THE MUDDLETOWN ELECTION.
(
Money Puzzles)
At the last Parliamentary election at Muddletown 5,473 votes were
polled. The Liberal was elected by a majority of 18 over the
Conservative, by 146 over the Independent, and by 575 over the
Socialist. Can you give a simple rule for figuring out how many votes
were polled for each candidate?
Answer:
The numbers of votes polled respectively by the Liberal, the
Conservative, the Independent, and the Socialist were 1,553, 1,535,
1,407, and 978 All that was necessary was to add the sum of the three
majorities (739) to the total poll of 5,473 (making 6,212) and divide by
4, which gives us 1,553 as the poll of the Liberal. Then the polls of
the other three candidates can, of course, be found by deducting the
successive majorities from the last-mentioned number.
