Statisticians Say New Mexico Voters Have Most Power in Presidential Election
November 2nd, 2008Three statisticians, Andrew Gelman, Aaron Edlin, and Nate Silver, have attempted to calculate the odds that a single voter would change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election this year. They find that a New Mexico voter has the best chance. A New Mexico voter has a 1 in 6,100,000 chance of determining who wins the election. By contrast, in 34 states, a single voter has worse odds than 1 in 100,000,000 of determining the outcome. D.C. voters have the worst odds; a D.C. voter only has a one in 490,000,000,000 chance of determining the outcome. See this AP story for more.

November 2nd, 2008 at 10:45 am
As an individual voter, your job is not to decide the outcome of the election. Your job is to express support for your candidate, and thereby make your candidate look a little bit better in the percentages.