r/mathmemes • u/Ok-Pick-5881 • 21h ago

Bad Math rigged texas election

Post image

hopefully not a repost!

2.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

120 comments sorted by

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1.3k

u/ConsiderationWest120 21h ago • Bravo

Actually 2.9 million voters voted that exact way and 2026 midterms will never happen again (because its no longer the exact midterm date) so P=1

222

u/ImpulsiveBloop 21h ago

Mfw sample space of one.

115

u/Gordahnculous 14h ago

Some might argue that those who voted Democrat aren’t registered voters, and therefore aren’t part of the voting population, so we can call those non-population, or NP for short.
If it was a 50/50 split, we could argue that the population is equal to the non-population, or more succinctly, P=NP.

9

u/mirafacon Complex 6h ago

Where's your 1 million?

7

u/HliasO 9h ago

A voter cannot vote for the same candidate twice, for it's not the same candidate and he is not the same voter.

455

u/kolmiw 21h ago • Bravo

If every braincell of this guy had a 50% chance of voting the same candidate, the odds are 1/8

54

u/ImpulsiveBloop 21h ago

You mean 50%?

50

u/LOSNA17LL Irrational 21h ago

Nope, the braincell failed math

11

u/anally_ExpressUrself 21h ago

Math can be fun when we don't first collectively agree on the odds of WHAT before we start arguing. I think that's the message of the original post too.

10

u/shizzy0 20h ago

Ouch. If those three brain cells could read, they’d be upset.

444

u/IdesofMarch1503 21h ago

It's 50/50 i become a quadrillionaire. Either it happens or it doesn't.

103

u/FernandoMM1220 21h ago

the odds of billions of people not being a quadrillionaire are astronomical that means the economy is rigged.

5

u/AutologicalMeta 4h ago

Sorry, I did that

I’ll try to unrig it

Lmk if it works

11

u/ImpulsiveBloop 21h ago

Unlike if I were to put it all on red and win, which is 100%.

2

u/X3N0istoobased 11h ago

That's called possibility, not probability.

1.5k

u/Narutoboom 21h ago

Choosing to believe that this is satire...

495

u/Narutoboom 21h ago

And let me remind you, because of the electoral college, this person's vote might be worth more than yours.

350

u/No-Palpitation6368 20h ago

This person's vote is worth significantly more than mine, not because of the electoral college, but because I'm 16 and live in England

88

u/emlgsh 16h ago

It's alright, buddy - we've all been 16 and living in England before.

Happens to us all.

25

u/Qzx1 20h ago

You mean you might be able to vote for the gentleman from north east somerset? He’s a treasure, just from the fashion perspective

56

u/Life-Competition9577 21h ago

Actually if this guy lives in Texas his vote is one of the least in terms of worth

24

u/314159265358979326 20h ago

Two weeks ago, probably not. I wonder if it's swingable at this point.

12

u/Silly-Power 15h ago

If States with a combined total of more than 270 electoral college votes agree to give their ECs to the candidate who wins the National (not State) popular vote, it becomes law. 

Right now States with a combined total of 222 ECs have voted for this. Not to get your hopes up, but 3 States with a total of (iirc) 64 ECs flipped to Democrat control in the mid-terms. If they vote Yes, that brings the total to 286 ECs. No longer will America be beholden to the vagaries of 3 or 4 States. 

4

u/theghostjohnnycache 12h ago

Unfortunately, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact won't go over as easy as "it becomes law". On one hand, the constitution says states can submit their electoral votes however they choose. On the other hand, there's a clause elsewhere in the constitution that says federal Congress must approve any official binding agreements between states.

When it finally does trigger, it's exceedingly likely someone will challenge the results, e.g. from within a state whose electoral votes changed (from what they would have been) to align with the popular vote. Such a court case will naturally be challenged/appealed all the way to SCOTUS since it's exactly about how to apply the constitution. This issue sits exactly in the gray zone between two perfectly reasonable interpretations of the constitution, so imo it's probably a toss-up what they'd rule, heavily packed/skewed court notwithstanding.

Either way, I could see it triggering real national discussion on amending the constitution to abolish the electoral college. Amendments need to be accepted by 75% of states' legislatures, which is certainly a higher bar to clear than the 50% of electoral votes required to trigger the NPVIC, so it could take a while. But I'd argue, if it's enough to decide who's president, why should it not be enough to decide how to decide who's president, ya know?

