Question

The residents of a city voted on whether to raise property taxes. The ratio of yes votes to no votes was 7 to 4. If there were 6125 yes votes, what was the total number of votes?

Answer 1

3,500 no votes

Explanation:

There were 7 yes votes to every 4 no votes. There were a total of 6,125 yes votes, so set up a proportion to find the number of no votes

Let x represent the number of no votes

7 is to 4 as 6,125 is to x

We get

7/4 = 6,125/x

Now solve for x

First cross multiply

7x = 24,500

Divide both sides by 7 to isolate x..

x = 3,500 no votes