Topic: Does your vote count? | |
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Okay, I know there will be some pissing and moaning about ACORN and other related teeth gnashing.
Before I post on this I have to say the fact is that even when people falsely register to vote or register others those people do not show up and cast votes. Casting a false vote knowingly is a federal crime punishable by ten years in prison. State and federal law enforcement authorities have repeatedly investigate this matter and have not found people actually voting that falsely registered. In Ohio in the last two presidential elections they found a total of seven people had voted who shouldn't have. They were not prosecuted however because the voting resulted from errors not because of fraud. Here's some of the math behind voting. From http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VOTE_MATTERS?SITE=WWLAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT For some people, though, the odds approach fathomable numbers. Residents of swing states have the best odds of swinging the election. That's based not on the size of the state but the likelihood that the race will be close and that their state will make the difference in the Electoral College. In New Mexico, the odds are 1 in 6.1 million of a voter casting the ultimate deciding vote. "If you're in New Mexico, you have a better chance of having your vote matter than winning the New York Lottery," said study co-author Aaron Edlin, a professor of economics and law at the University of California, Berkeley. In Virginia, the odds are 1 in 7.9 million. New Hampshire residents have 1 in 8 million chance of being the key vote. In Colorado, the odds are 1 in 9.9 million. In those states, voters are more likely to decide the election than die by dog bite this year. For everyone else after those four states, fat chance. The next lowest odds - for Nevada - are 1 in 28.2 million, worse than death-by-dog bite odds of 1 in 10.9 million in one year. Thirty-four states have odds greater than 1 in 100 million; 20 states have odds worse than 1 in 1 billion. Alabama's odds are 1 in 12.2 billion. Oklahoma's odds are 1 in 20.5 billion. But the nation's capital has it the worst. The odds of a District of Columbia resident casting the vote that decides the election are 1 in 490 billion. That's essentially zero, but Gelman said: "We never like to say zero in statistics." The third author is prominent baseball statistician Nate Silver, who also runs the political polling Web site http://www.fivethirtyeight.com . (There are 538 electoral votes nationwide.) The polling used for their study is from Silver's Web site and aggregates numerous polls of varying standards. Even though the odds are against their own votes making a difference, the authors plan to vote, mostly out of altruism and civic duty. And they urge everyone to do so, no matter what the odds of their vote being the deciding factor. Gelman lives in New York, where the odds are 1.9 billion to 1 that his vote will make the difference. "I always vote," he said. "I do think that it's a privilege that we have." |
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