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.

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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.