WASHINGTON — Voting for president and having your ballot be the deciding one cast — statistically, that is like trying to hit the lottery.
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The odds for the average person are 60 million to 1 against it, a study shows.
In some states, the odds of being the vote that tips the election to your candidate are much better. In others they are astronomically worse.
The study by three statisticians used millions of computer runs of polling data to examine the likelihood that a single vote will carry a state and that that particular state will tip the balance in the Electoral College.
The answer is very low. You are far more likely to be hit twice by lightning.
In New Mexico, the odds are 1 in 6.1 million of a voter casting the ultimate deciding vote.
"If you’re in New Mexico, you have a better chance of having your vote matter than winning the New York Lottery,” said co-author Aaron Edlin, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Even though the odds are against their own votes making a difference, the authors plan to vote, mostly out of altruism and civic duty.
And they urge everyone to do so, no matter what the odds of their vote being the deciding factor.
Study lead author Andrew Gelman, a professor at Columbia University, lives in New York, where the odds are 1.9 billion to 1 that his vote will make the difference. "I always vote,” he said. "I do think that it’s a privilege that we have.”
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AT A GLANCE
The odds
→Thirty-four states have odds greater than 1 in 100 million; 20 states have odds worse than 1 in 1 billion.
→Oklahoma’s odds are 1 in 20.5 billion.
→The District of Columbia has it the worst: the odds are 1 in 490 billion.
→In Virginia, the odds are 1 in 7.9 million. New Hampshire voters have a 1 in 8 million chance of being the key vote. In Colorado, the odds are 1 in 9.9 million. In those states, voters are more likely to decide the election than die by dog bite.
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