Do you still support Trump? - The Kosher Le'pesach edition

[ExGingi]

You don't know that the Democratic nominee will win California in the general election until after the fact? Obviously, anything is theoretically possible, but is there a higher likelihood of the right wing Republican candidate taking the state, or the prospective voter getting hit by a car on the way to vote?

And then CV talks about people twisting themselves into pretzels to avoid acknowledging reality.

As long as the system is what it currently is, unless one votes in a swing state their vote doesn't matter. It is simple statistics.

[CountValentine]

As long as the system is what it currently is, unless one votes in a swing state their vote doesn't matter. It is simple statistics.

You don't understand how our voting system works. Why do you limit it to swing states? According to your logic there is not one state where an individual vote mattered in any presidential election. Show me one state? So why vote if your individual vote has not and will not ever matter in a presidential election?

[ExGingi]

You don't understand how our voting system works. Why do you limit it to swing states? According to your logic there is not one state where an individual vote mattered in any presidential election. Show me one state? So why vote if your individual vote has not and will not ever matter in a presidential election?

In swing states, individual votes do matter.

It's all about statistics.

Let's say average eligible voter turnout is 50%. And let's say that a state has a 10 percentage point (out of actual casted votes) one way. For simplification purposes lets assume there are 200 eligible voters in the state. 50% turnout with a 10 percentage point margin between the two parties would mean that one party gets 55 votes while the other gets 45 votes.  Now let's assume another 20 people decide they are going to vote, in order for the party that got only 45 votes out of the 100 original voters (the regular turnout) to sway the outcome the other way, it would require 16 out of the extra 20 people to vote for the party that got the first 45 votes. Is it possible? Yes. What is the probability - I'm not an expert, but I would guess close to nil. Remember, this is about having the people that wouldn't otherwise show up to vote, to be very heavily tilted the other way (in our example that would mean a 60 percentage point margin versus a 10 percentage point margin going the other way for the self-motivated voters).

Now we use the same basic numbers - 200 voters with 50% regular turnout, and the numbers are 51 to 49, then with 20 additional voters the results out of those 20 would only need to be 12 to 8 going the other way. Still a stretch, but not as implausible as the first example. The closer the margin the more each additional vote might have an effect. Wherever the margin is significant, no single additional vote counts.

That was my non-scientific explanation. But here's a more scientific paper: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/probdecisive2.pdf and the following image is the important executive summary (the probability of a single vote swaying the election in any of the states colored black is close to ZERO):

[CountValentine]

In swing states, individual votes do matter.

Show me one state in the history of our presidential elections where an individual vote mattered? Just one state in all the years of our presidential elections.

[ExGingi]

Show me one state in the history of our presidential elections where an individual vote mattered? Just one state in all the years of our presidential elections.

What were the hanging chads all about (I don't remember the year)?

[CountValentine]

What were the hanging chads all about (I don't remember the year)?

About counting every vote. Even in that election no one individual vote made a difference.
If you lived in that state your vote would not have mattered for either candidate and that was a swing state.
This logic you are using does not work.

[ExGingi]

About counting every vote. Even in that election no one individual vote made a difference.
If you lived in that state your vote would not have mattered for either candidate and that was a swing state.
This logic you are using does not work.

Let me explain it to you:

When the margin is close, individual votes do matter, as it is plausible to get enough ADDITIONAL individuals to cast their votes. Notice that in the paper I quoted above it says:


A single vote out of 100 is 1%, and a single vote out of 1,000 is 0.10%. Those are margins that could matter. When the margin is 100,000 votes a single vote is 0.001%. It just doesn't matter when those are the margins.

Let me quote some relevant sentences from the paper:

In a presidential election, the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times the probability the vote in your state is tied, conditional on your state being necessary.

Finally, in Figure 3, we decompose the two factors that determine the individual voter’s chance of making a difference: the probability that your state will be needed for an electoral college win and the probability that your state is tied in that event. Larger states are more likely to be crucial in the electoral vote but less likely to be tied: for example, we estimate there is a 18% chance that the electoral vote margin will be less than 55 (so that California’s 55 electoral votes will be crucial), but only a 1 in 100 million chance that California’s immense popular vote will be tied if that happens. At the other extreme, we estimate a less than 1% chance that the electoral college will be so close that New Hampshire’s five electoral votes will be necessary—but, if they are, the probability is a relatively high 1 in 70,000 of a tie vote in the state.

[dm123]

This map has been used to prove individual votes are worthless except swing states since 1776? Or have there been some changes (aside from adding states)? Have some states changed from swing to non swing or vice versa? Even if part of the ballot is hopeless, should people stay home? Wouldn't a stronger voter turnout encourage future candidates of one's preferred party to campaign harder in ones state? As we just saw in NY even though Zeldin lost, there were a number of surprises that can even effect the entire country...

