Days after Ohio voters passed Issue 1 and codified abortion rights into Ohio’s constitution, Republicans are not accepting the election results.
In a new, unhinged press release issued by the Ohio House Republican Committee, GOP members rant that “foreign billionaires” impacted the election results and call the results tainted by so-called “foreign interference.” It is unclear what they are referring to.
Ohio voters overwhelmingly voted ‘Yes’ on Issue 1 by a margin of 56.6% to 43.4%.
The press release further argues that the results of the election do not invalidate a 6-week abortion ban previously passed by the Ohio Legislature and that “no amendment can overturn the God given rights with which we were born.”
I just saw how far above 50% it was since that’s the mark you have to clear. I’ve always thought of elections and other votes that way. Not sure why. Never thought about it. Sure, using the more accurate 13.2% would have proven the point I was making even better, but I didn’t really think that far ahead. I just wanted to give the context that controversial issues trend more toward 50/50 so passing with a 56.6 vote is nothing to turn your nose at. But to answer your question, I subtracted 50 from 56.6.
Honestly, I got defensive and wouldn’t have written any of this if you hadn’t said “what kind of math are you doing” like it wasn’t t obvious what I did. But I guess it gave myself and others the opportunity to understand why we use the total percent and not how far above 50.
Just to give some context on how numbers can be misleading, a 40 / 60 split is only 10 away from 50; however, even though that 10% margin is small, in reality it that means there are 50% more people in favor of something.
For every 40 people that don’t want something, 60 people do.
For every 4 people that don’t want something, 6 people do.
For every 2 people that don’t want something, 3 people do.
3 divided by 2 is 1.5, or 150%.
So, in this 56.6% versus 43.4% split, 30.4% more people are in favor of this bill.
But percentages are still weird. So even my example can be misleading. It’s all about how you interpret it. For instance, a 95 / 5 split would mean 19x as many people want one outcome. So the gap is 90% in the ratio, but 1800% more people are in the 95 camp. (1800% more implies 1800% over 100%, so 1900% total, or just 5 x 19)
Another way to look at the data of the 43/56 split.
If 10,000 people are against it, then 13,040 people are for it.
If 10,000 people are for it, then 6,960 people are against it.
Numbers are tricky like that
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And like, I knew you were being earnest! Tone is hard to get across on the Internet. But emotions react before the critical thinking can do it’s work =P