Question

Suppose that in an election for governor of Oregon there are five candidates of whom two are women. A statistics student reasons as follows: the probability that a woman will win the election is equal to 2/5.  What is wrong with this reasoning?

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Answer 1

If in an Oregon state gubernatorial election, 2 of the 5 candidates are women, and a statistics student establishes that there is a 2/5 chance that the person elected for governor is a woman, this reasoning will be wrong.

This will be the case because not all candidates have the same amount of votes, that is, not all start with the same conditions: thus, there are more popular candidates than others, who will have greater probabilities of being elected as governors, regardless of their sexual identity.