Archives for August 2009

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(There are some eighty other clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

He that soweth iniquity shall reap evils, and with the rod of his anger he shall be consumed.

I’m shocked but not surprised. From The Hill:

The Secret Service may investigate a fax sent to a Democratic lawmaker that depicts President Barack Obama as the Joker and warns of “death to all Marxists.”

The black-and-white fax portrays Obama in makeup similar to that worn by actor Heath Ledger in his portrayal of the Joker in last summer’s “The Dark Knight.”

On Obama’s forehead is a communist hammer-and-sickle insignia, and beneath the image is the text: “Death to All Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!”

Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) received the fax and passed it along to U.S. Capitol Police.

I’m sure the state’s editorial boards will renew their calls for civility on the left.

One little fact that is consistently being overlooked, even by some traditional media reporters, is that Baird had never scheduled any in-person town halls in August to begin with. A right-wing Portland radio host and a Republican blogger from Clark County started demanding that he do so, for obvious partisan effect. And if there’s one thing we know about Baird, it’s that you don’t get anywhere by pushing him.

I listened to his telephone town hall, and he took calls from quite a few Republicans, including some party chairs and the very same right-wing blogger who has teamed up with the Portland radio host. Much to my surprise, the format actually seemed to work pretty well.

Today’s batch of R-71 data has been released. The total signatures examined is now 35,262 (about 25.6% of the total).

Today, there were 4,721 invalid signatures found that were rejected on the first pass. Some of these decisions may be reversed by the “Master Checker.” The preliminary invalid signatures include 4,110 that are not found in the voting rolls, 146 duplicates, and 465 that did not match the signature on file. There are also 101 signatures at various states of processing for a missing signature card.

If all 146 duplicates hold, there is a duplicate rate of about 1.56% for the petition. But some of the duplicates may be deemed valid signatures. What we know now is that 31,199 signatures have been accepted and 4063 rejected. We don’t know exactly what category each rejected signature is classified under, but the daily totals give us some idea. (See Dave Ammons post and the comment thread for more details about today’s surprising revelations from the SoS office.)

Using the best numbers available, I’ve run three different scenarios, making different assumptions about invalid and duplicated signatures. The raw numbers suggest 658 previously rejected signatures have been “saved” by the “Master Checker”. In all three scenarios, I first deduct the 465 from the total number of mismatched signatures (Ammons points out this is the most likely way a rejected signature is “saved”). The remaining 193 are deducted from duplicates and signers not found on the voter rolls (“not founds”) as follows:

1. All 146 duplicates are assumed valid (yeah…this is pretty unrealistic), and deduct the remaining 47 from the “not founds”.
2. All 193 come from the “not founds”.
3. I split them, removing 97 from the “not founds” and 96 from the duplicates.

I use the V₂* estimator to find the expected number of valid signatures. Here are the results:

1. There are 121,824 valid signatures giving an excess of 1,247 signatures over the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. The overall rejection rate is about 11.52%. This is a 0% duplicate rate.
2. Now we expected 119,598 valid signatures, leaving a shortfall of 979 signatures to qualify. The overall rejection rate is about 13.14%. The duplicate rate for the petition of 1.62%.
3. We expect 121,062 valid signatures, giving an excess of 485 signatures. The overall rejection rate is about 12.08%, and the duplicate rate for the petition is 0.55%.

The truth lies somewhere between scenario 2 and 3. As I found earlier today, the fate of R-71 depends almost entirely on the actual number of duplicates found. Until we get the real numbers, both proponents and opponents will be on pins and needles.

Updated twice

The 6th batch of R-71 data was delivered this morning. The SoS office is pooling numbers from the morning and evening counts, but I’ll treat them separately just so that we can look for big swings in the “semi-batches”. Also, the SoS totals don’t seem to match the daily totals today, but what’s a signature-validation watcher to do? I’ll use the daily counts.

The total signatures examined is now 29,937 (about 21.7% of the total). There have been 3,968 invalid signatures found, for an cumulative rejection rate of 13.25%. The invalid signatures include 3,506 that are not found in the voting rolls, 113 duplicates, and 349 that did not match the signature on file. There are also 89 signatures at various states of processing for a missing signature card (by now, some may be good and some rejected–I’ll treat them all as good until I learn otherwise).

