4 ms·
Boolean Logic, missing brackets and the 2023 Nigeria Presidential Election
- churchill 4y agoOnce again, we're finding out the importance of commas in logical statements, especially when they're misplaced. There's a world of difference between, "let's eat, Timmy," and "let's eat Timmy." The first is perfect at the dining table while the second is inevitable when you're stranded on a raft out at sea [0]. [0]: https://cutt.ly/v4Yz0hk https://cutt.ly/v4Yz0hk
- BenJong-Il 4y agoIs there a way a comma would have helped in the clause of the constitution?
- benj111 4y agoA farmer friend named their cockerel after my grandad Austin. Everybody took great delight when Austin ended up on the dinner table.
- denton-scratch 4y agoThere's a reason that punctuation marks in legal documents are generally supposed to be ignored. Drafters should write in language that is unambiguous even if all punctuation marks are deleted. My will, for example, contains no punctuation other than full-stops.
- netsharc 4y agoThere was a legal case: https://www.onelegal.com/blog/dont-write-wrong-10-million-lawsuit-decided-over-missing-serial-comma/ https://www.onelegal.com/blog/dont-write-wrong-10-million-la...
- nomercy400 4y agoDoesn't the constitution mention anything about equality? Is a vote from a person in the FCT more valuable than a vote from somewhere else? Or should each vote be equally valuable? What is the spirit of the constitution? Why are there general elections?
- wodenokoto 4y agoI imagine the US constitution also says something along the lines of all votes are equal, yet presidents have won, while losing the popular vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...
- the_third_wave 4y agoThe US constitution says something about the College of Electors and that each state and the District of Columbia appoints electors pursuant to the methods described by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation (representatives and senators). Of the current 538 electors, an absolute majority of 270 or more electoral votes is required to elect the president and vice president. It explicitly does not give each presidential vote the same weight so as to avoid the federation being ruled by the most populous states. This is only true for the vote for the president (and vice-president), in other matters the Electoral College does not get involved.
- dang 4y agoRelated (I assume?): The drama in trying to convert election PDFs to Spreadsheets - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35272227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35272227 - March 2023 (137 comments)
- markessien 4y agoYes, related.
- i_see_things 4y agooff-topic: I used to love HN. Now HN is dead to me.
- dang 4y agoI'm sorry to hear that. What went wrong?
- seunosewa 4y agoWe know that the intention of the people who drafted the law was not to treat the Federal Capital Territory as a special state whose votes count more. There are cases in the past where judges determined that the FCT is to be treated as a 37th state. The Obidient camp may have the better candidate, but this part of their case is just grasping at straws. The only thing that should matter in the end is the determination of whether enough rigging occured to change the outcome of the election.
- c4obi 4y agoWhich cases are you referring to (provide links) and are they related to the presidential election?