Friday, November 7, 2008

puzzling politics

so i promised the solution to my little election brain teaser and here it is!

THE QUESTION:
the tiny nation of turtleopolis has a population of 121, divided into eleven states of eleven citizens each. during an election, the citizens vote for 2 candidates for president. each citizen votes for one candidate and the candidate with more votes in a state receives one electoral college vote for that state. the candidate that gets the most electoral college votes wins.

what is the largest number of popular votes a candidate can receive and not become president?

THE ANSWER:
85 votes... 85/121 - that's just more than 70%! and you still don't get to be president!
here's how the number break down --> six states vote 6:5 in favour of the winner and the other 5 state vote 11:0 for the loser.
(5 x 11) + (5 x 6) = 85

congrats to laura who got the right answer.
boo on you whores who didn't bother...

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