The 113 duplicates suggest a duplication rate of about 1.74% in the total petition. Using the V₂* estimator, the number of valid signatures is expected to be 117,049 leaving a shortfall of 3,528 signatures from the 120,577 needed to qualify for the ballot. The overall rejection rate should be about 14.99%.

Here is a snapshot of the trends:

Still no unexpected deviations as the counting continues. R-71 continues on track for failure.

Updated

Dave Ammons has posted some new information about the signature validation process and the numbers that have been posted by the SoS.

Elections Division has decided that a more accurate cumulative error or rejection rate (currently 11.63 percent) should reflect the sizable number of signatures that have been going from the rejected pile to the accepted stack after a master checker reviews the checker’s decision to reject. That is 409 so far. As previously discussed, also nearly 100 signatures that have been set aside because there was no voter signature on file will be shifted over to the “accepted” stack once the counties send the person’s electronic signature.

In other words, the SoS office wasn’t giving us the number of invalid signatures. What they were giving as “invalid signatures”, were only invalid in a first-stage of checking. A second-stage check has resulted in some signatures being considered valid again. All I can say is unbefuckinglievable!

I’ve already been treating the “missing signature” counts as valid signatures. But without knowing the ACTUAL number of invalid signatures by category, it is difficult to project whether I-71 will make the ballot.

Update 2:

I’ve run three scenarios based on incomplete numbers posted at the SoS site.

We know there were 409 signatures that failed at the first checking phase that were subsequently accepted in phase 2. We don’t know which of the bad batches they came from (signatures not found on voter rolls, duplicate signatures, or signature mismatches) .

If I had to guess, I think the majority came from the signature mismatch pile. But there were only 349 signature mismatches, so we have 60 that were either considered duplicates or not found on the voter rolls. Subsequently, they were considered not duplicates or found on the voter rolls. Both seem equally likely (or unlikely) to me, but I don’t really know what the “Master Checker” does.

So here is what I did. First, I assumed 349 of the 409 came from the signature mismatches. The remaining 60 I dealt with in three ways:

1. Assume there are 60 fewer duplicates.
2. Assume 60 signatures were subsequently found in the voter rolls
3. Assume a 30/30 split between duplicates and “found”

Remember, 120,577 signatures are needed to qualify. Here is what happens using the V₂* estimator:

1. The measure makes the ballot with 120,519 120,591 signatures. The estimated duplicate rate for the entire petition is 0.78%, and the overall rejection rate is 12.42%.
2. The measure fails to make the ballot with 119,375 signatures. The estimated total duplicate rate is 1.66% and the total rejection rate is 13.30%.
3. The measure fails to make the ballot with 119,983 signatures. The estimated total duplicate rate is 1.22% and the total rejection rate is 12.86%.

Obviously, the biggest determinant of R-71’s fate is the number of duplicate signatures in the phase one check that are subsequently accepted in phase two. With any luck the actual number of signatures rejected in each category will be released.

So, predictably, conservatives are attacking Democrat Brian Baird, WA-03, for refusing to play their stupid “mob rule” game and will have telephone town halls instead of the rugby scrums desired by the tea birthers.

Which got me to wondering who else has used telephone town halls.

From a 2007 post by former Seattle Times reporter David Postman.

About 400 people pressed “1” and joined Reichert for his first district-wide “tele-town hall.” It was about an hour-long conference call that for Reichert has replaced the old-fashioned, in-person, town hall meeting.

Actually, Reichert, a two-term Republican, has never held a traditional town hall meeting. Early in his first term he convened a panel discussion to talk about Social Security. But that didn’t go well.

“People started chanting and yelling,” Reichert’s chief of staff, Mike Shields, said this week. The forum was moderated by Times editorial page editor Jim Vesely. He wrote afterward that the event turned into a “hockey game.” That was the end of any plans for open-door town halls for Reichert.

