prior probability

The 12th Amendment contains four paragraphs, but let’s pay special attention to the second full paragraph of this amendment (in bold below), which poses two key questions:

1. First-order question: Does the President of the Senate–who happens to be the sitting Vice President under Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution–have the authority to refuse to count the electoral votes of any given State?

2. Second-order question: Who decides what the “right answer” is to the above question? The Supreme Court or the Congress?

“The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;

“The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;

“The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

“The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

Created by my colleague and friend Venkatesh Rao (@vgr).

Alternate title: “Jo Jorgenson: kingmaker“

I have posted the certified margins of victory in four close States below the fold: AZ, GA, PA, and WI. Compare Biden’s margin of victory in each of these States with the vote totals of the Libertarian Party candidate. As a thank you or a token of appreciation, President-Elect Biden should appoint a prominent Libertarian to his cabinet!

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Paradoxes have always fascinated me, and one of the philosophical puzzles that has captured my imagination the most is a probabilistic problem called Newcomb’s paradox (see image below). With this background in mind, I recently stumbled across a 2020 paper by Adam Elga (Princeton) titled “Newcomb University: A Play in One Act.” Professor Elga’s excellent paper explores in depth two variants of this paradox and identifies some salient weaknesses with some of the leading approaches to this philsophical/probabilistic problem. For my part, I would like to pose a seemingly childish question, Can we all agree that this paradox cannot be solved, that there is no “right answer”? In other words, isn’t that the main point or lesson of this particular paradox: that some problems are simply unsolvable? That, at least, is the position I take in my work-in-progress titled “Judge Hercules or Judge Bayes?”

Yoani Sanchez is the future of a free Cuba. Here is her excellent essay (in Spanish); here is an English translation. After diagnosing the current situation, she correctly concludes as follows:

“Reactionary and immobile, fearful of news and distrustful of everything that has not come out of the laboratories of the Communist Party, all that remains to the current Cuban model is to repress. For the coming year it will finally set aside its mask of revolution and social justice to show itself as it is: a twentieth century dictatorship that geopolitics, chance and fear have allowed to get this far.”

No, not those types of “plugs” but rather electrical outlets, one of the modern marvels (along with plumbing and WiFi) of the developed world. Specifically, check out this informative and interactive guide created by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). You’re welcome! Hat tip: u/arran-reddit.

That is the title of Professor Cass Sunstein’s most recent paper, which is available here via SSRN. Hat tip: Adrian Vermeulle (@Vermeullarmine). Here is an excerpt:

“In Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, the Supreme Court took a highly aggressive approach to restrictions imposed by the state of New York on houses of worship, even though those restrictions were vigorously defended on public health grounds. Because of the serious health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and because of the plausibility of a plea for judicial respect for complex choices and tradeoffs by elected officials, Roman Catholic Diocese can reasonably be seen as a kind of anti-Korematsu – that is, as a strong signal of judicial solicitude for constitutional rights, and of judicial willingness to protect against discrimination, even under emergency circumstances in which life is on the line.”

This time it’s American Airlines (again). More details here. Hat tip: Gary Leff.

Alternate title: Was Trump robbed in Georgia? Maybe, but check your math!

Check out this report from Georgia’s Secretary of State, especially the extended excerpt below:

“The rejection rate for absentee ballots with missing or non-matching signatures in the 2020 General Election was 0.15%, the same rejection rate for signature issues as the 2018 General Election.

“2,011 absentee ballots were rejected in the November 2020 election for missing or non-matching signatures out of 1,322,529 absentee ballots cast. In November 2018, 454 absentee ballots were rejected for missing or non-matching signatures out of 284,393 absentee ballots cast. The 0.15% rejection rate for signature issues was the same in both the 2018 and 2020 General Elections.

“In the 2020 Primary, 3,266 absentee ballot were rejected for missing or non-matching signatures out of 1,151,371 absentee ballots cast, a rejection rate of 0.28%. The lower rejection rate in the general election compared to the primary is likely the result of both parties attempting to help voters cure their absentee ballots pursuant to the process set forth in Georgia statute.”

In other words, the rejection rate was almost twice as large during the June 9 primaries than during the November 3 general election, even though much fewer votes were cast during the primaries. At the same time, even if the mail-in ballots had been rejected at the higher rate during the general election, Joe Biden would still have won this contest by around 10,000 votes. (This analysis, however, leaves out the other close States that Biden won: AZ, MI, NV, PA, and WI*.) Maybe the problem is with the “winner-take-all” nature of our current Electoral College system: the winner of a given State contest receives all of that State’s allotted electors even if his margin of victory is razor thin. Why not allocate the electors on a pro rata basis or on the basis of congressional districts, like Maine and Nebraska do? Either way, the full report from the Secretary of State of Georgia is available here. Hat tip: Jonathan Adler.

*Via Andrew McCarthy (National Review), here is an analysis of Trump’s vote fraud lawsuit in Wisconsin, the only one of these fateful Trump cases to be heard “on the merits.”