What-If 0019: "Tie Vote"

[Sandor]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/19/

Nobody is known to have actually been killed by a meteorite. The 1 in 700,000 odds are heavily influenced by the (small) chance of a dinosaur killer wiping out everyone on earth. Some more info.

[armandoalvarez]

Is it wrong that I kind of hope for a tie, just for the spectacle of a coin toss?
They meet at the fifty yard line, and an official says, "Captain Obama of the Democrats, this is Captain Romney of the Republicans. We are using a commemorative coin with George Washington's head for heads and a bald eagle for tails. The Republicans are the visiting team, so they will call."
Romney, "Heads."
Official, "Captain Romney calls heads. It's tails. Captain Obama, would you like to kick or receive?"

[PolakoVoador]

Ok, this explains what happens if a estate ties. But what if there is a nation-wide tie? If after computing for every state, somehow both candidates are tied, they go for the coin toss again?

[cellocgw]

Ok, this explains what happens if a estate ties. But what if there is a nation-wide tie? If after computing for every state, somehow both candidates are tied, they go for the coin toss again?

No, you missed the earlier statement by Randall that the rules for a tie in the electoral college are well-established and can be found online.

Sadly, given the CharlieFoxtrot in Florida back in 2000, it's pretty much a given that any state whose election is close enough to call for a recount will:

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots
Be overrun with lawyers from both parties hoping to get a completely biased judge or panel of judges (see US Supreme Court, 2000) to call the election their way regardless of the ballot count or a coin toss.

[Barstro]

Be overrun with lawyers from both parties hoping to get a completely biased judge or panel of judges (see US Supreme Court, 2000) to call the election their way regardless of the ballot count or a coin toss.

Now now, you make it sound as if the Republican appointed judges were evil for siding with the Republicans. The judges appointed by Democrats were just as fanatical about their side. (Despite how impartial everyone is supposed to be.)

Or maybe I read incorrect inflection into your statement.

[cellocgw]

Be overrun with lawyers from both parties hoping to get a completely biased judge or panel of judges (see US Supreme Court, 2000) to call the election their way regardless of the ballot count or a coin toss.

Now now, you make it sound as if the Republican appointed judges were evil for siding with the Republicans. The judges appointed by Democrats were just as fanatical about their side. (Despite how impartial everyone is supposed to be.)

Or maybe I read incorrect inflection into your statement.

Well, I did say "both sides" there . All judges are evil if they side with their party rather than with, say the law, or even less likely, reality.

[Vroomfundel]

I had some rough idea on how an electoral college tie is handled, including about the ridiculous scenario when the president is combined with his opponent's running mate (as one gets chosen by representatives, the other - by the Senate) (I'm not American - how many internets do I win?)

This of course is going to lead to a lot of paralysis and deadlocks - but it's possible! Now I wonder which couple is going to be more fun - Obama/Ryan or Romney/Biden
I think Romney/Biden is more likely though, Republicans have a house majority - although it's not so clear cut as state representatives' votes only count as a block.
The linked article cleared things greatly - definitely a good read.

[Raph]

Outside Uhmerica, a tie actually happened in the Swedish parliamentary elections of 1973, with 175 seats for the government and 175 seats for the opposition, resulting in a number of important decisions being decided by the lot. Since everyone found this ridiculous, the law was changed so that the 1976 parliament had 349 seats instead of 350.

[PolakoVoador]

Here in Brazil the law is kinda... weird. A month ago we had our elections for mayor, and in at least one town, a tie actually happend. Both candidates had exactly 3869 votes, meaning that the older of the two was elected.

Yes, the deciding factor for tied elections is the age of the candidates.

[Adam H]

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

[Barstro]

Be overrun with lawyers from both parties hoping to get a completely biased judge or panel of judges (see US Supreme Court, 2000) to call the election their way regardless of the ballot count or a coin toss.

Now now, you make it sound as if the Republican appointed judges were evil for siding with the Republicans. The judges appointed by Democrats were just as fanatical about their side. (Despite how impartial everyone is supposed to be.)

Or maybe I read incorrect inflection into your statement.

Well, I did say "both sides" there . All judges are evil if they side with their party rather than with, say the law, or even less likely, reality.

