During the 2000 election, in Okaloosa County, Florida (at the western tip of the panhandle), 71k of the county’s 171k residents voted, with 52186 votes going to Bush and 16989 votes going to Gore, for a 42% turnout rate.
On the day of November 7, 2000, there was no significant rainfall in Pensacola (which is the closest weather station I could find with records going back that far). A storm which dropped 2 inches of rain on the tip of the Florida panhandle that day would have reduced voter turnout by 1.8%,[1] which would have resulted in a margin that leaned 634 votes closer to Gore. Which would have tipped Florida, which would in turn have tipped the election.
Now, November is the “dry” season in Florida, so heavy rains like that are not incredibly common. Still, they can happen. For example, on 2015-11-02, 2.34 inches of rain fell.[2] That was only one day, out of the 140 days I looked at, which would have flipped the 2000 election, and the 2000 election was, to my knowledge, the closest of the 59 US presidential elections so far. Still, there are a number of other tracks that a storm could have taken, which would also have flipped the 2000 election.[3] And in the 1976 election, somewhat worse weather in the great lakes region would likely have flipped Ohio and Wisconsin, where Carter beat Ford by narrow margins.[4]
So I think “weather, on election day specifically, flips the 2028 election in a way that cannot be foreseen now” is already well over 0.1%. And that’s not even getting into other weather stuff like “how many hurricanes hit the gulf coast in 2028, and where exactly do they land?”.
“The results indicate that if a county experiences an inch of rain more than what is normal for the county for that election date, the percentage of the voting age population that turns out to vote decreases by approximately .9%.”.
I pulled the weather for the week before and after November 7 for the past 10 years from the weather.gov api and that was the highest rainfall date.
var precipByDate = {}
for (var y = 2014; y < 2024; y++) {
var res = await fetch('https://api.weather.com/v1/location/KPNS:9:US/observations/historical.json?apiKey=<redacted>&units=e&startDate=‘+y+’1101&endDate=‘+y+‘1114’).then(r ⇒ r.json());
res.observations.forEach(obs ⇒ {
var d = new Date(obs.valid_time_gmt*1000);
var ds = d.getFullYear()+‘-’+(d.getMonth()+1)+‘-’+d.getDate();
if (!(ds in precipByDate)) { precipByDate[ds] = 0; }
if (obs.precip_total) { precipByDate[ds] += obs.precip_total }
});
}
Object.entries(precipByDate).sort((a, b) ⇒ b[1] - a[1])[0]
Looking at the 2000 election map in Florida, any good thunderstorm in the panhandle, in the northeast corner of the state, or on the west-middle-south of the peninsula would have done the trick.
I think this argument is not sufficient. Turnout effects of weather can flip elections that are already close, and from our limited perspective, more than 0.1% of elections are close. But the question is asking about the 2028 election in particular, which will probably not be so close.
well, as a conditional argument against it being close: if trump wins in 2024 and enacts project 2025, I expect trump’s successor’s win margin to be an unprecedented-in-the-usa landslide
This seems to be focussing on one specific means by which quantum randomness might affect a result.
Another means may be via personal health of a candidate. For example, everyone has pre-cancerous cells that just need the right trigger to form a malignancy, especially in the older people that tend to be candidates in US presidential elections, or for an undetected existing cancer to progress to become serious.
Is there comparable with 0.1% chance that due to a cosmic ray or any other event, that a candidate will have something happen that is serious enough that it affects their ability to run for the 2028 election? It seems likely that the result of an election depends at least moderately strongly upon who is running.
I think the answer pretty much has to be “yes”, for the following reasons.
As noted in the above post, weather is chaotic.
Elections are sometimes close. For example, the winner of the 2000 presidential election came down to a margin of 537 votes in Florida.
Geographic location correlates reasonably strongly with party preference.
Weather affects specific geographic areas.
Weather influences voter turnout[1] --
During the 2000 election, in Okaloosa County, Florida (at the western tip of the panhandle), 71k of the county’s 171k residents voted, with 52186 votes going to Bush and 16989 votes going to Gore, for a 42% turnout rate.
On the day of November 7, 2000, there was no significant rainfall in Pensacola (which is the closest weather station I could find with records going back that far). A storm which dropped 2 inches of rain on the tip of the Florida panhandle that day would have reduced voter turnout by 1.8%,[1] which would have resulted in a margin that leaned 634 votes closer to Gore. Which would have tipped Florida, which would in turn have tipped the election.
Now, November is the “dry” season in Florida, so heavy rains like that are not incredibly common. Still, they can happen. For example, on 2015-11-02, 2.34 inches of rain fell.[2] That was only one day, out of the 140 days I looked at, which would have flipped the 2000 election, and the 2000 election was, to my knowledge, the closest of the 59 US presidential elections so far. Still, there are a number of other tracks that a storm could have taken, which would also have flipped the 2000 election.[3] And in the 1976 election, somewhat worse weather in the great lakes region would likely have flipped Ohio and Wisconsin, where Carter beat Ford by narrow margins.[4]
So I think “weather, on election day specifically, flips the 2028 election in a way that cannot be foreseen now” is already well over 0.1%. And that’s not even getting into other weather stuff like “how many hurricanes hit the gulf coast in 2028, and where exactly do they land?”.
Gomez, B. T., Hansford, T. G., & Krause, G. A. (2007). The Republicans should pray for rain: Weather, turnout, and voting in US presidential elections.:
I pulled the weather for the week before and after November 7 for the past 10 years from the weather.gov api and that was the highest rainfall date.
Looking at the 2000 election map in Florida, any good thunderstorm in the panhandle, in the northeast corner of the state, or on the west-middle-south of the peninsula would have done the trick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_States_presidential_election—Carter won Ohio and Wisconsin by 11k and 35k votes, respectively.
I think this argument is not sufficient. Turnout effects of weather can flip elections that are already close, and from our limited perspective, more than 0.1% of elections are close. But the question is asking about the 2028 election in particular, which will probably not be so close.
do we have any reason to believe that particular election won’t be close
well, as a conditional argument against it being close: if trump wins in 2024 and enacts project 2025, I expect trump’s successor’s win margin to be an unprecedented-in-the-usa landslide
Do you have greater than 99.9% confidence that it will not be close?
This seems to be focussing on one specific means by which quantum randomness might affect a result.
Another means may be via personal health of a candidate. For example, everyone has pre-cancerous cells that just need the right trigger to form a malignancy, especially in the older people that tend to be candidates in US presidential elections, or for an undetected existing cancer to progress to become serious.
Is there comparable with 0.1% chance that due to a cosmic ray or any other event, that a candidate will have something happen that is serious enough that it affects their ability to run for the 2028 election? It seems likely that the result of an election depends at least moderately strongly upon who is running.