How Close Were US Presidential Elections?

Mike Sheppard writes "I'm a graduate student in Statistics at Michigan State University and spent some time analyzing past US presidential elections to determine how close they truly were. The mathematical procedures of Linear Programming and 0-1 Integer Programming were used to find the optimal solution to the question: 'What is the smallest number of total votes that need to be switched from one candidate to another, and from which states, to affect the outcome of the election?' Because of the way the popular and electoral votes interact, the outcome of the analysis had some surprising and intriguing results. For example, in 2004, 57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry; and in 2000, 269 votes would have given us President Gore. In all there have been 12 US Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the election would have been different."

Thanks from the reminder

"269 votes would have given us President Gore"

And eight years of being reminded of that sad fact can take a toll on a man's soul that can't be quantified.

Re:Thanks from the reminder

I'm still mad at the Republicans for not running McCain back in 2000. I think we'd be in a MUCH different situation with either Gore or McCain - that's before McCain was taken over by that pod person that's occupying his body now.

*GRMUBLING* Passing over Christine Whitman for that dingbat from Alaska....

Re:Thanks from the reminder

Has or is?

Re:Thanks from the reminder

Clinton / Gore were banging the WMD drum loudly all through the 1990's. Iraq's invasion was going to happen since Serbia was seen as a victory. in 1998 Clinton signed a bill to free Iraq. the argument was never over the war but over what party was going to skim off the top of the war funding in my opinion. the Dems seized control of the Congress in 2006 and could have cut off funding - we are still in Iraq. you do not maintain air supremacy over a nation for 12 years (no fly zone enforcement) and not invade. we strangled Saddam economically, softened him up and rolled his forces, and tossed him onto the ash heap of history. anybody that has any war history under their belts knows there will always be an insurgency to put down after a nation goes down - see also the Werewolves in post WWII Germany. the reason they were defeated so easily is that era of warfare did not have its hands bound by political correctness, instantaneous digital media coverage, and a bunch of spineless wimps in Congress. Ike suppressed the media, blasted the Nazi remnants out of the hills, and prosecuted any that were involved via military tribunal. it is ugly nasty work, that is why it was called a war.

Re:Thanks from the reminder

Gore would have known that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan/Pakistan, not Iraq.

Re:Thanks from the reminder

Well, you see, there's this thing about military action: it's not all the same. It tends to actually matter who you attack, at what scale, with what goal, and with what strategy.

It is very possible that another leader would fuck up spectacularly too, but I have to believe that _most_ leaders would at least go after someone who actually had something to do with the attack.

Re:Thanks from the reminder

There is this thing called Phyrric victory [wikipedia.org]. Spending U.S.$ 1.5 trillion to turn one of the most corrupt states of the world into one of the most corrupt states of the world, increasing at the same time the number of political motivated killings from an average of 10,000 per year to 25,000 per year, moving from a pretty secular and multi religious state into a very fundamentalistic islamic one... technically it was a victory, yes.

Re:Thanks from the reminder

You make it sound like Iran in the 50's or something. Its not like we led a coup against a secularist leader who dared to nationalize their nation's oil...

oh wait... well at least Mossadegh was elected, whereas Hussein killed his way to the top of the Ba'ath party. Either way, we've paved the path for fundamentalists to take over yet another major region with our manifest destiny pompous attitude. When you kill all of the secularists, the only ones left will be the fundamentalists.

Re:Thanks from the reminder

It could have been worse? Statistically improbable...

Never changes

<blockquote>In all there have been 12 US Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the election would have been different."</blokquote>

Maybe these small margins indicate why things never change in politics. Nice work.

Re:Never changes

It's an almost textbook example of optimization theory - assume there's two ice cream booths on a beach [0..1] with a uniform distribution of guests, now the optimal for the beach guests would having them at 1/4 and 3/4, but then each could steal customers by moving towards the center. End result you got two booths right next to each other in the middle, each serving half the guests. As long as any other booths can't enter (winner takes it all-system) that situation is stable. Any disturbance like the guest moving over to one side of the beach because it got better sun in the afternoon and the dividing line will move, again leaving half on each side. If you want clearer objective proof that having 40% of the votes it useless in the US, this is it. The politicians must redefine their politics so they're fighting for the majority, rather than stay true to anything.

Importance of protecting the process

This shows how easy it would be to swing the election should one hack the voting in a few districts. The analysis can be used to show the regions to focus on.

This shows the importance of maintaining an open and audit able process if the system is to be protected from manipulation.

It also shows the importance of every vote and in protecting the rights of all to be able to cast their vote.

 

Some...

Some would contend (and I have difficulty disagreeing) that, in 2000, 269 votes still wouldn't have given us President Gore - it would have just given us 269 more rejected ballots...

In 2000, 1 vote would have been enough...

there were only 9 votes that counted, and switching 1 would have done it.

How often does the outcome matter?

The fact that so many elections are so close seems to indicate that 'the people' don't have a strong preference for one candidate over another. Why? Because their policies are often nearly indistinguishable.

Look at this election for instance. Even on the issue of withdrawing from Iraq, both candidates plan to withdraw troops from Iraq based on conditions on the ground, and send them into Iraq. Neither of these candidates are going to stand up against this upcoming bank welfare bill. Even the candidate for "change" has voted with the Bush administration to protect telecoms from consequences for their illegal spying on Americans. And yet, people seem to think that this is "the most important election of our time". Bullshit.

