The "first past the post election" query problem

Posted by MPelletier on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by MPelletier
Published on 2010-03-19T00:44:57Z Indexed on 2010/03/19 0:51 UTC
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This problem may seem like school work, but it isn't. At best it is self-imposed school work. I encourage any teachers to take is as an example if they wish.

"First past the post" elections are single-round, meaning that whoever gets the most votes win, no second rounds.

Suppose a table for an election.

CREATE TABLE ElectionResults (
    DistrictHnd INTEGER NOT NULL,
    PartyHnd INTEGER NOT NULL,
    CandidateName VARCHAR2(100) NOT NULL,
    TotalVotes INTEGER NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY DistrictHnd, PartyHnd);

The table has two foreign keys: DistrictHnd points to a District table (lists all the different electoral districts) and PartyHnd points to a Party table (lists all the different political parties). I won't bother with other tables here, joining them is trivial. This is just a wee bit of context.

The question: What SQL query will return a table listing the DistrictHnd, PartyHnd, CandidateName and TotalVotes of the winners (max votes) in each District?

This does not suppose any particular database system. If you wish to stick to a particular implementation of SQL, go the way of SQLite and MySQL. If you can devise a better schema (or an easier one), that is acceptable too. Criteria: simplicity, portability to other databases.

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