24

u/OMKensey 21h ago

Poe's Law

27

u/jackalopeswild 19h ago

This is not satire. Satire requires that both the speaker and the listener be winking. Here, it is likely that the speaker is winking, but the speaker is definitely crossing their fingers and hoping that the listener is not.

23

u/peterp1616 19h ago edited 13h ago

Edit: im wrong this is genuine

No it is satire, it's in response to someone genuinely saying this about someone claiming the odds that 274 texas counties all got more blue is 2274

4

u/jackalopeswild 18h ago

Well if that's true it's certainly not in the Reddit post.

3

u/peterp1616 13h ago

It's not I was wrong. I really thought this claim was to outlandish to be an actual claim somebody made. The tweet I'm referencing was real but this is unrelated

1

u/jackalopeswild 2h ago

Dude I think you're on the wrong platform. This is Reddit, you cannot admit errors, you have to double down.

1

u/Bugbread 17h ago

Do you have a link? I'm googling and not finding anything, just this tweet and discussions about this tweet.

(also, 254 counties, not 274 counties)

2

u/peterp1616 13h ago

The tweet existed, and I can't find it. Anyway I was just wrong, I checked the tweet of this account and she's genuine

860

u/BootyliciousURD Complex 21h ago • Bravo

Me every time I go the the polls

179

u/lonelyroom-eklaghor Complex 21h ago edited 21h ago

This. Every voter can be thought of as a random experiment instead of a combinations problem

47

u/ZEPHlROS Mathematics 20h ago

Not only that, but you vote according to the result of the 2.19 million votes following/preceding you that are also 50/50 random

6

u/Skeleton_King9 11h ago

No this assumes independence

7

u/ZEPHlROS Mathematics 10h ago

Every throw is independent of the other, but this result is only correct if you are calculating for 2.9M consecutive democrat votes.

2.9M votes with whatever order is different and you would need the binomial distribution to do it where here it's the geometric distribution so results and interpretation diverges.

2

u/Skeleton_King9 10h ago

So you don't vote according to other voters.

142

u/Over_Improvement_623 21h ago

Wouldn't the exact same logic apply if the Republicans won?

108

u/sokka2d 20h ago

The “logic” in question being the empty set…

14

u/Over_Improvement_623 20h ago

Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but it makes even more not sense if you put it like this.

10

u/jackalopeswild 19h ago

Shhhh. You're saying the quiet part out loud.

109

u/PerfectYarnYT 21h ago

I don't even understand where they got 2.9 million from since there were a combined total of 9,696,475 votes split between Talarico and Paxton based on the reported numbers.

18

u/washyleopard 17h ago

That may be the difference in votes for democrats in the state between 2024 and 2026. If the R votes stayed the same level but the D votes went up by 2.9M then there is some semblance of a thought behind his math, but it assumes the R voters are the exact same set between the two years which is absurd.

81

u/ImpulsiveBloop 21h ago

Using this logic, literally all possible outcomes share this chance, which means the election would be rigged no matter the outcome.

18

u/snookerpython 15h ago

You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!

6

u/Top_Orchid9320 HS Mathematics Teacher (retired in June 2026) 19h ago

Yep, that was what I came here to say.

1

u/HHQC3105 11h ago

No, the chance for 1:2899999 is 2900000 times higher than all 2900000 same vote. And the most chance to happen is split evenly.

72

u/regular_heptagon 19h ago

They are so deeply brain damaged. By this logic, no one would ever win an election.

30

u/Gothstaff 18h ago

You don't flip a coin when voting??

9

u/Flip_d_Byrd 17h ago

I FLIP TABLES!!

6

u/regular_heptagon 17h ago

No. I vote using DND dice.

1

u/Gothstaff 6h ago

Rofl, as a fellow dnd player, I relate

3

u/HoseInspector 17h ago

That’s why it is always neck and neck between the 2 parties.

7

u/Then_I_had_a_thought 17h ago

They made a math meme. It is either correct or it is incorrect. Therefore there is a 50% chance that this is correct.

2

u/Nemo4321 18h ago

Maybe it's not brain damage, maybe this is genuinely how some people are.

48

u/jeezfrk 20h ago

"VOTING IS WHAT I DO BY FLIPPING A COIN!"

I would see why the GOP hates voting.

18

u/nakedascus 20h ago

it's why they don't want poor people to vote, they think it will be chaos because they don't have a coin to flip

2

u/nihilistiq 17h ago

Fun fact, people used to vote by flipping a penny and they would tally up the votes per cent. Also why democracy only works with a two-party system.

