What is the probability your vote will make a difference? / Andrew Gelman, Nate Silver, Aaron Edlin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gelman, Andrew.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Silver, Nate.

Edlin, Aaron.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15220.

NBER working paper series no. w15220

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

One of the motivations for voting is that one vote can make a difference. In a presidential election, the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times the probability the vote in your state is tied in that event. We computed these probabilities a week before the 2008 presidential election, using state-by-state election forecasts based on the latest polls. The states where a single vote was most likely to matter are New Mexico, Virginia, New Hampshire, and Colorado, where your vote had an approximate 1 in 10 million chance of determining the national election outcome. On average, a voter in America had a 1 in 60 million chance of being decisive in the presidential election.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2009.