Comments on: How do you measure two-thirds?

By: Burt

Burt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:17:03 +0000

The vote was 136 to 70. If the vote is split 2 to 1, then 136 must be twice 70. But 136 is less than 140 so it must be less than two-thirds of the vote, and 70 must be more than one-third of the vote. You don’t need a calculator for that.

By: Joaquin Barroso

Joaquin Barroso — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:41:43 +0000

@Trae @N’Ida

Both your methods are still relying on rounding figures, so even though they are correct in the ruling they have the same problem as the accountants method; you dont get 137.3, you get 137.33333…
The use of a common denominator is far more convincing.

By: N'Ida

N'Ida — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:33:51 +0000

Or, if you divide 206 by 3 and multiply by 2 you get 137.3, so, no the vote didn’t pass. Perhaps the person doing the calculating was wanting it to pass a little to much.

By: Trae

Trae — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:22:10 +0000

What I do get is that if you simply multiply 206 by 2 and divide by 3, you get ~137.3 which easily implies that you need 138 out of 206 votes for the thing to pass. And that’s using a cheap marketing calculator I have lying around.

The accountant, Trudy Brazil, should seriously be considering a new position as I fear all her accounting calculations could be called into question now. Even 3 places (.666) violates her decision. I’d be more willing to accept a 137 vote as passing as it’s closer to the actual value (even though it’s not).