The following might be interest for those following press coverage of the
possible role of statistics in this dispute. (The printed version in the
edition I receive contained additional comments by David Freedman, also
downplaying the potential of statistics in this highly charged situation.
I would not follow Persi very far on the analogy to census undercount
adjustment, since anything that would be done now on the elections would
be post hoc and supported by little research ... that's another argument!)
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IN RESEARCH, RECOUNTS ARE NORM
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/politics/10MATH.html
November 10, 2000
THE SCIENCE OF COUNTING
By GINA KOLATA
First George W. Bush led Al Gore by 1,784 votes in Florida. Then, an
unofficial count by The Associated Press suggested his lead was slashed
to less than half that. So, which number is right mathematically?
Statisticians chuckled at the idea.
"There's always going to be an error," said Howard Wainer, a statistician
at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J. "Every time you
count them, you're going to get a different answer."
In research, said Diana C. Mutz, a professor of political science at Ohio
State University, scientists will repeat a process multiple times and
choose a number somewhere in the middle of their data as most likely to
reflect the truth. But, she and others said, multiple recounts are
probably not desirable in the presidential election because they would
add to the delay and uncertainty, not to say the bickering. Whoever was
losing could argue for one more recount.
Even if it were just a research question, Professor Mutz was not sure how
many counts would be needed to make her confident the Florida vote was as
accurate as it could be. How many times she would count it "depends on
how many graduate students I have," she joked.
Then there is the problem of Palm Beach County, Fla., where residents
said confusion over the ballot led more than 19,000 voters in a heavily
Democratic area to mark two candidates instead of one for president.
Their ballots were discarded as invalid. And, adding to the confusion,
Patrick J. Buchanan won more than 3,000 votes in Palm Beach. Some
Democrats said many people accidentally voted for Mr. Buchanan when they
meant to vote for Mr. Gore. Isn't there a way to fix that? A statistical
adjustment, perhaps?
Sorry, say the statisticians. Any adjustment would only make matters
worse. Persi Diaconis, a statistician at Stanford University, said the
situation reminded him of attempts to adjust the census to correct for
the undercount, the people who were missed. The census recount turned out
to be a nightmare, he said, with new errors introduced and even more
squabbling.
"The process really degenerates," Professor Diaconis said. "It's not at
all simple."
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
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