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The AP Poll could have used alternative voting methods. An obvious question is to what extent the resulting rankings depend on the choice of voting method. This Demonstration considers what are called positional voting methods, in which a fixed weight is assigned for a vote of each type. For example, the actual AP Poll assigns points for a vote of rank . This Demonstration lets you prescribe your own voting method by individually choosing the weight of each vote type. For convenience, it also includes several predefined voting methods.

We have included complete AP Poll voter data for the 2015–2016 season. The data used here was obtained from www.collegepolltracker.com.

References

[1] D. G. Saari, Basic Geometry of Voting, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1995.

[2] D. G. Saari and F. Valognes, "Geometry, Voting, and Paradoxes," Mathematics Magazine, 71(4), 1998 pp. 243–259. www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/upload_library/22/Allendoerfer/1999/0025570x.di021206.02p0091u.pdf.