TAMS Mock Election 2024
The TAMS Mock Election is run by Ballot to encourage civic discourse at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS). I served as election administrator and author of the results write-up.
Design
- Ballots followed the Texas Election Code’s ordering rules and used first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting, to simulate a real election rather than to make it maximally fair.
- 115 students voted, about a third of TAMS and nearly double the 59 who voted in the previous mock midterm. The voter mix was roughly uniform across dorm wings and floors.
- Ranked-choice (STV) tallies were used for a few side questions to show how that system behaves.
Results
- President: Harris 51.3%, Trump 33.0%, Oliver (L) 12.2%, Stein (G) 3.5%.
- U.S. Senate (Texas): Allred 53.6%, Cruz 27.7%, Brown (L) 18.8%.
- Top issues: the economy, healthcare, education, abortion, and the environment and climate change. The economy jumped to first place from seventh in the previous mock election.
- Breakdowns: the write-up compares issue priorities and vote choice by gender and by class year. Abortion, for example, was far more often a top-three issue for girls than for guys, while the economy, taxes and national security were more often chosen by guys.
- Ranked-choice side questions: when forced to choose between parties, Libertarian and Green voters at TAMS leaned Democratic. Another tally shows that ranked-choice can still be gamed: a candidate could improve their own odds by ranking themselves third.