On Fri, 2004-12-17 at 21:36 -0800, Frank Reichert wrote: > Good evening again, Lowell! > > Lowell C. Savage wrote to Frank Reichert... > > > Imagine, over 2.7 MILLION (that's 2,7000,000) votes cast for governor in WA > > and the top two vote-getters are separated by something less than 300 votes. > > Must be something suspicious going on. I mean, what are the > > probabilities.... > > Well, perhaps there is a slight difference here, insofar as > Bonner County came up with an exact tie vote between my two > opponents, and I received only votes counts in 'blocks of 10' > from BOTH counties! I got 280 votes in Boundary County, and a > total of 810 votes comrpising both counties in the First > District. The odds of all of this happening the way it was > reported to have happened, in both counties, are tremendous. > > Close elections are not necessarily the issue here. It is rather > the odds of occurrences happening that defy the odds to the point
No offense but that is as illogical a statement as you can make. If something is not impossible, it is probable. The only question is how much so? Once it happens, it is not counter to probability that it did so, by definition this is the case. > That's to put things into perspective mildly. Again, the odds > are so profoundly and tremendously inferer to something like this > ever happening at all, that rational minds might call such into > serious question. Again, my issue here isn't whether or not > there might have been such a 'close election'. That was expected > in any case. > > Look. I got even numbers reported from both counties in the > District. Doesn't that look odd in and of itself? No!?! You have a ONE IN TWO change of getting an even number in any given tally. What are the chances you will get an even number in two?The same. Yes, it is one in two. Why? One is not related to the other: they are distinct occurrences. Flip a coin. Odds of getting any side is 1 in 2. Say it comes up 'heads'. What are the odds of the next coin toss being 'heads'? One in two. > Not only even > numbers Lowell, but numbers in blocks of 10! Now, let's see and > do the math for a moment. 280 votes exactly from Boundary County, A 1 in 2 chance of it being an even number. A one in ten chance of it being a 0 (power of ten). If it is an even number of votes, the odds of it being a zero is one in 5 (zero can be either even or odd, which make sit pretty odd IMO ;) ). Taken further you could thus state that since your odds of getting an even number is one in two, and of evens, 0 has a one in five chance. Same would be true for odd numbered endings. Thus you could say your odds of getting a 0 ended number is one in five. And you'd be wrong. That's why the events are unique. That is why regardless of the outcome of the count in county A, the outcome of the count in county B is the same. The odds of you getting 810 votes of 12000 votes cast? 1 in 12,000. > But the striking votes were the exact even tie vote in Bonner > County, which is also next to improbable between my two > opposition candidates. IIRC, You said the race was hotly contested and a close result was to be expected. This increases the probability of a tie. Well, more specifically it decreases the certainty of it less. > > Think of it this way. How often does a grocery bill work out to an even > > dollar amount? > > Twice in a row!!! Never happened to my knowledge yet anyway! Odds of a grocery bill coming out to an even dollar amount (such as 5.00, 12.00): 1 in 100. Odds of it happening twice in a row: 1 in 100. Indeed, when the sales tax rate was 5% you actually had a very high probability that your total would round to a dollar if you bought a single item. Happened to me *a lot*. Buy an item for 95 cents, government tacks on 5 cents: total 1.00 even. > > I.e. you finish checking out and the clerk says "That'll be > > Fourteen dollars, even?" (Can you tell I'm single? :-) What are the chances? > > Well, approximately 1 in 100. Which means that approximately once every > > hundred trips to the grocery store, you should get a bill like that. And > > when you do, it isn't because someone is sitting somewhere on a computer > > deciding that "It's time for Frank to get a bill that is an even dollar > > amount." > > Maybe you've missed the point I was trying to make here. Hope > not, but perhaps you have. BOTH the simultaneous tie in Bonner > County occurred at the same time that I received two simultaneous > dead even direct 10 votes in both counties, and all at the same > time! See above. Restated for clarity: Odds of getting a 0 at the end of your vote total in any given count: 1 in 10. Odds of getting a 0 at the end of your vote total in two counts: 1 in 10 Simple. Basic. Math. The odds of rolling a 20 on a 20 sided die is 1 in 20. Odds of doing it two times in a row: 1 in 10. Yet, in my experience as a gamer, it happens quite frequently, and the rolling of a "natural" 20 seems to happen more often than 1 in 20. > Now, factor all of this into your list of probabilities > and I believe you might conclude that all of this goes far, and > far beyond any semblance of probabilities. Once you leave the > scene of possible probabilities, now you have to deal in the > possibilities of such occuring in the same space in time. Now, > that's where calculating this stuff gets really, really rough! No, it is no different. Unless you can prove that your vote outcome in one county altered the probability of getting a 0 ended number, the odds remain one in ten. > I'm not a sore loser either. I already knew I was going to lose > when I knew I was in a three-way race between a Republican and a > Democrat. At the same time however, I believe the candidates > need, deserve or should expect an honest vote count. I know I > would have liked to have had an honest vote count. If all you have is wild eyed rantings about "probabilities" when you (admittedly) clearly do not understand probabilities, you have no credible claim that you didn't get an honest vote. Again, it is claims like this that damage one's credibility. Do you have anything other than your "probabilities" claims? > I do suspect, that the vote numbers were handled in a 'fast and > lose' fashion in BOTH counties, although I do not have the > fortitude to challenge these numbers, since I would certainly not > come out on top in any case. Especially given your lack of credible evidence. I'd love to point you to a good online introduction to probability and statistics but alas I don't have one handy. Wait, just for you I went to google.com: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci549076,00.html http://physics.mtsu.edu/~phys2020/Lectures/L6-L11/L8/Prob/prob.html > > Someone usually DOES win the lottery, right? (Or is that some other scam > > where the state hires people to come in and pretend they won just to keep > > interest up?) > > I don't ever play the lottery. > > I didn't expect that political elections might be viewed in such > a way either. But I'll concede I suppose that some of you might > view the election process in much the same way. I do not. You were asking and ranting about mathematics. Mathematically, they are calculated the same. Math is basically indifferent to opinions. Cheers, Bill -- Random Fortune of the moment: There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. -- Arthur C. Clarke _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
