she doesn’t care much about the remaining parties Ju and Ter, her vote counts for the whole coalition, meaning all three parties equally.
