Message-ID: <47A2239B.4000705@karwin.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:38:03 -0800
From: Bill Karwin <bill@karwin.com>
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To: mjd@plover.com
Subject: Re: unnecessarily imprecise
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Hi Mark,

This is in response to your blog about the "more than 20 states" issue.  
In fact, voting is taking place in 25 states on Feb 5.  I don't think we 
should be too critical of the article you mention, because it's not 
entirely simple how to count the states.

Take a look at the primary schedule here:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/index.html

The two major parties have different schedules for their primaries in 
some states.  The Republicans are voting in 21 states on Feb 5, whereas 
the Democrats are voting in 22 states, plus "Democrats abroad" and 
American Samoa.

The article you cited was about McCain, who is a Republican candidate.  
So the article could have said with some precision, "...before 
_Republican_ voters in 21 states head to the polls..."

But then how do we consider open primaries, where voters of any 
affiliation may vote for the slate of any party.  Idaho and Montana have 
open primaries (see http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1801), even though 
they hold their primaries for only one of the two parties on Feb 5.  I'm 
not sure how this affects the total number of states voting for 
Republican candidates on Feb 5.

The most likely answer, however, is that journalists have to write a lot 
of content in a very short time, and sometimes they sacrifice precision 
for the sake of getting the job done.  Journalists seem to prefer round 
numbers.

Regards,
Bill Karwin