At least four of the nine followed the law (as many as five of nine). Perhaps accidentally, but they followed it.

[Barstro]

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

We all would.

[Mirkwood]

Am I the only one who finds the concept of "deaths per second" hilarious?

[ike]

Outside Uhmerica, a tie actually happened in the Swedish parliamentary elections of 1973, with 175 seats for the government and 175 seats for the opposition, resulting in a number of important decisions being decided by the lot. Since everyone found this ridiculous, the law was changed so that the 1976 parliament had 349 seats instead of 350.

it's not that ridicioulous. If the vote comes out 50-50%, than a coin toss is as fair and reasonable a tie breaker as any.

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

I don't know..... but if they where split up so it was two seperate fights, one Obama v Romney and the other Biden v Ryan, I think we'd end up with an Obama-Ryan presidency.

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

We all would.

Only if Marlyn Manson is waiting on the cat walk above the Celebrity Death Match arena ready to kill who ever won the fight. Go Marlyn!




[edited]

[thkng]

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

Am i the only one who wants to see this as the new rule for tie breakers?

[mathmannix]

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

Am i the only one who wants to see this as the new rule for tie breakers?

How about instead of a physical fight, they have to win the lightning round of trivia questions?

[dudiobugtron]

Or, win the lightening round of trivia questions while in a physical fight. What good is a president who can't keep a clear head in an emergency?

[DoMakeSayThink]

He assumes the probability of a tie in a particular state to be 1 in 100,000. Then goes on to calculate the probability of 9 ties as (1/100000)^9. This makes the assumption that the events are independent, which seems rather unlikely to me. Bad Randall.

[dudiobugtron]

He assumes the probability of a tie in a particular state to be 1 in 100,000. Then goes on to calculate the probability of 9 ties as (1/100000)^9. This makes the assumption that the events are independent, which seems rather unlikely to me. Bad Randall.

You obviously missed his disclaimer:

(This ignores vote correlation between states, but it’s good enough for a first-order estimate.)

[bassguy]

They meet at the fifty yard line, and an official says, "Captain Obama of the Democrats, this is Captain Romney of the Republicans. We are using a commemorative coin with George Washington's head for heads and a bald eagle for tails. The Republicans are the visiting team, so they will call."
Romney, "Heads."
Official, "Captain Romney calls heads. It's tails. Captain Obama, would you like to kick or receive?"

Kudos for the Bill Cosby reference - this time of year always reminds me of the Vaughn Meader album from just a couple of years earlier, with his great line, "Get out and vote! Vote for the Kennedy of your choice, but vote!" (I think just getting the pun was a big enough deal for the 5-year-old me of that time to remember it forever...)

[Pfhorrest]

I don't know..... but if they where split up so it was two seperate fights, one Obama v Romney and the other Biden v Ryan, I think we'd end up with an Obama-Ryan presidency.

Speaking of which, wasn't there a system back in ye olden days when the runner-up in the presidential election became the vice president? Why did we get rid of that? Seems like it would help a lot with restoring fear and/or sanity balance to this country.

[neremanth]

Speaking of which, wasn't there a system back in ye olden days when the runner-up in the presidential election became the vice president? Why did we get rid of that? Seems like it would help a lot with restoring fear and/or sanity balance to this country.

According to Wikipedia, it was because things got a bit heated after the 1800 election and the vice president (who, rather on-topically for this thread, got the same number of votes as the president that year) ended up in a duel with another politician. I didn't entirely follow why electing the president and vice president separately was supposed to stop that happening in the future (surely you could still end up with a tie for president, as well as for vice president now, and whereas under the old system whichever you didn't pick as president when you broke the tie could be vice-president, now they wouldn't even get that consolation prize). But apparently that was the reason for it.

[armandoalvarez]

I don't know..... but if they where split up so it was two seperate fights, one Obama v Romney and the other Biden v Ryan, I think we'd end up with an Obama-Ryan presidency.

Speaking of which, wasn't there a system back in ye olden days when the runner-up in the presidential election became the vice president? Why did we get rid of that? Seems like it would help a lot with restoring fear and/or sanity balance to this country.

