One Vote Can Make a Difference

The odds that one vote can make a difference in an election are almost nil, worse than the odds of winning Powerball. But that doesnt mean its impossible that one vote can make a difference. Its actually happened. There have been cases in which one vote decided the election. Odds That One Vote Can Make a Difference Economists Casey B. Mulligan and Charles G. Hunter found in a 2001 study that only one of every 100,000 votes cast in federal elections, and one of every 15,000 votes cast in state legislative elections, â€Å"mattered in the sense that they were cast for a candidate that officially tied or won by one vote.† Their study of 16,577 national elections from 1898 through 1992 found that only one had been decided by a single vote. It was the 1910 election in New York’s 36th Congressional District, won by a Democrat who claimed 20,685 votes to the Republican candidate’s 20,684. Of those elections, the median margin of victory was 22 percentage points and 18,021 actual votes. Mulligan and Hunter also analyzed 40,036 state legislative elections from 1968 through 1989 and found only seven that had been decided by a single vote. Of those elections, the median margin of victory was 25 percentage points and 3,257 actual votes. In other words, the chance that your vote will be the decisive or pivotal one in a national election is almost zilch. The same goes for state legislative elections. Chances That One Vote Can Make a Difference in a Presidential Race   Researchers Andrew Gelman, Gary King, and John Boscardin estimated the chances that a single vote would decide a U.S. presidential election to be 1 in 10 million at best and less than 1 in 100 million at worst. Their work, titled Estimating the Probability of Events That Have Never Occurred: When Is Your Vote Decisive? appeared in 1998 in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Given the size of the electorate, an election where one vote is decisive (equivalent to a tie in your state and in the electoral college) will almost certainly never occur,† Gelman, King and Boscardin wrote. Still, the odds of your one vote deciding a presidential election are still better than your odds of matching all six numbers of Powerball, which are smaller than 1 in 175 million. What Really Happens in Close Elections So what happens if an election really is decided by a single vote, or is at least pretty close? It’s taken out of the electorate’s hands. Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, who wrote Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, pointed out in a 2005 column in The New York Times that extremely close elections are often settled not at the ballot box but in courtrooms. Consider President George W. Bush’s narrow victory in 2000 over Democrat Al Gore, which ended up being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. â€Å"It is true that the outcome of that election came down to a handful of voters; but their names were Kennedy, OConnor, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas. And it was only the votes they cast while wearing their robes that mattered, not the ones they may have cast in their home precincts,† Dubner and Levitt wrote. When One Vote Really Did Make a Difference The races won by a single vote, in addition to the new 1910 Congressional election in New York, according to Mulligan and Hunter, were: A 1978 race for Rhode Island state Senate was tied at 4,110 votes and decided by a second runoff election. So was a 1980 race for New Mexico state House, at 2,327 votes for each candidate.A 1982 state House election in Maine in which the victor won 1,387 votes to the loser’s 1,386 votes.A 1982 state Senate race in Massachusetts in which the victor won 5,352 votes to the loser’s 5,351; a subsequent recount late found a wider margin.A 1980 state House race in Utah in which the victor won 1,931 votes to the loser’s 1,930 votes.A 1978 state Senate race in North Dakota in which the victor won 2,459 votes to the loser’s 2,458 votes; a subsequent recount found the margin to be six votes.A 1970 state House race in Rhode Island in which the victor won 1,760 votes to the loser’s 1,759.A 1970 state House race in Missouri in which the victor won 4,819 votes to the loser’s 4,818 votes.And a 1968 state House race in Wisconsin in which the victor won 6,522 votes to the loser’s 6,521 votes; a subsequent recount found the margin to be two votes, not one.

