In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
snip
>
> Most of us feel that we know what "margin of error" means but to make
> sure we're all on the same page, let's review.
Never assume a politician, or judge, or lawyer, or layman, or anyone
other than a statistician will properly use, or properly apply, a
technical terms such as "margin of error".
The "margin of error" as rigorously defined by statisticians is used to
bound the error of how well a sample reflects the numbers of the larger
whole. This definition is not the one used by most of the pundits
commenting on the election. They may say "margin of error", but that's
not what they mean. They really mean something along the lines of "the
vote errors exceed the margin of victory".
Said another way, the "margin" between fouled votes (i.e. vote errors)
and the vote differential (margin of victory) is a postive number.
That is, the vote errors exceed the margin of victory. The press and
politicians will take that phrase and turn it into the "margin of
error". Statisticians may cringe, but that's the nature of how
technical things get portrayed to a non technical crowd. You know it's
not right. I know it's not right. But that's life.
In the end, you are correct. The "margin of error", as defined by
statisticians does not apply here. However, the politicians have
trumped your definition with their own. If you want to chastize the
politicians and press about how they've bastardized the proper
definition, your post makes the point clear. However, you cannot use
your definition to measure the validity of their claim, even though your
definition is correct. You must use their definition to measure the
validity of what they say.
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