The Mystery of 18,181

[Stop_the_War]

What makes this such an interesting number? have a look:

From Demopedia:

The number 18181 has significance as the number of votes "won by an uncanny coincidence" by five Republican candidates in the 2002 mid-term US elections:

* Danny Scheel - County Judge, Comal County, Texas
* Carter Casteel - State Representative, District 73, Comal County, Texas
* Jeff Wentworth - State Senator, District 25, Comal County, Texas
* Candice Miller - US Congress, District 10, Lapeer County, Michigan
* Michael Smigiel - State Delegate, District 36, Queen Anne's County, Maryland

Using a simple alpha/numeric substitution, where a=1, b=2, ...h=8, reveals the message: "ahaha", suggesting the possibility that a programmer somewhere thought this was a pretty funny election hack. This message may simply be a coincidence; the more significant fact may be that 18181 is a prime number, and a palindromic prime at that.

It is important to note that, in each of the five cases, they won with exactly 18,181 votes (either overall, or in a county sub-total), not by a margin of 18181 votes. There were 24,362 ballots cast in Comal County in the 2002 elections, out of 60,309 registered voters in the county.

It is interesting that the 2002 Comal County election results page (http://www.co.comal.tx.us/election_results2002.htm) was changed sometime since February 24, 2004, the last archive of this site (http://web.archive.org/web/20040224093706/www.co.comal.tx.us/election_results2002.htm) on the "Wayback Machine"; the number of votes for all three above Comal County candidates was inexplicably changed from 18,181 to 18,183!

Despite this odd alteration of election results two years later, the significance of these five candidates' votes (or vote sub-totals) all equalling 18,181 diminishes when one considers the thousands of county & precinct election results on a nationwide election day.

[ArcRabbit]

1. Silly Idea, Great Signature Picture

nt

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[nashville_brook]

2. you just blew my mind :)

i've seen this before. my husband is a software developer. this is a calling card. it's plain as day in computer language.

[RockStar]

4. Its called an easter egg in the programming field

[glitch]

5. red herring

"Despite this odd alteration of election results two years later, the significance of these five candidates' votes (or vote sub-totals) all equalling 18,181 diminishes when one considers the thousands of county & precinct election results on a nationwide election day."

It diminishes to nothing when compared with every election ever run since the dawn of elections, another meaningless comparison.

This anomaly clustered in Texas in one year. That is what needs to be evaluated.

Easter egg and calling card are quite correct.

[oldtime dfl_er]

6. When you say the significance diminishes...

..does that comment take into account the fact that all were Republicans, and three were in Texas?


www.cafepress.com/showtheworld

[gordianot]

7. Yes and whose machines did they use?

[theresistance]

8. What gets me is how such definite

numbers can be declared in the first place when the elections were a farce anyway (people who didn't get to vote, uncounted ballots and so on...)