Truth is all I have a question for you cause your the expert.

[Andy_Stephenson]

what were the odds on 18,181? I am writing something and I need that figure. I remember you posting it here a while back and failed to bookmark the research.

If anyone else knows please respond.

[onebigbadwulf]

1. hmmm

I don't know how you can calculate odds for something like that.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. I remember that post. It was fascinating.

It has something to do with division by 9, I think. Let me see if I can do a search for it and come up with it for you, though I rather doubt it.

On edit: Okay, I was close. I started playing with the Windows calculator and added 18,181.18181818181 to itself until I came to a round number. On the eleventh time I got a value that would be 200,000 when rounded up to the nearest whole number. So, 18,181 is (1/11) of 200,000. This is a rather convenient coincidence to have such a thing happen twice in the same night like it did and does suggest at least the possibility of tampering with numbers.

[ConsAreLiars]

3. The odds

of a three way tie were calculated by Pobeka and the results posted in an earlier incarnation of the blackboxvoting.org forums. S/he ran the numbers following the advice of a professional statistician, took into account the number of counties and races and determined that a 3-way tie was quite likely to occur in one or more counties. As to the number being 18181 or 12345 or 16661 or whatever, that may be interesting but it's quite certain that some such 3-way ties would be discovered in the normal course of events. This is tin foil hat fantasy stuff. It's like calculating the odds that someone would be discovered to have blue eyes, red hair, read DU and be running for office in order to then argue that such an individual was impossible. The Velousia county smart-card fraud described in http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-11.pdf is far more revealing and significant.

[punpirate]

4. Not quite "quite likely"

I went through this with Pobeka and the odds were still about 4300:1 (IIRC) that the same vote total would come up in three elections in a single county. To a statistician, that's not unusual.

But, without being able to factor in previous voter behavior, demographics by precinct, number of elections in that county in some meaningful numerical fashion, etc., it's strictly a statistical exercise that I still find odd, if only because the odds aren't really, really good, and because it's also strange, from the standpoint of computer logic, that 18,181 is a prime number.

Cheers.

[Andy_Stephenson]

5. Thanks Bumbler

But I have green eyes. ;)