Of course the book comes too late for the 2010 Philippine national elections, but perhaps it’s just in time for the national elections in 2016 and the local elections between then and now. I’m referring to George G. Szpiro’s
Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present (Princeton University Press, 248 pages), which came off the press in the United States only last April. Szpiro, a PhD in mathematics and a journalist who works with the Swiss daily newspaper
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, traces the history of the efforts of mathematicians, economists, and political theorists over the centuries to clarify the mathematics of voting and come up with better electoral systems. The book surely would greatly inform the efforts of the Philippine nation to institute electoral reforms should the off-and-on proposal to revise its Constitution finally push through.
Click to read the reviews of Numbers Rule in “Time Out from Grammar” now!
