word problem, votes.

Question

The residents of a city voted on whether to raise property taxes. The ratio of yes votes to no votes was 6

 to 5

. If there were 4655

 no votes, what was the total number of votes?

Answer 1

x = total number of votes

The number of No votes must be 5/(6+5) times the total number of votes.

4655 = [5/(6+5)]x

4655 = (5/11)x

x = (11/5)(4655) = 10241

You can also get the number of Yes votes using similar reasoning.

y = number of Yes votes

y = [6/(6+5)]x = (6/11)(10241) = 5586

Note that the ratio of Yes to No votes is

5586/4655 = 6/5

and note that the sum of Yes and No votes equals 10241.