[ExI] south carolina primary election

[Damien Broderick]

On 6/15/2010 10:15 AM, Gregory Jones wrote:

> This time-bomb is ticking away:
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/15/clyburn-claims-hacking-greenes-surprise-win-sc-senate-race/

Gotta love the confident ignorance of FOX comments:

"In Australia, where voting is mandatory (you are fined if you do not 
vote the names on the ballot are in alphabetical order and studies show 
that the first name on the ballot gets 30% of the vote due to its position."

This is known technically as the "donkey vote." It has to be taken into 
consideration, but it's rarely critical. Why? Because, in fact, of 
course, as wiki says, in Oz "The donkey vote has been estimated at 
between 1 and 2% of the vote."

In the US, where people *choose* to put themselves out to vote, the 
donkey vote is surely smaller than that. As all the psephologists have 
pointed out, it isn't even in the ballpark to explain Greene's victory.

Damien Broderick