An Election in Togo, West Africa

Elections in Togo have been fixed for a long time, so it's natural that I should have played a role in one.

When I was newly arrived in Togo as a Peace Corps Volunteer, there was a meeting of all the Togo Peace Corps volunteers in the capital. We were holding elections for officers of our group. In one particular race, there were several candidates, and after the vote had occurred, with no clear majority, the discussion turned to how we would decide the election between the several candidates.

Various schemes were proposed for how to proceed, and I suddenly realized that I was in the perfect spot to apply Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. So I raised my hand and told folks that any system has its flaws, and I proposed that we just take the plurality winner.

Some guy shouted out "Is he a mathematician?" Someone else said "Yeah!" So the guy who'd shouted out moved that we take the plurality winner. It was seconded and passed. And I suddenly realized that I'd been the dictator.


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