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Perfect Coin-Toss Record Broke 6 Clinton-Sanders Deadlocks In Iowa (marketwatch.com)

schwit1 writes: While it was hard to call a winner between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders last night, it's easy to say who was luckier. The race between the Democrat presidential hopefuls was so tight in the Iowa caucus Monday that in at least six precincts, the decision on awarding a county delegate came down to a coin toss. And Clinton won all six, media reports said.

14 of 634 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Hah! by blueshift_1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    While yes, each specific combination is equally as likely, looking at each toss in a non-unique way makes the odds a but less likely. Considering 6 tosses, you're much more likely to get 3 head and 3 tails in no specific order than you are 6 heads.

  2. Re:Gotta wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    NEVER say those last three words again!

  3. Re: Hah! by amorsen · · Score: 4, Informative

    Odds of 1 in 56 will win you $2 in Mega Millions when buying a $1 ticket. So yes, she basically "won the lottery", or least "won in the lottery". Not in the way that most people think of when you say winning the lottery, though.

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  4. Re:Can a Hillary supporter step up and explain? by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Informative

    Oh, and for anyone who doesn't think it was a big deal: what if Senator Ted Cruz kept his own private email server that was promptly rooted by several foreign countries, and routed classified emails through there? Kind of puts the right perspective on Hillary's crimes, don't you think?

    Uh, no. No it doesn't. Ted Cruz might have his judgment questioned, but only the most partisan idiot would say he'd done something illegal. If George W. Bush had done the same thing, it might have been something for the Daily Show to laugh at, but not even Salon would have called for impeachment.

    Right now, a group of avowed Clinton haters is still trawling through Clinton's emails trying to find some case where she might have accidentally mislabeled an email or sent it to the wrong person. That's how pathetic this is.

    To most of the world, it looks like yet another witch-hunt against a political couple that, for some reason, many on the far right in the US decided they actively hated in 1992 and as a result have held the couple to a bizarrely high standard they'd never do with any other politician.

    And before you make assumptions: I'm not a fan of the woman. Her politics are far from mine. I'm depressed the current primaries are between her and someone I suspect isn't what he claims to be, and who, in any case, would probably result in four years of ideological gridlock if he won.

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  5. Re:Can a Hillary supporter step up and explain? by larkost · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your "They aren't principled. At least not in a moral sense." is an example of what is wrong with politics today, and you should be ashamed of posting it. Everyone, including Hillary Clinton, agrees that using a private email server was a bad idea. Obviously it makes complying with all of the document retention rules that were in force harder, but that is not the same thing as impossible. At the time she had it setup that was a fairly common practice, one done by other department heads and her predecessor.

    On the classification side of things, there is not a lot of solid information about whether something bad was actually done or not. Yes there are seven email threads (twenty-some emails in all) that contain information that is now considered classified. So far no-one with any knowledge of those emails directly has commented on whether that information was classified when those emails were sent. We have heard that those emails did not have classified markers on them, but that again does not mean that the information was not classified at that time.

    If the information in those emails was not classified at the time it was sent, then there has been no real wrongdoing here. If it was classified, and there was wrongdoing, then we finally have something to talk about. But up to now this is all unfounded allegations, conducted as part of a witch-hunt (that is an accurate description of the Congressional Bengazi hearings) that has already been called by it's leaders politically motivated. If people really think that this was an issue, and are not partisanly motivated, why is no-one looking into those other department heads or her predecessors?

    So, saying people who support Hillery Clinton are not morally principled is an example of unprincipled partisanship. Please wait for facts before accusing anyone, let alone making accusations about their supporters. There is plenty to legitimately disagree about in the actual issues in the campaign, without resorting to unsubstantiated mud-slinging.

  6. Re:Butterfly Ballot not Supreme Court decided 2000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    > Gore lost due to his party's error. Painful but true. To say otherwise is denial.

    Gore lost because of the negligent use of the "purge list" to block thousands of primarily black people legally entitled to vote.

  7. update - there were other tosses which Sanders won by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, one in 32 odds. The chance that a coin tossed one time lands with the same face up is 1 in 1. The chance that a coin tossed two times lands with the same face up is 1 in 2, etc.

    A little over two standard deviations.

    However, as Washington Post notes, "see the update below: there were other tosses which Sanders won."

    The update states:
    Update: The initial 6-for-6 report, from the Des Moines Register missed a few Sanders coin-toss wins. (There were a lot of coin tosses!) The ratio of Clinton to Sanders wins was closer to 50-50, which is what we'd expect.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com...