The Goals For 2016 Is Focused On Increasing Shareholder Value

dnesday, 22 June 2016, 12:13 AMmodified on Wednesday, 22 June 2016, 10:39 AM â€Å"Shareholder value. Our goals for 2016 are primarily focused on increasing shareholder value.† As I watched many of my colleagues being escorted out of the building on a Wednesday morning in March 2016, my thoughts wandered back to those words spoken at our most recent employee forum from the previous month. Our CEO was on his annual tour of the country speaking to thousands of employees along the way. The message was a positive one. Success in 2015! Projects completed, money saved, and improved customer satisfaction. All of these accomplishments made possible by the innovative and hardworking staff working both behind the scenes and on the frontlines. Now, it was time for new challenges. The message was clear as our CEO transitioned his discussion from our past achievements to our future goals, â€Å"We are focusing on shareholder value†. My phone rang. It was my young, now former, colleague. He had left some personal items behind but he was no longer permitted to enter the building. I grabbed his items and headed out of the building to meet up with him. When we spoke, he struggled to hold back tears as he explained that Human Resources and Management indicated that in a cost-saving effort, our head office had decided to reduce staffing by 1/3rd. Truth be told, he was one of the hardest working employees in the department. But the decision was made at a very high level and wasn’tShow MoreRelatedOur Goals For 2016 Are Focused On Increasing Shareholder Value1459 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"Shareholder value. Our goals for 2016 are primarily focused on increasing shareholder value.† As I watched many of my colleagues being escorted out of the building on a Wednesday morning in March 2016, my thoughts wandered back to those words spoken at our most recent employee forum from the previous month. Our CEO was on his annual tour of the country speaking to thousands of employees along the way. The message was a positive one. Success in 2015! Projects completed, money saved, and improvedRead MoreInternational Annual Report : Marriott International Essay1566 Words   |  7 PagesInternational Inc. has hotels in nearly 90 countries, and 19 different brands; As well as a reward program with nearly 55 million members all over the world, and is still expanding. In Marriott International’s 2015 annual report, is a message to the shareholders. In its message the company’s future growth is stressed. In fact, Starwood Hotels Resorts Worldwide are acquisitions of Marriott International and are currently being incorporated. 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How safe is artificial intelligence Free Essays

