Electoral Blackjack: Counting Cards

In blackjack, as in every casino game, the house has a general statistical advantage - obviously, or what casino would have it. While we're all familliar with Hollywood tales about savants or genuises who can memorize immense stacks of cards to gain the statistical advantage, the idea that a smart player increases their odds is considerably more obvious. No one in their right mind would "hit" on 20, and everyone has heard simple rules like "hit on 16, stay on 17". All of these are merely a recognition that it pays to be statistically aware. In this article I'm going to lay out a mathematical case to illustrate how the US election system effectively builds in unfortunate statistical advantages, and how a smart voter can use the US electoral system more effectively to level the field.

The Setup:
Let's consider the following scenario:

• Person A is planning to vote for Obama while A's spouse plans to vote for McCain, essentially according to party affiliation.
  
• Person B is an independant who plans to vote for Obama, but not because he particularly likes Obama, rather, he considers the choice "the lesser of two evils".
  
• Person C is a voter who is disillusioned with both parties. Like Person B, C probably has a sense of which candidate would be "the lesser of two evils", but decides to consider voting for a third party as a protest vote.
  
• Person D is voting for Obama because they really think that he is the best person for the job at this moment in history.

The Setup:
Most will chastise person C for casting a "spoiler" vote and thus "wasting their vote", effectively "giving the election away" to the candidate they like least. From a mathematical standpoint, you could make a stronger argument that it is Person A and A's spouse whose votes are actually "wasted", at least in as much as that their votes will have _absolutely no bearing at all on who will become president in January of 2009_ and their votes will do little to help the system self-correct itself. Why? Because candidates win an election not by total votes, but by the net difference.

In simplest terms, you can visualize a two party race as taking place on a balance scale. Person A stacks their vote on one side, while their spouse stacks a counter-vote on the other. The net result? They negate one another. In the end, 95% or more of votes cast will merely negate a vote on the other side of the scale.

The electoral college furthers this effect by handicapping the outcome and weighting the scales to allow a smaller number of votes to negate a larger number. Case in point: In 2004, close to 15 million people cast a ballots in the states of NY, TX and VT alone. Bush won in TX while Kerry won in NY and VT. In terms of popular vote, Bush's side of the scale had a net 279,613 more votes; however, both candidates received the same representation in the electoral college.

Before I go any further, let me lay out a two points: 1) I am currently person D in the analogy above. 2) I am a logical person who generally supports third party candidates, but recognizes and hates to see the spoiler effect - even when it works to elect the guy I voted for because I am a realist and it means that the system isn't working - next time I might not be so "lucky". The above example went against me, but it still means that 289,613 voices weren't heard.

----

The Solution:
So what am I saying? That the couple described in the example should stay home? Not vote? No. If they really believe in who they are voting for, then they send a message to the political party "I like this candidate - more like them please..." However, given this knowlege, the couple has another option: They can safely vote third party and add something that says something about the kind of candidate or platform they would really like to see in the future. Since their votes would otherwise merely cancel one another out, there is no chance that their lack of vote for a major party candidate will sway the election in a way contrary to if they had voted according to their original plan.


Third parties have played an important historical role in American politics, but they are generally king makers - not kings. Eventually the big parties have to address the concerns of the People. If the people are aligning on something that they don't address, the big parties have to pay attention.

Persons B and C, however, are the more common case: We'd all like to have more than two choices, but the risk of "wasting our vote" is just too risky - voters are actually penalized for honesty and encouraged to pick one of two candidates that we dislike the least, regardless of how good or bad we think that they might be.

The important realization provided by the scenario above is that Person A and their spouse have a distinct advantage because they have information that the rest of us aren't privy to and thus they have a guarantee that their vote is used wisely: How someone else is going to vote.

If you could provide a way to ensure the same guarantee, the system could work a lot better. The interesting part is that it is absolutely possible: People talk about who they plan to vote for all the time. All that is needed is a way to pair voters who think that one side is worse, with voters who think that the other side is worse. Both can request absentee ballots, meet up, fill them out together, and witness one another drop them in the mail.

Such a system is not only more expressive, but actually rewards honesty and encourages involvment. Since no third party is likely to win, the election will go off just as if those people had voted according to their initial preference - but the major parties and the news media will get the message loud and clear and perhaps we can finally heed Washington's farewell address warning and put a check on this two party problem.

