Borda Count - An Example

An Example

Imagine that Tennessee is having an election on the location of its capital. The population of Tennessee is concentrated around its four major cities, which are spread throughout the state. For this example, suppose that the entire electorate lives in these four cities and that everyone wants to live as near to the capital as possible.

The candidates for the capital are:

• Memphis, the state's largest city, with 42% of the voters, but located far from the other cities
• Nashville, with 26% of the voters, near the center of the state
• Knoxville, with 17% of the voters
• Chattanooga, with 15% of the voters

The preferences of the voters would be divided like this:

If the various rankings given to each candidate are added up they are as follows.

It can be seen above, for example, that Chattanooga is ranked first by 15% of voters, second by 43%, third by 42%, and last by no voters at all. To give points to each candidate for these rankings this example will use the formula, explained above, whereby a candidate receives one point for each time a candidate is ranked lower than them (or n – i points). Thus when Chattanooga's votes are added up the results are calculated as: (15*3) + (43*2) + (42*1) + (0*0) = 173. When the points of all candidates are added up, the results are as follows:

Result: The winner of the election is Nashville, as it has 194 points, which is more than any other candidate. Since this example was worked purely according to geographical distance, we would expect the "most acceptable" city to be the most central; a glance at the map above confirms that this is indeed the case. However, if voters in both Knoxville and Chattanooga were to put Chattanooga first and Nashville last, the winner would be Chattanooga, a preferable outcome for voters in both those cities. This is an example of tactical voting.