APRIL 1, 2002

A BEARTOWN MYSTERY

The Beartown Constable went to work at his office one evening when there was a power outage.  He got out two candles of identical length and lit them.  He knew one would burn for 4 hours and the other for 5 hours.
Upon finishing his work, he went to fill out his time card and realized he had forgotten to check his watch when he started work.  The candles had burned to a point where one was exactly four times longer than the other.  With this information he easily figured out how long he had worked.  CAN YOU???

Check the next issue of Beartown News for the answer.

FROM LAST MONTH

Last election four candidates ran for the 3 year selectman seat.  Farmer Brown - Republican, Bruin DeBear - Share-the-Wealth, Jane Dough - Down-with-Everything, John Dough - Democrat.  1,648 votes were cast by Beartown residents.  Farmer Brown received a plurality of 8 over Bruin DeBear, 76 over Jane Dough, and 184 over John Dough.  How many votes did each candidate get? (What is the difference between a plurality and a majority?)

The Beartown Constable, Chairman of the Board of Civil Authority, figured out the results immediately without the use of a pencil and paper. CAN YOU???

ANSWER

The definition question:  A plurality is the margin over the remainder of the total votes cast. If, say, there are 1,000 votes cast and A receives 600, B 300, and C 100, A is elected by a plurality of 300 over B and 500 over C; his majority is 200, the difference between his 600 and the 400 received by the other candidates.  In usual practice the plurality over C would not be mentioned, the plurality over the nearest rival being the only one stated.
How many votes did each candidate get? Add the sum of the pluralities (268) to the total of votes cast (1,648), giving 1,916, and then divide by 4, which gives 479, which is the number of votes received by Farmer Brown, the winner.  After that simple subtraction will give the votes received by the other three -- 471 by Bruin DeBear, 403 by Jane Dough, and 295 by John Dough.

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