Fun With Statistics
Last time I promised no more election talk. OK, and here’s the funny thing, it turns out that was a non-core promise.
Thank the AEC for their excellent Virtual Tally Room, without which we wouldn’t be able to find out the percentage of informal votes in each electorate. This is gold I tells ya.
So first off, let’s make a not-at-all sweeping generalisation that informal voters = dumb voters. What, they can’t count up to 6 (or however many candidates there are)? Sheesh. While we’re at it, lets also say that formal voters = smart voters. It’s really an informal dumb change of terminology, but it makes for some minutes worth of amusement.
Based on that, the nation’s dumbest electorate is …. (fx: drum roll) … Ried, Laurie Ferguson’s seat! I wonder how Laurie feels to know that his voters are (or likely know those who are) the dumbest in the country!.
And the smartest? … The envelope please Sharon … Higgins, Pete Costello’s seat! All those smart people voting for a man who watches Australian Idol. Just amazing really.
Now I’m sure there’s nothing in the fact that the smart electorates vote Liberal and the dumbasses vote Labor. Pure coincidence. And similarly there’s nothing in the fact that the 10 dumbest electorates are almost all in NSW, and the 10 smartest mostly in Victoria.
Aren’t statistics fun? Let’s see if there’s a relationship between smart electorates and One Nation voters. The smartest electorate that actually fielded a ON candidate was New England, giving 1.31% of the vote to that candidate. Had to search through a few smart electorates to find one with a ON candidate, but with the thickies it was no work at all! In Ried - bonehead central, remember - they gave the ON candidate 1.77%! That’s, like, more!
This is all statistically significant because … I say it is.
0 Comments