I do wonder how many "no-no" votes wanted some other option: surface/transit, retrofit, bridge, Frank Chopp-thing, their own solution, do nothing, etc..

Me, I wanted to vote for: Yes Viaduct, Yes Massive Transit, and No Underwater Tunnel. Instead I chose Yes Viaduct and No Tunnel (Surface Lying Hybrid ...). Plus I wanted a revote on the Monorail while I was there, only this time I wanted it built using paving stones dug up from underneath Mayor Green's house.

The results produced by your completely arbitrary, magic "averaging" formula, on the other hand, are meaningless.

Too bad there weren't four options on the ballot...

Anyway, asssuming you're not going to take my word for it, you may want to consult with a statistician before you go shouting "No-no most popular choice!" from the rooftops. In this case, the average of the max and min are no better of an approximation than the min, the max, or any other point in between.

ECB: Read more sharp analysis more

Since you don't do the math how could you possibly know the analysis is sharp?

I agree with Fnarf and the the exit poll run by SurveyUsa that Josh scooped - interesting that so many tout the polling to separate Light Rail from RTID but refuse to look at the viaduct polling.

Agreed, that formula is arbitrary; a real statistician would wince if it were interpreted too strictly. And the rest of my post went on to point out that those figures can't possibly be exactly right.

Still, my guess (just a guess) is that it's not a terrible approximation. Then again, if as few as 9 percent voted yes-yes, then no-no falls to 33 percent and yes-elevated-no-tunnel rises to 34 percent -- and we have a new winner. So take those estimates with a grain of salt, as I do...

Another quirk of the math: yes-yes voters exactly complement no-no voters. If there were a lot of yes-yes voters -- e.g., a lot of common ground among pro-highway Seattlites -- there was also a lot of staunch opposition to both of the official options. But if there wasn't a lot of common ground, then the electorate really *was* divided -- tunnel supporters opposed the elevated, and vice versa. Which makes me think that "no-no" was as close to the "will of the people" as that flawed ballot could produce.

That said, I no longer think this is a useful way of looking at the issue. Sure, more than 60 percent voted for a new highway. But they disagreed (sometimes vehemently) about what kind of highway. And when it came time to vote on a specific plan, rather than some abstract idea, there was no consensus.

Sure, if there were some sort of magic pony highway that was cheap, safe, and didn't cut off downtown from the waterfront, I'm sure that 63 percent would have voted for it -- probably more. But given the actual highways on offer, no one option could earn a majority.

We can just as easily -- and almost as meaningfully -- say that 100% of the electorate supported the most sensible solution to the Viaduct mess. They just disagreed about a few specifics.