Getting to the Voting Booth - The Solutions
11/01/2004

Florida had 510/941 = 54%, Ohio had 585/1026 = 57% and Pennsylvania had 585/927 = 63%. Pennsylvania had the greatest percentage of its surveyed registered voters deemed likely to vote.

It’s possible for a candidate to win just 11 states and still tie his/her opponent. If we take the 10 states with the largest number of electoral votes, we see that we are almost to the number we need. There is another state with 15 votes, but that would be too many. We only need 13 more. The states California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia account for 269 electoral votes, which is half of the possible 538.

We’re told that Gore received 2,912,253 votes and Bush received 537 more than that, which is 2,912,253 + 537 = 2,912,790 votes. Together, we see that Bush and Gore received 2,912,253 + 2,912,790 = 5,825,043 votes out of the 5,957,459 votes that were cast. This means that other candidates received 5,957,459 – 5,825,043 = 132,416. This is 132,416/5,957,459 = .0222 = 2.22%. If we give the Other category 2.22% of the pie chart, we will have to make the central angle of its sector 0.0222 ´ 360 = 8 degrees, to the nearest whole number.