Re: [EM] Definitions for Comparing Voting Power

Alex Small asmall at physics.ucsb.edu
Wed Feb 6 10:44:10 PST 2002


Forest wrote:

>>
>> Definition: Two sets A and B have equal voting power if
>>
>> 1) for any set S such that if S is not a majority but S U A is a
>> majority then S U B is also a majority
>> and
>> 2) for any set T such that T is not a majority but S U B is a majority
>> then S U A is also a majority.
>
>I assume you mean T U B and T U A in this last sentence.

Yes, sorry for the typo.

>Are you thinking disjoint unions?
>
>I ask because it could be that T is equal to A. In that case we
>we would have T U B = A U B, which could easily be a majority without
>having the set A = T U A being a majority.


Good point.  In my head I always had the idea that the subsets of the
electoral college were disjoint, but I never thought to specify it.  The
physicists' lack of rigor rears its ugly head here....  Thank-you for
spotting the error.

Alex



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