All About the Benjamins Part III: Alaska's $29.3M Bake Sale

In parts I and II of this article we began examining Vice Presidential nominee and current Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's 2008 budget (for 2009).   After the first post, some readers mentioned (some directly and not through public comment) that they didn't think that there was enough context to fairly evaluate these kinds of choices, so let's clarrify what the budget in question is for, its historical context and why we chose to look at these particular choices.

In 2007 Palin signed what was, at the time, the state's largest _ever_ operating budget ($3.3 billion in general state funds).  In fairness, she had little time after innauguration before this came to her desk.  However, instead of cutting the operating budget, the following year, the operating budget grew to approaching $3.8 billion in general state funds and 2009 $4.2 billion, with only about $1 million in state funds vetoed.  

The capital budget, on the other hand is more focused on funding for infrastructure: Schools, roads, emergency services, etc, and that is what we have been examining.   Sarah Palin vetoed about $268 million dollars of the state's $2.7 billion dollar capital budget, roughly 10%.  

There will be endless debates on just what should or should not be funded by the state on principle.  However, the simple fact that there is a budget  means that 100% of the dollars were prioritized and allocated as she felt appropriate.  An examination and comparison of what made the cut and what didn't is not only fair, it's logical.  Even if you think that the state shouldn't fund one thing on principle, you might feel even more strongly that they have even less business funding something else.  In the first two articles we examined some of those comparisons, primarily educational items which got cut vs. similar cost firing ranges and sports fields which didn't.

One commenter also pointed out that I had failed to mention that the reason for veto is also provided on many of those those line items: "Other funding options available".  After all, the argument went, as it said right there, there were "other funding options available," so this wasn't actually cutting funding.  Now, I have to admit that I am generally predisposed to think that schools are already drastically underfunded and doing everything that they can with every funding resource at their disposal, right down to sending kids out to sell candy bars, so I had the sneaking suspicion that "other funding is available" was merely politically safe code for cutting funding that schools really count on.  After all, in a sense, one could argue that "other funding is available" for just about anything:  You can hire someone to help you apply for federal grants, propose a local ballot measure with bond funding or even have a fundraiser (a bake sale, for example).  

Still, this was meant to be an intelligent examination and not an opportunity to deride a specific candidate, and I could be wrong, so I knew that we were going to have to check.  To this end, I turned to Google and found this Anchorage Daily News article. I would encourage you to read it yourself, as it goes into more diverse cuts and criticisms but still provides a fair and balanced look, including Palin's own defenses.  One passage that I thought was particularly relevant to the items that we discussed:

Anchorage Schools Superintendent Carol Comeau said she never got a chance to defend her projects to the governor's budget team.

Comeau said she was happy to see the governor keep $2 million in the budget for swimming pool repairs but was disappointed that security cameras meant to nab school vandals got the ax. The governor cut computers and library books too, saying there are other ways for the district to pay for them.

Armed with an actual name, another quick Google search gave us the email addresses of Comeau herself, as well those of all of the members of the Ancorage School Board.  We fired off an email  asking Comeau whether or not they had secured the "other funding" that was "available", to which she responded: 

We did not secure additional funding. The governor stated that community support through bonds or other funding could be available, not just state resources.

We followed up, asking if these funds meant submitting applications for direct federal grants, proposing a new local bond next time around, or having bake sales/candy sales and the like, to which she reponded:

The only other sources are booster clubs, PTSA group donations, and direct donations for grants. If they were emergencies, we would go to our fund balance for emergencies.

Several of the items we mentioned (such as roof, toilet and boiler repair) fall under the categories of safety and emergency, Anchorage Schoolboard member Jeff Friedman confirmed this and was considerably more straightforward in his response:

I believe the term "alternative funding available" doesn't refer to any specific source of money, but instead just means that other ways of paying for the project should be explored.

For some items that were vetoed, we will simply do without.  For other items, we will ask local voters to approve bond funding to pay for them.  If we do not have any other choice for critical needs, we can use classroom dollars.  And there will always be bake sales and PTA fund raising...[But] if you have to fix a roof, and there is no other source of money, you use money that would have been spent on paper, or books, or hiring more teachers to reduce class size, or some other important item.  In Anchorage, we always look for cuts that will have the least impact on students, but schools are chronically underfunded throughout this country so most have learned to be efficient with every dollar they get.  That means any cut will be from something that does help students learn.

Ultimately the price tag of the states spending went up more than 25% in two years, not down.  In all, more than 100 items totalling about $29.3 million dollars (more than 10% of the vetos) listed "Other funding options available" as the reason for veto, roughly $24.5 million of which were items for education.  Other cuts included funding for emergency services and roads.  But firing ranges and sports parks got funding.    