Why do you think that's a good system? In 1960, the country rightly rejected Nixon. In 1963, Nixon would have become president in your system. Granted, that wouldn't be so bad, because Nixon did become president in 1969, but still, you're talking about letting the loser win based on the luck of the president's health. In reality, LBJ followed through with the platform JFK had run on (and went beyond it. But it's better than enacting the platform you voted against).

According to Wikipedia, it was because things got a bit heated after the 1800 election and the vice president (who, rather on-topically for this thread, got the same number of votes as the president that year) ended up in a duel with another politician. I didn't entirely follow why electing the president and vice president separately was supposed to stop that happening in the future (surely you could still end up with a tie for president, as well as for vice president now, and whereas under the old system whichever you didn't pick as president when you broke the tie could be vice-president, now they wouldn't even get that consolation prize). But apparently that was the reason for it

Having separate ballots was enacted because before the 12th amendment, you would always get a tie as long as the electors were voting for their slate. Biden and Obama would have tied. Cheney and Bush would have tied. So each election, there would be the opportunity for the house to decide between the VP candidate and the Presidential candidate. That's not great.
And the reason why they got rid of the runner-up wins was because, besides the trouble with Jefferson and Burr, there was the trouble between Jefferson and Adams. It's not a great system.

[Pfhorrest]

I feel like I'm really missing something here...

Under the old system, we would have had Obama-McCain for the past four years, Bush-Kerry the four years before that, and Bush-Gore the four years before that.

And that would be bad because McCain, or Kerry, or Gore, might get into a duel with someone?

Which would be the fault of the old system... how exactly?

And how do ties factor into that? How would Obama and Biden have tied? The Democrats would have fielded just one presidential candidate, wouldn't they? Biden wouldn't have been in the race, and neither would Palin. Why would they?

Some step of the argument is just not obvious here.

[bearachute]

Personally I think they should do one of the following:

Try and body slam the other the hardest to see who lands the best blow or

Get on a couple of skateboards and pull off the sickest trick.

But that's just IMHO

[nich_chin]

Here I was thinking, if there was literally a tie, the correct thing to do would be to make it a Full Windsor.

[bearachute]

Here I was thinking, if there was literally a tie, the correct thing to do would be to make it a Full Windsor.

[PolakoVoador]

Here I was thinking, if there was literally a tie, the correct thing to do would be to make it a Full Windsor.

+3 Internets to you

[armandoalvarez]

I feel like I'm really missing something here...

Under the old system, we would have had Obama-McCain for the past four years, Bush-Kerry the four years before that, and Bush-Gore the four years before that.

And that would be bad because McCain, or Kerry, or Gore, might get into a duel with someone?

Which would be the fault of the old system... how exactly?

And how do ties factor into that? How would Obama and Biden have tied? The Democrats would have fielded just one presidential candidate, wouldn't they? Biden wouldn't have been in the race, and neither would Palin. Why would they?

Some step of the argument is just not obvious here.

There is a step missing. Until the 12th Amendment, each elector cast two ballots. But they weren't separate. So the Democrats would all cast one ballot for Biden and one ballot for Obama. And all the Republican electors in '08 would cast one ballot for McCain and one ballot for Palin. So the election would be a tie between Obama and Biden, and the House of Representatives would vote. If the VP is fine being second fiddle, that works out, but Aaron Burr, although of the same party as Thomas Jefferson, tried to make it a contest. So they realized every four years, you would have this problem if the VP was ambitious. (The electors can't cast two ballots for the same guy).
The other problem was recognized four years earlier, where Thomas Jefferson was Adams's rival, but was his VP.
The 12th Amendment solved both problems by creating separate ballots. So each elector casts two votes, but one vote is for the VP ballot and one vote is for the President ballot.
I still don't see why you like the other system, even if each elector only cast one ballot, so that the runner up really did end up VP. For example, in 1936, the nation voted for FDR by 60%-36%. So the nation had strong embraced the new deal and rejected the Republican ideals of Alf Landon. But under your system, Alf Landon gets to be VP. If, by pure luck, FDR had died, Landon would get to veto everything the Democratic Congress passed, despite the nation strongly indicating it wanted FDR's program. Why are we letting the loser win?