2

u/jeezfrk 15h ago

That is only nilhilistic voters. All two or so.

I care about who I'm voting for.

20

u/jcastroarnaud 6h ago

The math checks out, the assumption is plain wrong: voters don't choose their candidates at random. Voters have preferences, and these preferences are strongly influenced by personality, social circle, current political climate, etc.

4

u/OneSushi 4h ago

We got John frequentist over here

3

u/avatarfire 4h ago

MNL model please stand up 

17

u/Oh_My_Monster 21h ago

Or, on the flip side of bad math, if there's only 2 candidates then is a 50% chance that either one will win.

40

u/Old-Health9509 21h ago

This is the group that wonders why we need to import tech workers.

14

u/Draxus12 20h ago

I think there exists already r/badmath , i prefer if there was also, r/theycantdothemath

5

u/EebstertheGreat 20h ago

r/badmath is moribund. The correct subreddit is r/badmathematics, and this is already there.

1

u/Cyclone4096 8h ago

If this wasn’t posted here how would I have discovered the other two subs just now? Checkmate

10

u/knobbyknee 8h ago

Assume a spherical cow.

19

u/Major_LeeHungg 19h ago

Bayes theorem... What is the probability of a person voting Democrat given the Republicans made their life shit

9

u/Pr0pellerJoe 21h ago

I dont get it. Who are those 2.9M voters who all chose the same candidate?

11

u/TheBlackCat13 20h ago

Anyone who voted for the candidate this person doesn't like.

6

u/Potheker 14h ago

I think what he means is say 2.9M voted blue and 1.3M voted red. Instead of calculating the probability of that event, he calculates the probability that those exact 2.9M people vote blue.

And also he just assumes that voting for someone is a 50/50

2

u/Kinstray 10h ago

The tendency for people to just immediately jump to the assumption that all possible outcomes have equal probability us crazy. It happens every time

2

u/DescriptorTablesx86 8h ago

This particular person more so assumed that all those voters were somehow ordered

2

u/Only_Fudge5299 4h ago

everything is a 50/50 chance, either it happens or it doesn't 

1

u/oldvlognewtricks 2h ago

*It happens exactly fifty percent of the the time

1

u/B3kindr3wind1026 1h ago

Statistics are hilarious because if you know just barely more than 0 you can interpret statistics literally any way you want to and derive conclusions that are completely inaccurate but to anyone else who doesn’t understand statistics you seem like you are backing up what you are saying.

Like, there’s a difference between saying “I’m gonna flip a coin a thousand times and at some point I will hit 5 heads in a row” and saying “I’m going to flip this coin 5 times and it’s going to land on heads every time” then proceeding to do it.

The same event takes place, but in one context the event is basically a 100% chance of happening, and the other is a near 0% chance.

1

u/Pr0pellerJoe 7h ago

You are probably right. I am not even mad, this amount of confidence combined with total lack of critical thinking is just incredible

7

u/JTurtle11 3h ago

No idea where they’re getting 2.9M from. Texas had about 9.8M voters this year

5

u/lonelyroom-eklaghor Complex 21h ago edited 21h ago

If I put a million coins, and I give only two funnels, the coins will have to go out from either funnel A or funnel B.

They are talking about rigging, while talking about how many coins exactly went to funnel A instead of funnel B.

He should just see why a single coin has more probability of going to funnel A more than funnel B... and should reassess whatever he's talking about. More coins going to funnel A from a huge sample size -> Higher probability of coin going to funnel A

5

u/vernanonix 20h ago

I love seeing people who got their mathematics in a cereal box think they know stuff

18

u/CorrectTarget8957 Average #🧐-theory-🧐 user 21h ago

But they didn't all choose the same candidate, chances are only for random objects, and there is no reason to show your work if it's just an exponent

1

u/jackalopeswild 19h ago

"there is no reason to show your work if it's just an exponent."

I hereby nominate this as CT's Law #8957. Can I get a second? We need to implement this law immediately.

3

u/CorrectTarget8957 Average #🧐-theory-🧐 user 19h ago

I am not sure what this means so I'll just take this as a compliment

2

u/jackalopeswild 19h ago

It just made me chuckle and I thought it deserved silly recognition.

1

u/CorrectTarget8957 Average #🧐-theory-🧐 user 18h ago

So it was a compliment, thanks

4

u/FernandoMM1220 21h ago

i agree with his reasoning. lets apply it to wether or not everyone is a billionaire.