In other words:  I hope everyone plans on spending a lot at the bake sale... It's for a good cause.

All About the Benjamins - Part II

In part I of this article, we attempted to lay out a discussion of Governor Sarah Palin's executive decisions by stacking up funding decisions of equivilent dollar value (1/2 a million dollars): 23 elementary and middle school projects on one side, and a sports field on the other. The idea being that at the end of the day, while we can debate how much money the State should be spending, we should be able to examine choices that have already been made to fund items on one side of the scale and not the other: The money was spent and allocated.

Much of the discussion around the first article seemed to be whether or not these were "good" or "bad" executive decisions based on the veto reason listed on many of the line items mentioned, many of them stating "other funding options available". Keep in mind that these are line item vetos of things that made it through the legislature, so in a fair examination, one must consider what those "alternative sources" are, whether or not the items actually got funded and what kinds of implications this might have. It should be noted that Palin rode into office after NEA-Alaska and several school districts sued the State and that her campaign materials from that time specifically speak to the issue of better funding education. This whole discussion deserves its own article, so I will pause in this introduction to say that we will be dedicating a full post to that topic shortly in which I will (among other things)l chronicle my recent conversation with one member of the Anchorage School Board :)

In the article at hand, however, we will continue to stack things up on the balanace scales for people to examine more closely and hopefully continue to generate some intelligent discussion. On one side is $523,000 for shooting ranges and on the other is $522,534 for schools. Please note that in light of the things mentioned in the introduction, we have included the veto reason cited in this article.

These items took no cuts from Governor Palin (see the budget itself):

• Petersburgh Shooting Range
  Budget Page 25 (PDF page 27), Line #30: Improvements
  Total Cost: $25,000
  
• Juneau Hunter Education
  Budget Page 67 (PDF page 69), Line #7: Indoor Shooting Range Completion (Cost: $338,000)

These items took partial cuts:

• Ketchikan Rod and Gun Club
  Line Item #11: Facility improvements.
  Total Cost: $25,000
  Veto Reason: "Fund at reduced level"
  
• Juneau Hunter Education
  Line Item #46: Indoor Shooting Range Completion
  Post-veto cost: $25,000
  Veto Reason: "50% funding. One time only."
  
• Tanana Valley Sportsmen's Association
  Line Item #114: Shooting Facility Replacement
  Post-veto cost: $110,000
  Veto Reason: "50% funding. One time only."
  

It would be easy to get sidetracked in this discussion as to whether or not these are important things for the State government to fund, and that is a fine discussion to have. However, all things being equal, we should be able to compare priorities. The following items, of approximately the same dollar value were vetoed by Governor Palin:

• Resource Center for Parents and Children
  Line Item#105: Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) Program
  Total Cost: $15,840
  Veto Reason: "Lower funding priority"
  
• Tenana City School District
  Line Item #82: Repair School Bus
  Total Cost: $36,000
  Veto Reason: "Lower funding priority"
  
• Copper River School District
  Line Item #117: Glennallen High School - fire alarm and security system upgrade
  Total Cost: $100,000
  Veto Reason: "Other funding options available"
  
• Valdez High School
  Line Item #123: Fire alarm repair and completion (Cost: $15,000)
  Veto Reason: "Other funding options available"
  Line Item #124: Sprinkler design and repair ($18,0000)
  Veto reason: "Other funding options available"
  Total Cost: $33,000
  
• Big Lake Elementary School
  Line Item #139: Boiler upgrades
  Total Cost: $10,000
  Veto reason: "Other funding options available"
  
• Su Valley Jr/Sr High School
  Line Item #144: Library technology upgrades
  Total Cost: $7,500
  Veto reason: "Other funding options available"
  
• Creekside Park Elementary School
  Line Item #162: New library books
  Total Cost: $10,000
  Veto reason: "Other funding options available"
  
• Juno School District
  Line Item #41: 2008 Southeast Alaska Regional Science Fair
  Total Cost: $10,000
  Veto reason: "Lower funding priority"
  
• Campbell Elementary School
  Line Item #248: Domestic hot water heater and hot water pumps and hot and cold water
  Total Cost: $300,000
  Veto Reason: "Other funding options available"
  

I would guess that many advocates of smaller government would argue that neither should be State funded. Certainly we can respect that one could pose an interesting debate, however, it is a somewhat seperate debate. State funds were in fact allocated and a choice was made between the two. I pose the following simple question for comment: Why should the State spend money on shooting ranges while rejecting these funds for education?

