Question

It was reported that approximately 15.5 million telephone votes were cast. Each vote was for

either Laine or Alejandro. If the ratio of "Laine votes" to "Alejandro votes” was 29:21, how
many votes did Alejandro receive? What percent of the votes did Laine receive?

Answer 1

Alejandro received 6.51 million of votes

Laine received 58% of votes

Explanation:

If the ratio of "Laine votes" to "Alejandro votes” was 29:21, then the number of "Laine votes" was 29x and the number of "Alejandro votes” was 21x. In total, 15.5 million votes were cast. So

29x + 21x = 15.5 million

50x = 15.5 million

x = 0.31 million

Then

the number of "Laine votes"
`=29\cdot 0.31=8.99` million

number of "Alejandro votes”
`=21\cdot 0.31=6.51` million

Laine received

`(8.99)/(15.5)\cdot 100\%=58\%`