To the editor,
Mathematics was never my strong subject in school. All of my high school math teachers are still alive 47 years later – bless their hearts – so they can attest. I suspect I may occasionally show up in nightmares from their professional days. But math can be fun and downright interesting.
Recently, I applied some basic pre-high school math skills to a few recent electoral stats to make some interesting discoveries.
Officially, 128,838,342 of us are recorded as having cast votes for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Ms. Clinton bested Mr. Trump by 2,868,686 of those popular votes. Mr. Trump, nonetheless, won the election where it counted, 306 – 232, in the electoral college.
As well-reported, that election was decided in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – states with enough electoral votes to swing the election. In point of fact, 77,744 votes among them decided the presidency. That’s 6 ten-thousandths of 1% (0.0006). For baseball fans, you could put all of those voters in Dodger Stadium, plus just over half the capacity of Chicago’s Wrigley Field for the remaining 21,744. Enough room to avoid having to compete very hard to purchase from the hot dog and beer vendors.
The 2020 election proved even more interesting. There were 26,646,736 more votes cast for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden than for the two 2016 principals – a 17% increase. By an important measure, even though the electoral count was the same as in ’16, the difference was even tighter. Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona decided last November’s election by a total of 42,894. Forget Dodger Stadium, you could have filled Wrigley’s seats with those voters, leaving a scant 399 to find standing room. (A much busier evening for the ‘dogs and suds hawkers!) I hasten to note, a complete switch of those states would only have produced at 269 – 269 tie, but US House rules for deciding the matter were a cinch to award President Trump another term.
While a whopping 17% more folks showed up (or mailed it in) to decide between Biden and Trump, the deciding popular vote difference was much stingier at less than 3 ten-thousandths of 1% (0.00028).
OK, I’ll stop – your eyes must be running together by now. But I think this reveals a lot about where America is politically: in very little mood for big, sweeping changes to the far right or to the far left. One candidate, though, should quit whining about “rigged” elections. He lost two popular-vote tilts, yet enjoyed 4 years in the White House to show for it.
The rest of us should pause from looking askance at too many of our fellow voters. I don’t believe that 81 million Biden voters are all lefty radicals out to ruin America; nor do I think the nearly 75 million Trump voters are all kooky insurrectionists. What we do in those booths is personal and often complicated.
Douglas Smith
Rockingham
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April 10, 2021 at 06:37AM
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To the editor | What our close election says about the US - Richmond County Daily Journal
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