Calculating Likelihood of Proposal Passage in Council Vote of 9 Members

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SUMMARY

The likelihood of a proposal passing in a council vote of nine members, where each member has a 60% probability of voting in favor, requires calculating the probabilities for 5 to 9 favorable votes. The correct formula to use is the binomial probability formula: ${9 \choose k}(0.6)^k(0.4)^{9-k}$, where \( k \) represents the number of favorable votes. Summing these probabilities from \( k=5 \) to \( k=9 \) yields the total probability of passage, which is approximately 0.177.

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In a council vote for a proposal, there a nine council members. There is a 60% chance that each council person will vote in favour of the proposal. What is then likelihood that the proposal will pass?

So, this means that 5 or greater members must vote in favour.

These are independent events, so the odds that 5 vote in favour is $0.6 * 0.6 * 0.6 * 0.6 * 0.6 = 0.07776$,
that 6 vote in favour is $0.6 * 6 = 0.046$, that 7 vote in favour is $0.6 ^ 7 = 0.0279 $, that 8 vote in favour is $0.6 ^ 8 = 0.0167$ and that 9 vote in favour is $0.01$. Add all these up and I get 0.177 percent.

So this is incorrect, how do I fix my calculation to make it correct?
 
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For each particular number of yes votes, let's say there are $k$ yes votes, and so $9-k$ no votes, we have to compute how many ways there are to choose $k$ from $9$ and then multiply that by the probability for one particular way to make that choice:

$${9 \choose k}(0.6)^k(0.4)^{9-k}$$

And then, calling the event that it passes $X$, to find the probability of $X$ happening, we need to sum these up for $k=5$ to $k=9$:

$$P(X)=\sum_{k=5}^{9}\left({9 \choose k}(0.6)^k(0.4)^{9-k}\right)$$
 

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