Artificial intelligence is the idea that computer systems can have the intelligence of a human. This means a computer system could think, communicate and do many things we humans do in our everyday life. For there to be artificial intelligence, humans must create it and develop it. We will write a custom essay sample on How safe is artificial intelligence? or any similar topic only for you Order Now We humans are the creators of artificial intelligence and many people think if we overdevelop it, it could one day lead to chaos. Many people think that if one-day artificial intelligence gained the same intelligence as humans, they could decide to go against humanity and destroy us. Steven Hawkins suggests that artificial intelligence could someday wipe out humanity when it gets too clever as we will be like ants compared to the computer systems. Artificial intelligence is already growing at a very fast rate. Google’s car is a great example of artificial intelligence since Google have developed driverless cars, especially Toyota. They have programmed the cars to drive without the use of human interaction. This already proves that artificial intelligence is growing at a very fast speed. Although it’s accurate to say that it’s hard to measure the risk of danger with artificial intelligence. Like driverless cars, they could one day be infected with a virus which could make the car do things it shouldn’t for example crash and this could be very dangerous. Artificial intelligence can have many benefits which help us every day for example GPS, they calculate our routes, time it takes to get to target destination and the fastest route possible. Computer systems are also beneficial in terms of calculating mathematically compared to humans where it could possibly take days, weeks or even months to calculate for something. A computer system can calculate something and complex situations in a matter of seconds. Computer systems can also model many real life situations and help to make decisions just like humans. Artificial intelligence can be very dangerous in some cases. We could say that if AI gained the same intelligence as humans and was able to make rational decisions, they could decide to overtake and rule the world since they are ‘smarter’ and will only get ‘smarter’ than humans. There would be a conflict between the human race and AI. It’s fair to say these are just opinions and theories since we cannot accurately measure the risk of AI until the day of its awakening. There are many movies which are based on AI and influence the publics’ ideology of AI. Movies such as terminator and I, Robot represent AI in a negative aspect which could lead people to believe AI is dangerous. People are not to blame for their ideology since the media can influence their values and beliefs. One again, hackers could use their knowledge to get access into the AI and control it to their own advantage and do many things. Depending on how lethal the AI can be, the hacker could harm civilians or even participate in an act that could cost owners their life or money. For example, a hacker hacking into someone’s car and making it turn off in middle of a motor way could lead to danger as motor ways are usually driven by many cars with fast speed. Errors and glitches are very common when it comes to technology and applications therefore it could be said that AI may sometimes malfunction and cause a problem which could yet again harm the protection of someone’s life. Christian, L. (Aug, 28, 2015). Is Artificial Intelligence Really A Threat To Humanity. Tech Times, P1. Violence isn’t the only threat to humanity. It is said that humans could implement AI within latest technology for example facial recognition. This could be a threat to many people as systems would be able to recognize you and even find out who are related to you based on traits such as your appearance, body position and the way you move. Voice recognition could also be used to recognize your identity and can also be used to find relatives. Christian also mentioned that we should consider how ‘long’ it would actually take for AI to be a threat to humanity since it would take decades for AI to reach the super intelligent level. It’s also important that humans focus on the counter measures and techniques to monitor AI to prevent them one day from taking over. Since we are humans, we are the ones who create AI which means we have control over it and can modify it therefore we can always implement security measures just in case AI turns against us. This is the advantage we humans have. It’s the ability to control the AI however if AI learns how to outsmart humans, then it would be unfortunate as the AI would be able to counter and modify the programming code that was implemented within it. EDWARD, M G. (2015). The Bulletin Forums. Artificial intelligence is just exaggerated and it just distracts us from the threats we face currently. ANTHONY, C. (October 7, 2015). Ib Times. Artificial intelligence program ConceptNet matches 4-year old child in IQ test, P1. This proves to us we still have a long time left until AI really can overpower humans but at this current stage, as of 2015 the AI have been revealed to have the IQ level of children. This can be really reassuring to people who were afraid of AI developing too fast. It seems we have a long time left. It will take a lot of trial and error to update AI in order for it to get a higher IQ score. However, this proves to the world that AI has finally been able to gain the intelligence of a child which is a big clue and hints that it’s developing gradually, and one day it will have superior intelligence. If AI keeps progressing at this rate, then the future may have something surprising waiting for them. How to cite How safe is artificial intelligence?, Papers

Thermal Expansion free essay sample

The different temperature coefficient is obtained through the use of an apparatus for measuring the linear expansion. The PASCO Thermal Expansion Apparatus was use to measure the thermal expansion to get the temperature coefficient. All metals which are used in the experiment all expanded due to the rising of the temperature. The temperature coefficient obtained from experiment is close to the actual or accepted temperature coefficient. Introduction The coefficient of thermal expansion (? ) is defined as the fractional increase in the length per unit rise in temperature. It is a material property that is indicative of the extent to which a material expands upon heating. Different substances expand by different amounts. Over small temperature ranges, the thermal expansion of uniform linear objects is proportional to temperature change.Thermal expansion finds useful application in bimetallic strips for the construction of thermometers but can generate detrimental internal stress when a structural part is heated and kept at constant length. We will write a custom essay sample on Thermal Expansion or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Theory Most materials expand when heated through a temperature range that does not change in phase. The added heat increases the vibration of the atoms in the material which increases the separation of atoms. Suppose an object of length L undergoes a temperature change of magnitude ? T. If ? T is reasonably small, the change in length, ?Place the foam insulator over the thermistor lug. Then, plug the leads of the ohmmeter into the banana plug connector labelled thermistor in the center of the expansion base. Measure the initial ohmmeter reading and record. Use a tubing to attach the steam generator to the end of the copper tube, attach it to the farthest end from the dial gauge. Place a container under the other end of the tube to catch the draining water. Turn the outer casing of the dial gauge to align the zero point on the scale. Turn on the steam generator. Then, watch the dial gauge and the ohmmeter.