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PECOS-9 comments on Does My Vote Matter? - Less Wrong Discussion

19 Post author: orthonormal 05 November 2012 01:23AM

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Comment author: PECOS-9 06 November 2012 05:57:56PM *  0 points [-]

How did you calculate those odds? Shouldn't it be the binomial distribution where n=number of voters, k=n/2, and p=.5, meaning the probability of you being the deciding vote is (.5^n)*(n choose n/2). Still better than Erewhon, though.

I'm not particularly confident that I'm right about this though, so please explain if I'm wrong.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 November 2012 04:55:07AM 2 points [-]

Shouldn't it be the binomial distribution where n=number of voters, k=n/2, and p=.5, meaning the probability of you being the deciding vote is (.5^n)*(n choose n/2).

Yes, and Sqrt(n) (times a small constant) is a good approximation to the above for large n. See Stirling's formula.

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