Topic: The mathematics of the April 2022 election for The President of France

An interesting mathematical puzzle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Fren … l_election

What is the theoretical minimum percentage of the first round vote that a candidate needs to get so as to get  through to the second round and perhaps become elected to become President of France in the second round?

What really happens may be quite interesting.

William

2

Re: The mathematics of the April 2022 election for The President of France

Only two go into the run-off. If anyone gets 50.01% of the votes in round 1, there is no run-off. If two candidates each get 49.99% of the first round votes, and the others share .02% then the two 49.99ers have a run-off.

If all six candidates share the first round virtually equally, then one sixth plus one votes will get them into the run-off. So that is the theoretical minimum. If three each get one sixth plus one votes, and the other three get one sixth minus one votes, then there will be a run-off between three, and presumably the whole thing starts over, in that if none of the three gets at least 50% in the run-off, there will be a further run-off.

Don't worry, that won't happen!

Re: The mathematics of the April 2022 election for The President of France

French urged to vote in presidential election as outcome ‘not guaranteed’

TL;DR

The latest figures on voting intentions in the first round show Macron’s support levelling off at around 27% – a slight drop from last week, but up from before Russia invaded Ukraine. The far right’s Marine Le Pen, who used to support Vladimir Putin but has recently distanced herself, climbed to 21%.

This would lead to a Macron-Le Pen second-round runoff – a repeat of the 2017 presidential election – with polls forecasting a 55%-45% win for Macron.

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams

Re: The mathematics of the April 2022 election for The President of France

Hello Geoff

The answer I got is that there are twelve candidates in the first round for the April 2022 election.

So if one gets 49.9 % and the others are nearly equal, the one with the most votes amongst those eleven candidates gets into the second round, and if the supporters of all of the ten candidates eliminated in the first round then vote for the candidate who came second in the first round, then he or she count win in the second round.

Whilst that is highly likely not to happen, it does mean that if one candidate gets around 20%, then it become almost a random selection of who contests that person in the second round if the other candidates do approximately equally well.

This thread was just an interesting mathematical look at what can happen when so many candidates take part in the first round.

If I remember correctly the present French electoral system was designed to give stability so that a majority of the people who had voted had voted for the person who became The President of France.

This was not intended as a thread about politics, it was intended as a thread about mathematics.

William

Re: The mathematics of the April 2022 election for The President of France

William wrote:

if one gets 49.9 % and the others are nearly equal

Emmanuel Macron is currently polling at 28%, and Marine Le Pen is at 21%. With Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 13% and all the others at 10% or less, the fact that there are currently twelve candidates is not going to matter two weeks from now.

"Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?"
― Tennessee Williams

6 (edited by GB 2022-03-27 22:39:09)

Re: The mathematics of the April 2022 election for The President of France

So if there are twelve candidates, the minimum would be one twelfth of the total votes plus one. If all but one of the rest got exactly one twelfth, the one with one twelfth minus one would drop out and the remaining eleven would be in a run-off. And so on until there was a run-off with only two qualifiers.

It is a much fairer system than exists in the UK, but even that, with an independent Boundary Commission, is much fairer than the shenanigans that go on over here in the USA.

Blatant gerrymandering is not permitted in the UK, as Westminster discovered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homes_for_votes_scandal