Question

The residents of a city voted on whether to raise property taxes. The ratio of yes votes to no votes was 5 to 8. If there were 3585 yes votes, what was the total number of votes?

Answer 1

9321

Explanation:

We can simply make a ratio (fraction) to solve this. Let total number of NO votes be N. Shown below is the ratio:

`(YesVotes)/(NoVotes)=(5)/(8)=(3585)/(N)`

Now we can cross multiply and solve for N:

`(5)/(8)=(3585)/(N)\\5N=8*3585\\5N=28,680\\N=(28680)/(5)=5736`

Hence, number of NO votes is 5736.

To get TOTAL number of votes, we add number of yes votes (3585) to that of number of no votes (5736).

Total votes = 3585 + 5736 = 9321

Answer 2

Answer: 9321 votes

Explanation:

1- You can express the ratio as following:

`5:8` or
`(5)/(8)`

2- Let's call the number of no votes "N"

3- Therefore, if there were 3585 yes votes, then you can write the following expression to calculate the number of no votes:

`(5)/(8)=(3585)/(N)\\\\N=(3585*8)/(5)\\\\N=5736`

4- Then, the total number of votes is:

`t=3585votes+5736votes=9321votes`