Making Democracy Count explores the impact of mathematics on the many facets of the democratic process. Why was this an important book for you to write?

This book grew out of my various efforts in the math and democracy space. I teach a course called Math and Politics at Wellesley College and direct the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy. Through my many interactions and projects with students and researchers, I realized that there was a need for a book serving as a reader-friendly, gentle introduction to the math of democracy and that I actually had something to say about the subject.

How much research did you undertake for this book, and how much time did it take to put it all together?

If you count the years that I taught the Math and Politics class — which is when I learned much of the material that is in the book, tested the examples, and adjusted things based on student feedback — then it took more years than I care to admit. But once I sat down to start writing, it took about a year and a half to complete the book. The amount of research I had to do was immense, but also very fun since I had to learn a lot of statistics, history, political science, economics, and law which I knew nothing about before.

What is one misconception you think many people have regarding the election process?

The general misconception is that the democratic processes we use, including those that govern our elections, are the right ones and that they are unchangeable. We take so many things about the engine of our democracy for granted. We do not realize that the voting methods we use are flawed, that the Electoral College is a terrible relic of the past, that districting as we do it is a horrific instrument of disenfranchisement. But we can change these processes. We can demand better, more mathematically sound ones.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from Making Democracy Count?

Mathematics can point the way toward better democratic processes. Our democracy runs on algorithms, and mathematics can tell us which ones are flawed and which ones we should use instead. From the objective, non-partisan point of view of mathematics, things like ranked choice voting, multi-winner districts, and open primaries are clearly better because they provide more representation and a more complete picture of the will of the people. We should embrace the mathematical point of view and work to increase our political quantitative literacy.

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How we can repair our democracy by rebuilding the mechanisms that power it

What’s the best way to determine what most voters want when multiple candidates are running? What’s the fairest way to allocate legislative seats to different constituencies? What’s the least distorted way to draw voting districts? Not the way we do things now. Democracy is mathematical to its very foundations. Yet most of the methods in use are a historical grab bag of the shortsighted, the cynical, the innumerate, and the outright discriminatory. Making Democracy Count sheds new light on our electoral systems, revealing how a deeper understanding of their mathematics is the key to creating civic infrastructure that works for everyone.

In this timely guide, Ismar Volić empowers us to use mathematical thinking as an objective, nonpartisan framework that rises above the noise and rancor of today’s divided public square. Examining our representative democracy using powerful clarifying concepts, Volić shows why our current voting system stifles political diversity, why the size of the House of Representatives contributes to its paralysis, why gerrymandering is a sinister instrument that entrenches partisanship and disenfranchisement, why the Electoral College must be rethought, and what can work better and why. Volić also discusses the legal and constitutional practicalities involved and proposes a road map for repairing the mathematical structures that undergird representative government.

Making Democracy Count gives us the concrete knowledge and the confidence to advocate for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy.