Lies, damned lies, statistics, and polls
By Jay Tea on Politics - Wizbang blog
Kevin posted about the most recent national poll for the upcoming election. Once again, I'm reminded just how bloody useless these things are.
Come November, we will NOT be having a national election, and we will NOT be electing a president. The 50 states (and the District of Columbia) will be having 51 separate elections to choose delegates to elect the president.
Let's reduce this to the level of absurdity. November rolls around and Kerry gets every single vote in 38 states and DC, while Bush, Nader, etc. get none whatsoever. In the other 12 states, though, only a single voter shows up in the entire state and votes for Bush. If it is the right 12 states, though (a quick analysis shows them to be California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia), Bush will win 270 electoral votes to Kerry's 268. Presuming the exact same number of people turn out to vote as did in 2000, George Bush would win re-election with 12 votes, and John Kerry would lose while receiving 45,424,585 votes.
Yes, it's absurd. Yes, it's completely improbable. But that's the way the system works, and the sooner we stop deluding ourselves with the relevance of "national polls," the better off we'll all be.
J.
(Note: My thanks to these two websites for helping me crunch the above numbers.)
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