Sunday, February 10, 2008

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall WTF?:

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall WTF?:

"As you know, here at TPM we've been really curious what happened up in the
Republican caucus in Washington state. For probably the first time in all the
primaries and elections I've ever watched, the folks running the election
decided to stop counting the votes with 13% of the votes uncounted. And this
wasn't a 70-30 blow out, but a tight race where the two top vote getters were
separated by less than 2% of the vote. Then this morning, state party chair Luke
Esser decided to declare McCain the winner."


In statistics there is the idea of deminished returns. Forgive me if I don't get this completely right. The idea is that an error margin in a poll is decided by a formula. Under this formula after you reach a certain number - you get no closer to a zero margin of error. A zero margin of error would be no error between the population polled and the collective population. That number is about 1,600 people The reason I bring this up, is that voting isn't about winners and losers as much as it is every vote being counted. If it were only about winners and losers we could count 1,600 votes and call the election done.

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