[J Thomas]

I don't know..... but if they where split up so it was two seperate fights, one Obama v Romney and the other Biden v Ryan, I think we'd end up with an Obama-Ryan presidency.

Speaking of which, wasn't there a system back in ye olden days when the runner-up in the presidential election became the vice president? Why did we get rid of that? Seems like it would help a lot with restoring fear and/or sanity balance to this country.

Imagine that in 2004 Kerry won and Bush was the vice president. And all it took to get 4 more years of Bush was one bullet in the right head....

[Quicksilver]

So, Obama won.

[Pfhorrest]

Why are we letting the loser win?

Well, my misunderstanding of the old system aside (which you've now cleared up, thanks), I thought having two parties have to share power might help keep things moderate and avoid the extremism which e.g. the Congress comic last week shows has been developing in this country lately. Sort of a proportional representation lite: first two past the post have to share the executive job, but the second past it has to play second fiddle.

But apparently that's never the way it was, and you always ended up with two of the same party in office, with one of them occasionally causing trouble if he wasn't happy to be second fiddle. That I can agree was a stupid way to arrange things, although now it makes me curious why that was the case in the first place. Why did each elector have two votes and have to cast them for separate people in the same race? I can see either what we've got now (two positions, two elections, one vote for each per elector, each elector of course votes his favorite party for both positions) or what I thought it was (two positions, one election, one vote each per elector, two best winners get put in position 1 and position 2 respectively). But what it really was, just... I don't see how it got to be that way in the first place. What was the rationale?

[armandoalvarez]

Why are we letting the loser win?

Well, my misunderstanding of the old system aside (which you've now cleared up, thanks), I thought having two parties have to share power might help keep things moderate and avoid the extremism which e.g. the Congress comic last week shows has been developing in this country lately. Sort of a proportional representation lite: first two past the post have to share the executive job, but the second past it has to play second fiddle.

But apparently that's never the way it was, and you always ended up with two of the same party in office, with one of them occasionally causing trouble if he wasn't happy to be second fiddle. That I can agree was a stupid way to arrange things, although now it makes me curious why that was the case in the first place. Why did each elector have two votes and have to cast them for separate people in the same race? I can see either what we've got now (two positions, two elections, one vote for each per elector, each elector of course votes his favorite party for both positions) or what I thought it was (two positions, one election, one vote each per elector, two best winners get put in position 1 and position 2 respectively). But what it really was, just... I don't see how it got to be that way in the first place. What was the rationale?

As to forcing the parties to share power, that might work if the VP had any power. But as is, the VP has no more power than the president delegates to him (and the tie-breaking power). So VP Gore doesn't result in President Bush moderating; it just results in Bush ignoring Gore as long as he's alive/not impeached and then Gore instituting his policies if he did take over. That also creates a huge motivation for assassination: your party loses the vote now, shooting the president doesn't change the result. But in the old system, a bullet can get your party the presidency. It also gives you an even bigger motive to impeach a president just because you don't like him.
As to why they created the system they did, when they were writing the Constitution, in 1787, they were assuming there would be no parties. This was very utopian thinking, because there had been parties in Britain, and it was obvious there were factions developing in America. So if you have no parties, each elector casts two votes for the two guys he thinks are best, and you just get two good candidates. This is especially true if there is no popular vote. This system was doomed to failure, but it worked for both of Washington's elections. All the electors cast one vote for Washington, and then they debated who should be VP, and they settled on Adams. (This system works better when there's no popular vote. Only half the states had a popular vote in 1788 and 1792, so the electors were free to discuss among themselves who they wanted.)
But the two party system coalesced around Jefferson's Republicans and Hamilton's Federalists during Washington's presidency. The Federalists nominated Adams rather than Hamilton because Hamilton had a sex scandal and Adams had seniority. (Adams was also much more of a moderate and had some of Washington's non-partisan spirit). The Federalists won that election, but they didn't have a "running mate," so their second vote was scattered. Adams became President and Jefferson became VP. So in 1800, the Jeffersonian 'Republicans created the whole running mate idea. They won a majority of the electoral college, and their electors vote for Jefferson and Burr. This ended up resulting in a tie between Burr and Jefferson. So that election went to the House of Representatives and Aaron Burr tried to get the House to vote for him. Hamilton hated Burr more than he hated Jefferson (and he hated both), so he had the Federalist House members vote for Jefferson. The election made them realize that as long as there was a party system, elections would be decided by the House rather than the Electoral College, and they created the 12th Amendment.