All About the Benjamins

If you are like me, when you heard about McCain's selection of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin for VP, you reacted like this: "Ehhh...Who?" Instead of disseminating facts that might actually be useful to voters interested in learning about her, the media at large seems to be stuck on the sensationalism of irrelevant issues like her pregnant daughter or how hard the candidate on stage at the Republican convention "hit the opposition". If that is all of the information that we have, then how can we make a good choice? I hold out hope that Americans really want information, so my fiance and I have decided to start this blog and provide some interesting facts in the hope of sparking intelligent conversation.

After listening to governor Palin speak on Wednesday night we got curious about just how her executive veto pen worked. Thanks to the Internet, we quickly came to find the OMB Budget from Governor Palin's own Alaskan Government's site. There are about 26 pages to this budget, so we'll try to break it down over the next few days and take a critical look because these are the kinds of executive decisions we can expect.

PART I
Governor Palin allocated 1/2 a million dollars for this project:

• Fawn Mountain Sports Field
  Line Item #6: Completion of the Fawn Mountain Sports Field.
  Total Cost: $500,000
  

Now, I'm not blindly against spending money on a sports field for the community - I'm open to listen to the debate, and to be fair, I didn't hear it. However, one interesting comparison that we made was that she did veto the programs below whose combined costs total precisely that amount, which gives us some kind of balance (1/2 a million dollars on either side of the scale):

• Taku Elementary School
  Line Item #202: Purchase of emergency preparedness materials (Cost: $7,500)
  Line Item #203: Main Office hallway roof repair (Cost: $10,000)
  Line Item #206: Wireless internet hookup (Cost: $27,000)
  Total Cost: $44,500
  
  
• Tudor Elementary School
  Line Item #207: Flushometer replacement (Cost: $20,000)
  Line Item #208: Technology, books and supplies (Cost: $20,000)
  Total Cost: $40,000
  
  
• Rogers Park Elementary School
  Line Item #200: Multi-purpose room retrofitting (Cost: $20,000)
  Line Item #201: Technology, books and supplies (Cost: $25,000)
  Total Cost: $45,000
  
  
• Polaris K-12 School
  Line Item #198: Smartboards for secondary classrooms (Cost: $24,000)
  Line Item #199: Textbooks and science equipment (Cost: $60,000)
  Total Cost: $84,000
  
  
• West High School
  Line Item #194: Library equipment and furniture (Cost: $2,500)
  Line Item #195: Technologies and supplies (Cost: $25,000)
  Total Cost: $27,500
  
  
• Central Middle School
  Line Item #192: Technologies, books and supplies (Cost: $10,000)
  Total Cost: $10,000
  
  
• Airport Heights Elementary School
  Line Item #190: School furniture replacement (Cost: $15,000)
  Total Cost: $15,000
  
  
• Wendler Middle School
  Line Item #187: Furniture and computer replacement (Cost: $30,000)
  Total Cost: $15,000
  
• Dimond High School
  Line Item #234: Training Course for Teachers New to Advanced Placement Coursework
  Total Cost: $15,000
  
  
• Bayshore Elementary School
  Line Item #232: Printers and video camera for computer lab (Cost: $5000)
  Line Item #233: LCD Projectors (Cost: 23,000)
  Total Cost: $28,000

• Sand Lake Elementary School
  Line Item #227: School materials and equipment for Japanese Immersion Program
  Total Cost: $15,000
  
  
• Kincaid Elementary School
  Line Item #222: New audio system for classrooms (Cost: $27,000)
  Line Item #223: New computer and software for music (Cost: $40,000)
  Line Item #224: New computers for teachers (Cost: $36,000)
  Line Item #225: New media equipment for classrooms (Cost: $5,000)
  Line Item #226: Smart boards for classrooms (Cost: $38,000)
  Total Cost: $146,000

Again, this is certainly not to make the argument that every dollar of every item on this list is 100% necessary and that a sports park is a frivolous waste of money. What's more, I'm sure that there is more information that is hard to glean from a simple spreadsheet. However, what it does is provide some kind of equal comparison.

In my opinion (this is the opinion part of the article): If I were faced with the tough choice of cutting 1/2 a million dollars worth of "fat" from the budget- I don't think that these are the choices that I would have made. Seriously: Why waste money on things as frivolus as books and equipment, or emergency repairedness or flushing toilets - or a roof for our schools?