<G> I am not interested in your "puzzles", which are invariably stupid upon examination, like the "population vote"....
Tommie's "population vote" misnomer explained:
In the 2000 election, counties which swung to Bush (the 'red' counties) were actually slightly more populous than counties which swung to Gore ('blue' counties).
Note, not in the votes cast (actual votes nationwide tallied a 550,000 vote win for Gore over Bush), but in their raw populations... including all non-voting citizens.
So, what about the statistical quirk of 'red' counties averaging a slightly greater population than 'blue' counties. What does this tell us?
Not much, actually, since this represents 'couch potatos'... people who did not go to the polls and vote.
Who would they have voted for if someone had driven them to the polls and forced them to vote? Who knows? Maybe Bush, maybe Gore, maybe Nader, maybe Mickey Mouse....
The salient point is: they were disaffected enough to not want to vote. Presumably they weren't entranced enough with any of the candidates to want to vote for them.
A 'non-vote' is a form of political expression, too.
Is there any valid statistical reason to conclude that the people who stayed at home would have voted predominantly for one candidate over another? Short answer: No.
Is there any valid reason to conclude that people always vote the same as their neighbors? No. One cannot impute that your neighbor's vote is the same as yours.
Is this exceedingly minor population quirk in the 'red' counties significant? No, especially considering another minor statistical quirk: that percentage-wise, voter turnout was slightly lower in the 'blue' counties (somewhat more urban) than in the 'red'.
So, even if a more exciting campaign, or some other factor had uniformly raised the level of voter turnout in the national elections, no conclusions can be drawn about how these fence-sitting - or disaffected, non-involved - citizens would have voted in some magical alternate World where they were suddenly stricken with a patriotic urge to cast ballots.
I question where anyone who gets so delusional and twisted up in simple statistics as Tommie does, and manifestly fails to understand the plain concept of what a vote is (a recorded ballot)... could not see the truth in his own comment as it applies to himself: "As one gets older unlearning poor thinking habits and removing ones blinders becomes ever harder". |
