[thechat] Bowling for Columbine

[Ben Dyer]

At 03:26 PM 1/27/2003, you wrote:
>At 02:37 AM 28-01-03, Ben Dyer wrote:
>>Ben's Wild Prediction(tm): Dubya loses popular vote but wins electoral
>>college...again...except this time both Republicans and Democrats miss 45%
>>of the popular vote (they got 47-48% in 2000).  Third parties combine
>>almost 10%, Nader easily gets the 5% needed to bring federal funding to the
>>Green Party, but doesn't win any state.
>
>Damn, it would be so simple just to do this by just the numbers instead of
>the terribly confusing system you have. :)

OK.  Not guaranteed to even be mathematically correct...

Popular Vote 2004
George W. Bush          44,500,000ish     44%
[Insert Democrat Here]  45,000,000ish     45%
Ralph Nader              9,000,000ish      9%
Others                   2,000,000ish      2%

Electoral Vote 2004
I'll just use the same numbers as 2000 here (because you could go back and
forth on this all day).
George W. Bush          271
[Insert Democrat Here]  266
Ralph Nader               0
Others                    0

Of course, all my predictions, numbers, random guesses, etc. are contingent
on 100 billion factors that may or may not appear, including war in Iraq,
complete tank of the economy, terrorism, Dubya breaking his hip or holding
dogs by their ears, alien invasion, Rapture, etc.

>If CandidateX gets more votes than CandidateY in StateZ, he or she wins in
>that state. Why not?

Actually, that's completely true.  However, replace "State" with "Country"
and it's no longer true.

--Ben