Professional Documents
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Part 1:
The Iowa caucus was first introduced in 1846 that were held in March or April in the middle of
the presidential nominating schedule. The word caucus or cau´-cau-as´u from the Algonquin
Indian language means “the one who advises, urges and encourages”.
What the Iowa Caucus is, Is an electoral even where the residents of Iowa gather together to cast
their pick for the upcoming political election. Basically, it’s like a neighborhood meeting of
sorts. Both Democrats and Republicans hold their own Caucuses, but are very different in style.
Democratic Caucuses, you don’t vote by ballot. You show your vote by standing in designated
areas of a certain room where the number of people attending is counted and sent in as “votes”.
For Republicans, it’s a much more formal event where they meet at a given location, listen to
speakers address the voters, and then turn in a secret ballot for their choices. Caucuses are
different from traditional ballot voting because whereas traditional voting it showing up at a poll,
casting your ballot and going home. Caucuses are a much more involved where you listen to
The reason they are so important to a presidential election is that the votes cast by the residents
of Iowa are much more coveted than those of other states. A strong showing in Iowa, sends a
message to national party leaders. The press has a lot to do with the significance of the Iowa
caucus. People look to this to get an idea of how the election is going. It’s held in Iowa because it
is the first major contest of the presidential election, so it gives people a good idea of how things
Part 2
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Part 3
Comparing the different types of theories and methods to voting, I believe that Jeb Bush should
have won the election. Seeing that Trump won from the plurality method, that only takes into
consideration the first-place votes. In an instant runoff voting, Jeb Bush would have been the
winner. This method makes the most sense to me in an electoral sense. The reason this method
works the best in my opinion is because it takes into consideration the other candidates and how
they compare to 1st place, 2nd place, and so on. This is also affected by who is running and
doesn’t affect the others if someone were to drop from the election. Just because Donald Stump
won the plurality vote, it didn’t take into consideration the other candidates and how they
affected the rest. I don’t believe there is a best-case scenario for and voting method, explained
well by Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem. If the first place candidate were to drop, you would
have to look at how the second place candidates stack up and how that would affect the election.