Winning Recounts: Essential Mathematical and Statistical Insights for Election Lawyers
In: The Journal of Law & Politics, Jg. 30 (2014-10-01), S. 141
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Zugriff:
Many lawyers joke that they went to law school because there is no math required. Unfortunately for them, mathematics is ubiquitous in the law, and the lawyers who cannot do it well are at the mercy of those who can. Election recounts are a prime example. Recounts happen, candidates rely on lawyers to win them, 1 and to do so those lawyers need to grasp the mathematics of recounts. This Article uses basic mathematics and statistics to construct an optimal general strategy for election recounts. As it happens, this strategy tracks the conventional wisdom espoused by leading election lawyers. More important than providing new mathematical support for this conventional wisdom, though, is providing a mathematical explanation for the persistent resistance to it. This resistance seems to be rooted in the admonition that recount challengers fight to recount most subgroups of votes that are expected to favor their opponents. 2 This advice is counterintuitive to recount neophytes, but it is nevertheless correct. A principal objective of this Article is to explain and defend this counterintuitive requirement so that more candidates and lawyers embrace it. In doing so, they can avoid the fate that befell the most famous recount challenger in recent American history: Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Notwithstanding his slogan of "Count Every Vote," 3 Gore and his team sought only partial recounts. 4 This strategy violated the mathematical and statistical precepts that this Article will illuminate, and even ran contrary to the advice ...
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Winning Recounts: Essential Mathematical and Statistical Insights for Election Lawyers
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Kalt♦, Brian C. |
Zeitschrift: | The Journal of Law & Politics, Jg. 30 (2014-10-01), S. 141 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2014 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
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