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The Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware will hold a symposium on the mathematics of elections and voting, from 2-6 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 19, in 120 Smith Hall, South College and Amstel Avenues.

The symposium will discuss the uncertainties, errors and variations in design of voting systems, will feature lectures for specialists, the university community and the general public.

“The 2000 presidential election raised public awareness of problems arising in elections, and voting systems offer rich material for a vast array of disciplines,” Louis Rossi, professor of mathematical sciences, said.

“There is always uncertainty in voting and that is something the public is always concerned about,” Rossi said. “A common feature in all approaches to these problems is a need for quantitative evaluation and analysis.”

Among the featured speakers will be Bill Briggs, professor of mathematics at the University of Colorado at Denver; Jasjeet Sekhom, associate professor of government and an associate of the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences at Harvard University; and Steven Brams, professor of politics at New York University.

Sekhon is an expert on the mathematical analysis of social science data. He has written extensively on how voters behave and on the effects of voting technologies and ballot formats on election outcomes. He coauthored an article entitled "The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida" in the American Political Science Review. The article stated that the butterfly ballot cost Albert Gore the presidential election in Florida in 2000.

Briggs teaches undergraduate and graduate courses with a special interest in mathematical modeling and differential equations as it applies to problems in the biosciences. He developed a quantitative reasoning course for liberal arts students and coauthored the course textbook, Using and Understanding Mathematics. He has written two other tutorial monographs, The Multigrid Tutorial and The DFT: An Owner's Manual for the Discrete Fourier Transform.

Briggs will spend one week at UD as a distinguished visiting fellow sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.

Brams is the author or coauthor of 14 books that involve applications of game theory and social choice theory to voting and elections, bargaining and fairness, international relations and the Bible and theology. He has written two books focusing on presidential elections and voting systems: The Presidential Election Game and Approval Voting (with Peter C. Fishburn).

For more information and updates about the symposium, visit [www.math.udel.edu/research/electoral].

Contact: Martin Mbugua, (302) 831-8749, or e-mail [mbugua@udel.edu]
October 11, 2004