Robin forwards,
>From: Alex Tabarrok <ATabarrok@independent.org>
>Of the studies on the web page I noted this is by far the best and most
>comprehensive
>http://elections.fas.harvard.edu/
This did seem to be a good analysis from what I could tell. It found
that you could pretty well predict the Buchanan vote in a county based
on the Bush and Nader vote percentages, and West Palm Beach was an
extreme anomaly.
I was trying to think of a way to apply fair-division theory to these
kinds of disputes. You know, the old "I cut and you choose" method
of dividing a birthday cake. You have this sort of strategic space
in which the two sides can make moves, and each wants to maximize his
chances of winning, just like with the cake each wants to maximize the
size of his piece.
Unfortunately it doesn't work because at some point you need to say
something like, Bush, would you be satisfied with the outcome if we
assigned all the Gore votes to you, and all of your votes to Gore?
That way you could get each guy to agree to a policy which gave each
side a fair shot.
But this is obviously ludicrous in the context of an election where
people are expressing their preferences. Fairness is not the same as
equal division, it's just that in this case, with the vote so close,
it looks somewhat similar.
Hal
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