[Istaro]

Am I the only one who finds the concept of "deaths per second" hilarious?

I got stuck for a while at the parenthetical about the falling-cocaine-bale revenue produced by Florida land. I mean I was laughing so hard that tears were blurring my vision to the point that I couldn't keep reading.

Good comedy, Randall.

[J Thomas]

As to why they created the system they did, when they were writing the Constitution, in 1787, they were assuming there would be no parties. This was very utopian thinking, because there had been parties in Britain, and it was obvious there were factions developing in America. So if you have no parties, each elector casts two votes for the two guys he thinks are best, and you just get two good candidates. This is especially true if there is no popular vote. This system was doomed to failure, but it worked for both of Washington's elections. All the electors cast one vote for Washington, and then they debated who should be VP, and they settled on Adams. (This system works better when there's no popular vote. Only half the states had a popular vote in 1788 and 1792, so the electors were free to discuss among themselves who they wanted.)
But the two party system coalesced around Jefferson's Republicans and Hamilton's Federalists during Washington's presidency. The Federalists nominated Adams rather than Hamilton because Hamilton had a sex scandal and Adams had seniority. (Adams was also much more of a moderate and had some of Washington's non-partisan spirit). The Federalists won that election, but they didn't have a "running mate," so their second vote was scattered. Adams became President and Jefferson became VP. So in 1800, the Jeffersonian 'Republicans created the whole running mate idea. They won a majority of the electoral college, and their electors vote for Jefferson and Burr. This ended up resulting in a tie between Burr and Jefferson. So that election went to the House of Representatives and Aaron Burr tried to get the House to vote for him. Hamilton hated Burr more than he hated Jefferson (and he hated both), so he had the Federalist House members vote for Jefferson. The election made them realize that as long as there was a party system, elections would be decided by the House rather than the Electoral College, and they created the 12th Amendment.

You said that so clearly.

These are the Founding Fathers we have so much respect for....

[Klear]

So according to 2010 world average life expectancy, on average we all experience two nanodeaths every second?

[webgiant]

Fight to the death over absentee ballots
Fight to the death over provisional ballots

Who would win in a weaponless fight to the death - Obama&Biden or Romney&Ryan?

I don't know..... but if they where split up so it was two seperate fights, one Obama v Romney and the other Biden v Ryan, I think we'd end up with an Obama-Ryan presidency.

What, Joe "Fists of Death" Biden versus Paul "Don't hit me!" Ryan? Biden's win wouldn't even be close!

Plus Ryan would rely too heavily on the idea that Ayn Rand heroes win without actually doing anything.

So according to 2010 world average life expectancy, on average we all experience two nanodeaths every second?

Finally an explanation for why Mondays suck so much. You've just spent a weekend with lovely ways to prevent yourself from noticing all your nanodeaths. Then those distractions suddenly end, and you are faced with the dark truth of all your nanodeaths.

[Himself]

Nobody is known to have actually been killed by a meteorite. The 1 in 700,000 odds are heavily influenced by the (small) chance of a dinosaur killer wiping out everyone on earth. Some more info.

I don't know what it is worldwide, but from CDC statistics I found that the U.S. gets ~2.4 million deaths in a year, so that would explain why there is no reported average of 3 meteorite-related deaths per year.

[Piro]

I can here to say that Randall accurately predicted the election results with his first graphic!

At least when you compare it to Google's graphic of the results
http://i.imgur.com/JLYzF.png

Which of course means his first graphic doesn't actually depict a tie vote.

[pkcommando]

Personally I think they should do one of the following:

Try and body slam the other the hardest to see who lands the best blow or

Get on a couple of skateboards and pull off the sickest trick.

But that's just IMHO

That's just silly.

Rock'em Sock'em Robots is the clear choice. They're already red and blue, this is obviously what they were made for. Best 2 out of 3. And separate competitions between Presidential and VP candidates.