[ExGingi]

This map has been used to prove individual votes are worthless except swing states since 1776? Or have there been some changes (aside from adding states)? Have some states changed from swing to non swing or vice versa? Even if part of the ballot is hopeless, should people stay home? Wouldn't a stronger voter turnout encourage future candidates of one's preferred party to campaign harder in ones state? As we just saw in NY even though Zeldin lost, there were a number of surprises that can even effect the entire country...

READ THE PAPER! (it refers only to the Presidential Election as it factors the Electoral College into the calculation).

Buying a NY lottery ticket probably gives much better odds of a relevant outcome (compared to input) than voting in the general election.

[CountValentine]

Let me explain it to you:

I understand what the paper is saying.

You are still not addressing the fact that no one individual vote has every changed a presidential election in our history. So, when you say your vote doesn't matter then using that logic it would be true for every individual vote in every state.

You talk about swing states. FL was a swing. Did any votes in FL matter? See how this logic fails?


If you want to talk about a group of votes than that is a totally different situation.

[dm123]

READ THE PAPER! (it refers only to the Presidential Election as it factors the Electoral College into the calculation).

Buying a NY lottery ticket probably gives much better odds of a relevant outcome (compared to input) than voting in the general election.

If it's all a question of probability can we just have AI take care of the voting for us? 

[ExGingi]

I understand what the paper is saying.

You are still not addressing the fact that no one individual vote has every changed a presidential election in our history. So, when you say your vote doesn't matter then using that logic it would be true for every individual vote in every state.

You talk about swing states. FL was a swing. Did any votes in FL matter? See how this logic fails?


If you want to talk about a group of votes than that is a totally different situation.

Last I checked groups of votes are an aggregation of individual votes.

You like to play odds, don't you?
Do you realize that there's a difference between 1:1,000,000,000 odds and 1:70,000 odds?
How much would you invest (if at all) where the odds were 1:1,000,000,000?

[ExGingi]

If it's all a question of probability can we just have AI take care of the voting for us? 

Do you want to vindicate Trump? 

[CountValentine]

If it's all a question of probability...

The probability is we will never see one individual vote decide a presidential election in our lifetime or in our kid's lifetime.

So, if you want to say your vote doesn't matter then the same logic dictates that no one individual vote matters.

[zh cohen]

@ExGingi , according to the math that you are putting forward, what is the statistical chance that one person's actions can be מכריע עצמו וכל העולם כולו . . . ומביא ישועה והצלה...?

How do you distinguish between your argument against voting from the argument of the dor hamabul when they took a קיסם from someone's fence?

[ExGingi]

@ExGingi , according to the math that you are putting forward, what is the statistical chance that one person's actions can be מכריע עצמו וכל העולם כולו . . . ומביא ישועה והצלה...?

Help me understand, is there an electoral college for כל העולם כולו? How about a "winner take all" within regions (ever heard of ונשאתי לכל המקום בעבורם)? Or does anyone claim to know חשבונות שמים?

[drosenberg88429]

The probability is we will never see one individual vote decide a presidential election in our lifetime or in our kid's lifetime.

So, if you want to say your vote doesn't matter then the same logic dictates that no one individual vote matters.

If you are trying to convince someone to vote for one party's candidate or another, that means that the person has been identified as a potential or actual swing voter. If the demographic of swing voters has a likely chance of determining the result of the election, I would say that they consider their votes to have a high degree of likelihood of making a difference. Each individual is being counted as a member of their demographic as it pertains to elecoral breakdown.


But sheesh. Why am I even responding to this? C'mon, man.

I think the one who can have pretzels on pesach is flaunting them in our face.

[ExGingi]

How do you distinguish between your argument against voting from the argument of the dor hamabul when they took a קיסם from someone's fence?

Do you mean נוטלין פחות משוה פרוטה, דבר שאינו יוצא בדיינין?

Do you honestly not see a distinction between TAKING פחות משוה פרוטה (which was done in order to remain under a threshold) to CONTRIBUTING an action that CANNOT have any effect and cannot be multiplied or increased by the same person.

[CountValentine]

If you are trying to convince someone to vote for one party's candidate or another, that means that the person has been identified as a potential or actual swing voter. If the demographic of swing voters has a likely chance of determining the result of the election, I would say that they consider their votes to have a high degree of likelihood of making a difference. Each individual is being counted as a member of their demographic as it pertains to elecoral breakdown.


But sheesh. Why am I even responding to this? C'mon, man.

I think the one who can have pretzels on pesach is flaunting them in our face.

So now the new pretzel is "demographic of swing voters". 

[ExGingi]

So now the new pretzel is "demographic of swing voters". 

I don't know about any new pretzel, but I have seen a new strawman here:

The probability is we will never see one individual vote decide a presidential election in our lifetime or in our kid's lifetime.

So, if you want to say your vote doesn't matter then the same logic dictates that no one individual vote matters.