Math is hard

Nearly 47% of Danny Dumaresque and the two Bennetts' supporters in the NL Liberal leadership vote, failed to mark the second and third preferences on their ballots which would have given them a say on the final count.

Many excuses have been offered, before voting was finished and since, as to why this would be so, but the basic reason seems to be: math is hard. A segment of voters seem to think, entirely wrongly, that marking a second and subsequent preference somehow hurts the chances of their first choice candidate. (It does not.)

Basic dumbosity such as this newspaper column doesn't help. Spot the glaring error.

Of 6539 ballots cast for the three runners-up, 3047 were incomplete after the first or second count. While mostly academic in the present instance, in a tighter leadership race, the incomplete ballot rate could help determine the eventual winner. For some reason, the incompleteness rate was especially high in Baie Verte and Burin–Placentia West.

Contrary to some privately-expressed concerns about the willingness of rural voters to complete their multiple choices, most of the districts with the lowest rates of ballot-incompleteness were in rural Newfoundland.