CDR: Re: Close Elections and Causality

Ken Brown k.brown at ccs.bbk.ac.uk
Mon Nov 13 08:58:07 PST 2000


Kevin Elliott wrote:
> 
> At 12:38 +0000 11/10/00, Ken Brown wrote:
> >But are there no rules in Florida allowing for a re-vote? If there
> >really are 19,000 spoiled papers from once county, that sounds "massive"
> >to me. It may not be fraud - the fools who designed the papers probably
> >thought they were doing right - but it has the same effect.

> This is why people who don't know statistics should not be allowed to
> think... By no means is that number, by itself, of any significance
> whatsoever. 

It is if I have a vague idea how big a county is. If a state the size of
Florida has 60-ish counties I would be surprised if many of them had
populations much over about million or less than 100,000 if the counties
were reasonably randomly populated (if there has been an attempt to
equalise the populations then even more so)

Also, from years of political hackery & hanging around in elections, I
know that over here spoiled votes are rarely as much as 1% of the total.
So we have 3 possibilities - Palm Beach County is unusually large,
Floridan voters are stupider than voters in London, or something went
unusually wrong in that county. 

Assuming the county is the one described at
http://www.co.palm-beach.fl.us then it is quite large. You'd have to
compare it to other counties to see if it was worse.  

> How many got canceled last election- one number I heard
> said 14,000.  If so then 19,000 is about what one would expect
> considering increased voter turnout and normal statistical
> fluctuations.  

Still could be a sign that something is badly wrong. Just because the
last election was a shambles there as well doesn't meant that this one
should have been. If there is a problem it ought to be fixed.

> More importantly, the ballot was approved by both
> parties before the election took place.  If they didn't bitch then
> they don't have the right to bitch now.

Just goes to show that officials of more than one political party can be
stupid (does that surprise you?)  The citizens of Palm Beach (or
wherever) have, under you constitution & the laws of Florida a right to
vote in fair elections.  (Over here in Britain we always sort of assume
that US elections are corrupt anyway, especially in the South :-) 

Obviously,  the only reason this is being talked about at all by anyone
more than thirty miles from Lake Okechobee is because of the close-run
Presidential election. That is what brought the (possibly) messy state
of the election in Florida to light. Some Floridans wanted recounts, or
possibly even recounts. The chances are they wouldn't have bothered if
it hadn't been for the presidential problem. Are you saying that they
mustn't use their rights under local, Floridan, law because it delays
the appointment of the electoral college and further confuses the
presidential race? That local law and due process be suspended for the
convenience of the Federal system?


Ken





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