Sequence for rigged voting machine

[Joshua Zucker]

Can't Kerry win if all the even-numbered votes are for Nader and the
odds are for Kerry?

The description here says all those Kerry votes will count for Kerry
(1/2 of the votes), and then 6/14 of the votes would go to Nader and
1/14 for Bush.

To answer the second question, I suggest that the machine should be
rigged so that the first two votes go to Bush, and thereafter votes
alternate Kerry and Bush.  Then Bush is guaranteed to win by either 1
or 2 votes.

--Joshua Zucker


On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 08:31:23 -0500, David Wilson
<davidwwilson at comcast.net> wrote:
> More a math-fun question than a seqfan question, but...
> 
> Kerry can never win.  Votes for either Bush or Nader increases the
> Bush lead over Kerry, and while a vote for Kerry can decrease the
> lead by 1, then next vote for Kerry will wipe out that gain.
> 
> Nader could conceivably win.  For every 7 consecutive votes for
> Nader, 6 go to Nader and 1 to Bush.  This reduces the Bush lead
> over Nader by 5 votes.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alonso Del Arte" <alonso.delarte at gmail.com>
> To: <ham>; <seqfan at ext.jussieu.fr>
> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2005 7:13 PM
> Subject: Sequence for rigged voting machine
> 
> > Dear SeqFans,
> >
> > If I may, I'd like to present a little sequence puzzle. Given a voting
> > machine rigged so that a vote for Kerry is counted as a vote for Bush
> > when the total vote count is divisible by 2, and a vote for Nader is
> > counted as a vote for Bush when the total vote count is divisible by
> > 7, and Bush starts with 660 votes, Kerry with 347 and Nader with 2, it
> > is possible to sequence the votes so that either Kerry or Nader could
> > beat Bush? Also, is it possible to rig a machine in order to make sure
> > to a mathematical certainty that Bush wins by a very close margin?
> >
> > This website has a mock-up of a voting machine rigged as described above:
> >
> > http://bobspoetry.com/eVoteDemo.html
> >
> > Of course, the big difference between this mock-up and the real things
> > is that anyone can look at the source code of the mock-up.
> >
> > Alonso del Arte
> 
>