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  8. Re:Butterfly Ballot not Supreme Court decided 2000 by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Informative

    They found one standard that if it had been applied in only the D heavy districts of Florida would have given the win to Gore. All other standards and recount areas gave the win to Bush.

    Such a counting procedure is so obviously biased that only the most partisan give it any weight. Only the most openly partisan newspapers even took part in the 'find a way that Gore would have won' search.

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  9. Re:update - there were other tosses which Sanders by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, one in 32 odds. The chance that a coin tossed one time lands with the same face up is 1 in 1. The chance that a coin tossed two times lands with the same face up is 1 in 2, etc.

    I'd check your math, it's 1 in 64.

    If a coin is tossed once, you can have 2 results
    H
    T

    If a coin is tossed twice, you have 4 potential results:
    HH
    HT
    TH
    TT

    etc...

  10. Re:Oh you mean just like when by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Informative

    It was a tie, statistically speaking. People for some reason despise that concept. There can be no tie, just more and more recounts will decide it, until the original ballots are shredded from too much handling. The margin of error was larger than the difference in votes. So 50 different recounts would have had 50 different results. A toin coss would have been equally fair and much less controversial (mathematically). So yes, I agree - get over it, nothing was stolen.

    Speaking as a decline-to-state voter with no party affiliation, that whole affair just proves there are far too many whiners in both parties.

  11. Re:Butterfly Ballot not Supreme Court decided 2000 by Darinbob · · Score: 1, Informative

    Gore also lost because that campaign took the Nader voters for granted. I still see people today blaming it all on Nader, yet the campaign did not try to appeal to the Nader supporters and assumed that in the end they'd vote for Gore rather than have Bush win. The Nader supporters were voting for someone they wanted as president rather than voting against someone, and the Democratic campaign didn't understand that sort of thinking. They blame a third party candidate for this, and yet thank a third party candidate for letting Clinton win earlier. Probably they'll be able to thank the tea party for managing to get Hillary or Bernie elected this time. Hypocrisy.

  12. Re:Can a Hillary supporter step up and explain? by khallow · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your "They aren't principled. At least not in a moral sense." is an example of what is wrong with politics today, and you should be ashamed of posting it.

    Ok, let's look at your argument.

    On the classification side of things, there is not a lot of solid information about whether something bad was actually done or not. Yes there are seven email threads (twenty-some emails in all) that contain information that is now considered classified. So far no-one with any knowledge of those emails directly has commented on whether that information was classified when those emails were sent. We have heard that those emails did not have classified markers on them, but that again does not mean that the information was not classified at that time.

    In other words, she committed a felony right there by creating and maintaining the server right here since classified information was sent repeatedly and corrective action not taken.

    It's also worth noting here that there's a lot more than a handful of "email threads". We have spy satellite data stripped of its classified information - that's a felony for whoever did that. We have people, particularly, Sidney Blumenthal without a clearance given access to this information. That is a felony right there. And then we have Clinton instructing an aide to strip classified markings from an email. That is a felony right there.

    And it's worth noting that this particular email setup has already allowed Clinton to evade FOIA requests. I believe that is a felony as well.

    So, saying people who support Hillery Clinton are not morally principled is an example of unprincipled partisanship. Please wait for facts before accusing anyone, let alone making accusations about their supporters. There is plenty to legitimately disagree about in the actual issues in the campaign, without resorting to unsubstantiated mud-slinging.

    Fuck you. This sort of weaseling is exactly why I agree that Clinton supporters are remarkably unprincipled. Notice that you aren't arguing that Clinton didn't commit these crimes, but rather that we can't prove it.

  13. The story is wrong by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Posting this here so it gets more views.

    The story is wrong. There were many more coin flips than just the 6 reported and Sanders won his fair share of them. The coin flips are a result of precincts that have an odd number of delegates to the Iowa State Democratic Convention. Say the precinct has 5 delegates and the vote between Clinton and Sanders was a tie. The precinct then sends 2 delegates for Clinton and 2 delegates for Sanders and the 5th delegate is decided by the coin flip. IIRC from the story I heard on NPR there are something like 11,000 delegates to the Iowa State Democratic Convention and it is at that convention where the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention are selected. So with 11,000 delegates to the state convention the results of a few coin flips aren't going to change much.

  14. Re:She will ether be president or prisoner. by ScentCone · · Score: 3, Informative

    So, you don't actually know what SAP material is. Why can't you just say that? Don't be embarrassed.

    If it's SAP, it's born classified. It doesn't matter how it's marked, or if markings have been removed by her or anyone who sent it to her. If it's on her personal server, and she knows it's there, she's a felon. It's that simple.

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