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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.

5 of 634 comments (clear)

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

    NEVER say those last three words again!

  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. 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.

  5. 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.