In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Radford Neal) wrote:
> >If approximately 2/3 of the tallied votes were for Gore, by what leap of
> >logic do you conclude that 1/2 of the untallied votes would have been
> >for Bush?
>
> I didn't. If you actually read the passage you quoted, you will see
> that I concluded that one would expect the division to be *closer* to
> 1/2 each than for the clearly marked ballots. If you mix a certain
> number of valid ballots with 1/3 - 2/3 proportions with another group
> of invalid ballots, in which votes have been assigned randomly, in
> 1/2 - 1/2 proportions, the proportions for the whole group will not
> be 1/3 - 2/3, but rather will have shifted toward 1/2 - 1/2.
You make my point for me. You conclude that the "invalid" ballots will
be split nearer half and half than the valid ballots. Why?
The most reasonable assumption is that the same proprtion of the votes
for each candidate would be declared invalid. In this case, if those
invalid votes show any marks of intention at all, they should be split
in the same proportions as the valid votes.
The only case for a more nearly 50-50 split might be if totally
indeterminant ballots had to be assigned to someone. Even then
statistics indicates that they should be split in the same propotions as
the valid ballots.
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