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."

Comments

Re:Thanks from the reminder

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

So he would have invaded pakistan ? Now that would have been just peachy.

The next president will have to deal with peak oil, so whoever it is he's going to take many people's toys away. Whoever it is, we're not going to like him anymore in 2012 and true hate is going to surface before 2016.

We have a democrat congress, so shear damage control voting would be voting for McCain. Congress and the presidency in the hands of the same bunch of nitwits has always been disastrous.

At least when they both control parts "some" stupidities cancel eachother out. (or so I hope)

Justifying Iraq war

[mi]

He diverted resources from the former to invade the latter?

There was no need there for tanks, artillery, or more than a few bombers, which is what largely went to Iraq.

If you're supposed to be looking for a needle in a haystack, people will wonder when you move all your metal detectors to the cotton bale next door.

People will always "wonder", but the move was not unreasonable. First of all, the "cotton bale next door" had its own, unrelated, shards, that had to be taken out — long ago.

And second, it was quite reasonable to believe, that the crafty needle would quietly move from the haystack to the cotton bale. Although Saddam's and Osama's distaste for each other was known, what was not as publicized, was Osama's earlier tensions with Mullah Omar. We only learned of it in 2004, when The Atlantic's journalist published his story:

The Arabs' general contempt for the backwardness of Afghanistan was not lost on the Taliban, whose leaders grew annoyed with Osama bin Laden's focus on public relations and the media. Letters found on the computer reveal that relations between the Arabs and the Taliban had grown so tense that many feared the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, would expel the Arabs from the country.

Kicked out from Afghanistan by the US and its allies, Osama could very well have patched up his differences with Saddam, and begin a mutually-useful cooperation.

And then, of course, there was a question of moral high ground. Despite the howls of jealous "international disapproval" and the internal opposition (angry not so much at the war, as at Bush's earlier tax-cuts and reforms of the education system), ridding the world of an asshole of Saddam Hussein's caliber was a Very Good Thing (TM).

That the post-war efforts to rebuild the country were mismanaged and are only getting back on track now, is not an argument against it.