TEACHING COMPANION / NO ACCOUNT NEEDED
After the Count
Votes in. Power out. Which rule would you defend?
Electoral systems, representation & comparative inference · About 75 min or two sessions · provisional teaching plan
Learning goals
- Explain how local plurality, a list threshold, a majority runoff and MMP connect votes to representation or office.
- Interpret numbers with the correct unit and denominator, and separate fixed-input calculations from behavioral forecasts.
- Defend a design with evidence, a valued consequence, an accepted cost and reconsideration evidence.
- Transfer a rule-based explanation to New Zealand while identifying a meaningful comparison limit.
Before the activity
No prior country knowledge required. The records and rules are supplied; a calculator is useful.
Syllabus description
Investigate real elections in the UK, Israel, Liberia and New Zealand. Follow how votes become seats or one president, test rule comparisons and defend a consequence you value and a cost you accept. Students produce four case briefs and a comparative evidence notebook.
Discussion prompts
- Where did a national vote total fail to explain a local seat result?
- Which comparison holds recorded inputs fixed, and which also changes the participating vote pool?
- What would make your preferred rule better by one standard and worse by another?
What to assess
Assess mechanism, quantitative evidence, model limits, trade-off judgment and comparison/transfer with the manual’s 10-point rubric. The class route requires explanations. Completion and support exposure are records of activity, not automated grades.
Limitations
The records are historical; rule labs identify fixed inputs and uncomputed outcomes. The UK benchmark is fractional, Israel models eligibility only, Liberia compares separate elections, and the NZ lab does not recalculate all seats. Cover art is conceptual. Timing and learning effects need a human pilot.
Credit & permissions
Created by Yoav Duman. Free educational use, sharing and hosted embedding; software rights reserved. Software, artwork, branding and third-party materials are separate; see the full reuse information.
Suggested citation: Yoav Duman, “After the Count: Teaching companion,” Possible States, https://possiblestates.com/teaching/after-the-count. Include your access date.
ASSESSMENT & SUBMISSION
Grade the explanation.
The interface has no opinion.
Set an endpoint, ask for the activity’s readable report, and use your existing LMS. Students can use Print / Save as PDF where a separate download is not offered. A progress backup is for restoring work, not grading it.
A suggested 10-point rubric
For each criterion: 0 = absent, 1 = partial, 2 = clear and supported. Adapt the weighting to your course; this is guidance, not automatic scoring.
- Concepts / 2
- Use the relevant political concept accurately.
- Evidence / 2
- Support a claim with a specific record or comparison.
- Mechanism / 2
- Explain how the rule or arrangement produces a consequence.
- Revision / 2
- Address a rival account or explain a change of mind.
- Limits / 2
- State what the model or evidence cannot establish.
Say this before they begin.
- Choose For class and follow the instructor’s endpoint.
- Save a progress backup before moving devices or changing website address.
- Open the readable report and check the required responses.
- Upload it to the course assignment. Check the LMS submission confirmation.
Switching from exploration keeps the current work, but skipped class responses may still need completing. A local report cannot establish authorship or make an activity tamper-proof.
Prepare an assignment to share.
Edit this text, then copy it into Canvas or your course website. These edits stay in this tab.
Syllabus description & discussion prompts
Syllabus description
Investigate real elections in the UK, Israel, Liberia and New Zealand. Follow how votes become seats or one president, test rule comparisons and defend a consequence you value and a cost you accept. Students produce four case briefs and a comparative evidence notebook.
Questions for a discussion board or class debrief
- Where did a national vote total fail to explain a local seat result?
- Which comparison holds recorded inputs fixed, and which also changes the participating vote pool?
- What would make your preferred rule better by one standard and worse by another?