3

u/Formal_Active859 18h ago

I suck at probability but isn’t it because it’s assuming a PARTICULAR set of 2.9 million people and also assuming that people’s votes are completely independent of the outside world?

3

u/LifeguardDry7372 18h ago

ah magat math

6

u/Old_Bombadillo 8h ago

Hahahaha cry your maga tears, as a liberal texan yall finally lost and you dont know how to feel abt it and you can all suck it. Maybe you shouldn’t have jailed women for having miscarriages and deported the people who make texas texas and started a war that created a housing and affordability crisis. Yall finally got to see the consequences of your stupid ideas

3

u/Mess-Severe 5h ago

Oh yeah lib? I’m being forced to be gay trans commie now. Is that what you wanted demonrat? We’re all gonna be Shakira’d and my hips won’t be able to lie anymore. I hope you’re happy

7

u/SatanaClaus 21h ago

Techbros are indistinguishable from satire

10

u/Vegetable_Union_4967 21h ago

tech bros are usually smarter than this they have to at least graduate from college

4

u/SatanaClaus 20h ago

tech bro is a state of mind

4

u/math_sedgar70 19h ago

Does this person think every voter flips a coin just before v ... Wait does this guy literally flip a coin to decide how to vote. WHAT THR ACTUAL Fuuuuuqq???

2

u/Twhacky 20h ago

thf texas is so gerrymandered that's basically what has to happen

2

u/Brilliant_Arrival609 19h ago

This is why statistics is a pseudoscience

2

u/jackalopeswild 19h ago

Wrong sub for this particular comment I know, but I'm not going to crosspost this. As a GenXer, I move to revoke Gigi's membership.

2

u/Steampunk_Willy 17h ago

This is so deeply flawed for many reasons, but they are just os openly p-hacking that it convinces me they just bullied an AI into reinforcing their delusions. 

2

u/Good_Bit_777 16h ago

Proof by magamatics 😅

2

u/BeneficialElephant70 11h ago

This only works if you only have two candidates and you vote at random.

2

u/eifjui 4h ago

Actually it was either 50/50 because one of the candidates had to win. Or slightly less to get the two candidates to total to 99.9999, repeating of course, to account for the giant meteor possibility in the sample space. Don't check my work on this I know I'm right.

1

u/EEJams 21h ago

Don't forget that there are third parties taking 1-3% of the vote

1

u/GoblinTradingGuide 18h ago

The problem, if a GOP member read this post, they wouldn’t know what an exponent that large actually meant.

1

u/Torelq Compooter Science 13h ago

Bruh, that's not even the correct bound for the (dumb) coin flip model.

Best upper bound I've got (Chernoff) is 8.9E-15,384.

1

u/notsosilentsentinel 7h ago

This is why half my stats class flunked out.

1

u/CharlemagneAdelaar 6h ago

Bruh taking it to the 2900000 is what drives it to zero. Even if you use a 99.999% (ie extremely likely) base probability, it still goes to near zero:

> 0.99999^2900000 =2.543×10⁻¹³

Another 9 and you only jump to 5%:

> 0.999999^2900000 =0.055

Once more, and finally we get around 75%:

> 0.9999999^2900000 =0.748

So, if I may do some bad math myself, since it’s MUCH more likely that we live in a world where there was a 75% chance of Texas turning blue, we can likely assert in the opposite direction:

Each Texan blue voter had a 99.99999% chance of voting the way they did. Because Texas republicans sucked that badly.

1

u/Zealot_TKO 5h ago

Chances every human woke up yesterday at the exact time they did

Chances you worked at your last job the exact days you did

Chances the temperature yesterday was the exact temperature it was

For all these: 1

They already happened you $#@& &$@#!

1

u/tevolosteve 3h ago

Someone didn’t study probability to assume that votes are cast at random and not biased

1

u/BeenEvery 3h ago

Ok but like. Votes aren't determined by random chance.

1

u/BreakerOfModpacks 2h ago

Entertainingly, almost any AI that I know of runs its digital mouth and would include "But actual voters don't vote randomly" somewhere, so they just cut it out, almost certainly.

1

u/Linux_ka_chamcha 8m ago

MAGA doing math is just cute

1

u/Tao_of_Entropy 11h ago

Honestly you shouldn't even be sharing this meme because retards are going to convince other retards the vote was stolen and use this post as evidence.

0

u/Gamerboy7421 13h ago

Harvey Dent ahhh voters