In Statistics -
There are Democrats, and there are Republicans, and there are statistics.
In Political Chaos Theory -
A butterfly ballot flaps its wings in Palm County and a hurricane occurs.
In Calculus -
The Fundamental Theorem of Political Calculus:
Given any Democrat, there exists a Republican such that their political result equals zero.
Small Margins of Victory
It seems like the world has fallen into an improbability wormhole. How can the vote for President in the State of Arizona swing on 17 or 4 votes? Bush's lead in Florida is amazingly small 300 votes out of nearly 6 million. That is half of one percent of one percent, one vote in 20,000. That is not statistical noise. It is too close to zero. It is clear there must be other forces at work.
What happens when the margin in a political race falls into the domain of statistical noise? In closely matched political processes there are counteracting forces which drive the results to the middle. Each side exerts enough political pressure to claim votes in batches small enough to swing things their way. As the leader's forces becomes lax the loser's rally. Some ploys win, and others lose. Margins are whittled away until they vanish.
The final count in Florida will now be measured politically. The political forces push back and forth. Votes have been abstracted away from the voters. They become token tallies on a political scoreboard. Everything we know about numbers is wrong in this end game. We can only use the numbers to measure the forces themselves.
The Palm County Ballot
The Palm Beach County ballot and the political forces it reflected will become a classic once the numbers come out (if they ever become public). Politics has much to learn about usability testing. Merely looking at a ballot design is a formula for disaster. Designs must be tested.
The Electoral College
States with small populations have been blessed by the Electoral College. They get a vote for each of their seats in the House of Representatives, a direct measure of their population. Plus, they get two more for their Senators just for being a state. This gives each voter in a small state as much as a 2 1/2 to 1 weighted advantage over a voter in a large state.
But oddly enough, the popular vote totals and Electoral College votes are in dead heats. That must mean Republicans in the rural states must turn out in large enough numbers to perfectly balance the lighter turnout in the more densely populated urban states held by Democrats.
The Future of Voting
One thing is sure. We will enter a New World of voting technology. Chad is toast. Choosing an invalid vote will become impossible. Simple, reliable, valid vote counting systems will soon emerge from this chaos.
A Tasteless Joke (12/13/00)
What do Al Gore and John Kennedy have in common?
They each lost the Presidency to a Texan by one vote.
A Better Joke (12/14/01)
Al Gore may not have invented the internet, but he is the father of computer science.
Thats why code procedures are called Al Gore'isms
