12.1 Electing the President 12

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The American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg (1883–1970) is synonymous with elaborate contraptions that solve a simple task in an overly complicated manner, often by setting off a chain reaction. The chain reaction of electing the president of the United States begins with the primaries and ends when electors cast electoral votes based on the results of the general election. Goldberg even used primaries and presidential elections as fodder for his drawings. This chapter uses mathematics to illuminate the sequence of sometimes overly complicated steps used to elect the president—from the assigning of delegates in the primaries to the strategic positioning of candidates in the general election and its relationship to the Electoral College.

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