zero point nine

Your vote counts, as long as it is counted #

Posted on: September 27, 2008 - 12:54 pm

This analysis of voting statistics for US presidential elections shows us that it would have taken a swing of just 269, I’ll repeat that because I’m struggling to believe it, 269 votes in Florida for Al Gore to have beaten W. Bush in the 2000 elections. How can something so important (repeatedly) be decided by such a small margin. Actually, it seems that this is to be expected. From the slashdot discussion:

It’s an almost textbook example of optimization theory - assume there’s two ice cream booths on a beach [0..1] with a uniform distribution of guests, now the optimal for the beach guests would having them at 1/4 and 3/4, but then each could steal customers by moving towards the center. End result you got two booths right next to each other in the middle, each serving half the guests. As long as any other booths can’t enter (winner takes it all-system) that situation is stable. Any disturbance like the guest moving over to one side of the beach because it got better sun in the afternoon and the dividing line will move, again leaving half on each side. If you want clearer objective proof that having 40% of the votes it useless in the US, this is it. The politicians must redefine their politics so they’re fighting for the majority, rather than stay true to anything.

Democracy in action.

Pic from Vaguely Artistic.

Tagged as: election, statistics, voting