50%+1
folks make a big deal about how 50%+1 of the people get to tell 50%-1 of the people what to do. majority rule and all that. however it sure looks like 50 million voters are pure republican voters. and 50 million voters are pure democrat voters. or maybe there's 100 million people who vote completely randomly. assuming a poisson distribution the votes would be 50 million to 50 million give or take 0.01 million. anywho i got distracted by math. numbers so pretty. gah. anywho. there seem to be some 3-6 million voters who actually make the difference. not sure who they are. there could be 3 million independents that jump back and forth between red and blue. they could be 3 million democrats (and 3 million republicans) who stay home when they're not excited about their candidate and the other guy isn't so bad. which means the 50%+1 theory is dog meat. really 3% of the people get to tell 97% of the people what to do.