I'm not good at math, but people keep passing this chart around in reddit-logo

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But I keep seeing people in the comments debating whether this is actually "impossible" or not, using stats terms I'm not familiar with. Also idk the source of this graph so maybe it's bs.

  • usa_suxxx [they/them]
    ·
    3 months ago

    5,150,092 / 10,058,774 = 0.51199997136828

    51.199997136828%

    How many significant digits do you need?

    • Vampire [any]
      ·
      3 months ago

      Five.

      Votes are always natural numbers. There are no fractions of votes.

      For 10,058,774 votes, you need 10-⁷ accuracy. That way you can see the smallest number of votes: i.e. one vote

      Dividing the vote by 7 orders of magnitude is the same as subdividing each percentage point to 5

      As I have already shown in this thread, the match is exact to the nearest vote. It couldn't be closer without chopping voters into bits.

      Ask yourself this question: if there are 10,058,774 votes, how many votes is 51.2% of that? No fractions allowed.

      • usa_suxxx [they/them]
        ·
        3 months ago

        Yea, I get there are no fractions of votes. Why would you need 5 significant numbers? Isn't the Election just plurality? Straight up most votes wins. The percentages are just to make communication easier.

        Using percentages from the total yields:

        10,058,774 * 51.20% = 5,150,092.288

10,058,774 * 44.20% = 4,445,978.108

10,058,774 * 4.60%  =   462,703.604

        And what you're saying yields:

        5150092 / 10058774 = 51.1999971368%

4445978 / 10058774 = 44.1999989263%

462704 / 10058774  =  4.6000039369%

        Like, there isn't really a way to do tell which the numbers come from...but the behavior they show is literally the default behavior in LibreOffice Calc when you use the % Format with 5 significant digits. It also functions that way in Google Sheets in Google Sheets with 5 significant digits. Its a software thing. Software does really weird stuff with percentages. I tried it in both just now. Plugin it and you'll get the exact same numbers.

        edit: Excel does the same for the 5,150,092 percentage and 4,445,978 percentage except 452,704 shows 4.50059%. Software is weird

        Google Sheets

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        LibreOffice Calc

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        I don't have Excel on my personal computer

        • Vampire [any]
          ·
          3 months ago

          Honestly if you don't get it by now I can't explain any more