Friday, February 20, 2026, 4 p.m.

Abstract: Mathematics and voting have been in the news more and more in the past
decades. From the recent popularity of "ranked choice voting" to gerrymandering
cases at the Supreme Court, the public is starting to see that the connection is more
than just counting votes.

But thinkers have been using logic and math to think about choice for centuries. We'll
see how the medieval thinkers Ramon Llull and Nicholas of Cusa connected methods
voting for offices such as abbot or emperor to their faith, before this "sampler" of a
talk looks at contemporary connections, such as:

• Deciding how to divide goods, whether desirable or undesirable.
• How to divide up voting power among constituencies, like states
• The question of gerrymandering in representation
• What it might mean to say that the "right" candidate won an election

SPEAKER: DR. KARL-DIETER CRISMAN
LOCATION: SE 022