Virgil wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Radford Neal) wrote:
>
> > >If approximately 2/3 of the tallied votes were for Gore, by what leap of
> > >logic do you conclude that 1/2 of the untallied votes would have been
> > >for Bush?
> >
> > I didn't. If you actually read the passage you quoted, you will see
> > that I concluded that one would expect the division to be *closer* to
> > 1/2 each than for the clearly marked ballots. If you mix a certain
> > number of valid ballots with 1/3 - 2/3 proportions with another group
> > of invalid ballots, in which votes have been assigned randomly, in
> > 1/2 - 1/2 proportions, the proportions for the whole group will not
> > be 1/3 - 2/3, but rather will have shifted toward 1/2 - 1/2.
>
> You make my point for me. You conclude that the "invalid" ballots will
> be split nearer half and half than the valid ballots. Why?
>
> The most reasonable assumption is that the same proprtion of the votes
> for each candidate would be declared invalid. In this case, if those
> invalid votes show any marks of intention at all, they should be split
> in the same proportions as the valid votes.
>
> The only case for a more nearly 50-50 split might be if totally
> indeterminant ballots had to be assigned to someone. Even then
> statistics indicates that they should be split in the same propotions as
> the valid ballots.
I admit to being confused by Radford's analysis. Radford, is your point that
if there are a large proportion of "empty/no vote" ballots then we would
expect them to be decided close to 50:50 and hence shift the balance from
30:70? I think this depends on the counting procedure. If I were in charge I'd
have a "no vote" category where all "I'm not sure" ballots would be placed. If
this happened, assuming no bias we'd expect the original 30:70 ratio or
thereabouts (as observed).
Thom
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