# Math Help - Permutations - Voting Power

1. ## Permutations - Voting Power

A large company issues 100,000 shares. These are held by three stockholders who have 50,000, 49,999 and 1 share respectively.

I'm currently studying Year 11 permutations and combinations and I am wondering how do I apply this work to find out how much each voting power each of the members have.

My only understanding is each shareholder has 1/2, 49999/100000 and 1/100000 voting power. This answer seems a little too straight forward and I am just wondering if I am missing something or if this is the actual voting power of each member.

2. If by "voting power" it is meant what share of stock one holds, then the obvious answer seems to be what you showed. Unless there's another definition or some other bit of information, it does seem that straightforward.

3. Perhaps you are supposed to consider the possible combinations of stockholders voting for/against some proposal. For example, what happens if B and C combine against A. What is C's vote worth then? (Labeling the stockholders in an obvious way.)

4. Well, there are $2^3=8$ different ways the three holders (say, A, B, and C) can align their votes for (F) or against (A).

Spoiler:
FFF AFF
FFA AFA
FAF AAF
FAA AAA

How would we define voting power? If they are all in agreement, do we say they each have complete voting power? Do we combine the values for each of the 8 instances to get a total voting power or assess voting power in each of the cases (of course, we can weigh each case by its 1/8 contribution and sum them together).