So yeah 1% might swing the outcome of an election, but it's going to take more than 1% to cause any sort of real change. You might as well flip a coin, you'll get a 50/50 split that way too.

Marketing is an Engineering Problem

I have said in the past (since before 2000) that the very strong trend toward fifty-fifty splits between rivals only proves that Marketing is now an Engineering Problem.

To explain: all endeavors start as artforms, like "the tuning of these newfangled carburetors is a bit of a black art." Then you understand the general system well enough to call it a science, "we have found that if we measure the fuel mixture, we maximize combustion." Once the system is known very well, it is an engineering problem: "an electronic system monitors the mixture and adjusts for different conditions on the fly."

Just as the cola wars are in a well-settled detente, the business of national politics is a marketing endeavor. Whether you're Demopublican or Replicratic, whether you're a Preservative or a Libertine, your party system will simply apply the art, nee, the science, nee, the engineering methodology to ensure the candidates do the best they can. Of course, both sides have effectively infinite resources so the marketing comes out equal, and the course of history witnesses Gore/Bush 2000, too many 5-4 decisions to count, a roughly 50-51 Senate, and a dynamic but well-balanced electoral college.

We seem to be deadlocked into a 50%/50% world, regardless of the actual merits. Marketing is simply engineering the "choices" we have, and equally effectively on "both" sides of just about every political issue.

Designed that way

A "feature" (probably unintended) of the design of the Electoral College system is that most elections look like more of a blowout than they were. In theory, if someone manages to consistently get 50.5% in every state, they could win every state and the public will be told the next morning about the victor's huge landslide victory.

That's why after the 2000 election the Reps floated around those red state/blue state US maps with such glee. It made a squeaker look like a huge victory. (For a better picture, see the University of Michagan [umich.edu] , which use some cartiographical tricks to adjust for population).
A better illustration are Regan's victories. Everyone knows Regan clobbered Carter and Mondale, right? Well, the true answer is not really, and sorta respectively. The electoral college turned his %50.7 victory in 1980 into a %86 state victory, and his %58.8 victory in 1984 into a %94 state victory.

It has been argued that this effect is actually good for the country, as it gives presidents more legitimacy from their elections.

What are the odds these were random?

OK, we have some instances of small fluctuations causing major effects. Rather than just sitting back and says "wow, that was close", the next stage is to calculate the possibility of these events being statistically random.

Re:How about

Actually, MANY recounts were performed. One by USA Today, one by Washington Post, another by Wall street Journal, and so on.

They all agreed that Gore simply did not have enough ballots according to Florida legal standards (where hanging chads are called null votes). They all agreed that Bush won Florida State.

Re:How about

First, they weren't official recounts.

Second, they showed that if there been a full statewide recount of all counties, Al Gore would have received more votes than Bush.

It is true that that is not what Al Gore's campaign was asking for, but there it is.

And that is before you get into the whole voter list mess, which undoubtedly rejected thousands of legitimate Democratic voters, but was not a recount issue.

Re:How about

Hanging chad? So the voting technology is so terrible that an elderly person who votes for Gore has a good chance of not pressing hard enough (parkisons, arthritis, weakness is a bitch you know) and thus nullifying their vote. I dont expect this kind of thing to happen in fist world countries. I think its pretty obvious what a hanging chad means. Tossing it out is borderline voting fraud.

Re:How about

If 269 votes make such a big difference there is a good reason to change the system. Such a small group of people should not have such a big influence on what happens in a country. That is, when you are serious about being a democracy. Really, these are all just symptoms of a bigger problem.

Re:How about

And that's just it. Ideally, any election would be run by an impartial third party, which is effectively impossible in the highly charged and partisan atmosphere encouraged by our system. I would be much more at ease if another country like Sweden stepped in to control the whole thing, just because theoretically they're less likely to attempt outright subversion of the process.

Or hell, at least someone less partial than one of the candidate's relatives. Fuck, even McDonalds has sweepstakes rules that employees and family members can't win prizes for similar reasons. Are we saying our elections are less important than McDonalds sweepstakes? Maybe not, but our actions sure are.

Re:99% off-topic question

I'm turning 41 in a week, and this is the 2nd election I listened to...even in 2000, while I 'listened' enough to make up my mind, I didn't think politics was really important. Even the Florida recount didn't seem to matter that much to me, I figured "how much more then the other one can one of these bozos screw things up?" After 9/11 and the other insane government fuckups of the first Bush administration, I got more involved. I figured there'd be no way 2004 would re-elect Bush, so I didn't donate too much or work too hard. Sure Kerry was wooden, but after the first debate my vote changed from "Anyone but Bush" to "Kerry, the guy who could articulate an intelligent position" (even if he could ramble on for days :)

Now in 2008 I'm working in a local campaign, donating money to Obama and Al Franken.

For an interesting picture about how much having the wrong guy at the top matters, read 'State of Denial'.

Re:99% off-topic question

The "cool kids" will, of course, tell you that everything is the same, everything sucks, and you should give up on trying to make a positive change in any part of your life or any part of your country.

Those people are dead wrong. Thats what they said about Gore and Bush, and I think its pretty obvious that a Gore presidency would have been 100% better for America. Dont give in to mindless peer-pressured apathy.