Go figure. It’s okay for Republicans, as always.

The Columbian reports on the findings of an audit concerning the failure of Bank of Clark County. The whole article is worth a quick read if you follow the financial meltdown, because the FDIC during the Bush administration appears to deserve some of the blame. But so do the “best and the brightest” of Clark County’s bidness guys ‘n gals, as they got caught in a death spiral of declining property values.

The report lays the bulk of the blame on bank management, which in several instances ignored the FDIC’s warnings. In its 2008 examination, FDIC examiners discovered the bank had failed to provide current appraised values on at least 11 of its loans, causing regulators to underestimate the bank’s need for backup funds.

“They were hiding appraisals — that’s pretty damning stuff,” said Scott Jarvis, director of the Washington Department of Financial Institutions, on Thursday.

One thing that still gripes me about this case is how certain bank customers were tipped off about troubles at the bank, and others were not. What’s troubling is that it appears, from best I can tell, no laws were broken.

It may be legal, but that doesn’t make it right. The local bidness guys ‘n gals ran this bank into the ground in their effort to secure huge profits from excessive development that was not justified by population growth nor demand. When the bubble burst they were screwed, as were customers who didn’t get the word to bail.

You’d think someone would do something, in addition to an audit. At the very least releasing insider information to some customers and not others should be illegal.

I started blogging in May of 2004, and within my first two weeks I had already been driven near the point of aneurism by our local media’s refusal to do simple math. Far from a recent obsession, my focus on numbers and the failure of the press to consistently present them accurately and in proper context, has actually been a recurring theme here on HA since the early days of the blog.

Yes, it’s true that even accurate numbers can mislead (“lies, damn lies and statistics” and all that), and so it’s not always easy to separate the truth from the facts. But what frustrates me most is when journalists simply regurgitate the numbers fed them, without ever bothering to run the equations for themselves.

That’s what happened with the early reports on R-71 signature verification, creating a false impression that the invalidation rate started off low—well below the maximum error threshold—only to rise steadily as the count continued. As a result there are some R-71 backers who now suspect foul play on the part of the Secretary of State’s office, accusing them of toughening up the standards in an effort to keep the measure off the ballot, when in fact the projected invalidation rate, from the very first batch, has consistently remained in the 14.5 to 15 percent range, well above (statistically speaking) the 12.43 percent maximum.

Yes, I know, it was the SOS who initially reported a “clean” count, and who misleadingly juxtaposed the early raw rate against a supposedly 14 percent cushion. But those numbers simply didn’t add up if you took the time to add, subtract, multiply and divide them, and even when I did the math for them, and showed my work, I was mostly ignored by reporters who obviously assumed the SOS had more credibility on these matters than some partisan blogger.

No, I’m not a statistician, and my formal math education never extended much beyond Algebra II & Trigonometry, but I know how to use a calculator and I have some experience with the process stemming from the drama over Tim Eyman’s I-917, and I knew that duplicate signatures always comprise a significant portion of the total errors, and that the number of duplicates always increase at a predictable rate as the sample size is expanded. I also knew that total invalidation rates never fall outside a certain historical range, and that there was absolutely no reason to expect R-71 to do so. These facts were indisputable.

Darryl could run simulations showing a 92 percent chance of R-71 failing to qualify after the first batch, and a near 100 percent chance of failing thereafter, but I didn’t need a PhD in statistics to know what I knew. R-71’s failure was apparent from the very first batch, even if HA was the only site to report it. Okay, maybe my intuition, my expertise and my math wasn’t enough to convince newspapers to write headlines declaring R-71’s failure, but it should have been enough discourage writing headlines and ledes implying the opposite.

While my complaints may come off as petty bitching at least, or gloating at worst, as I’ve written before, numbers do matter, and especially when it comes to elections. Since the excruciatingly close gubernatorial election of 2004, and the highly contentious dispute that followed, public faith in the integrity of our electoral process has been undermined by hyperbolic, selective and downright erroneous reporting. And unfortunately, misleading reports like those we’ve seen regarding R-71, do absolutely nothing to restore public confidence.

It is ironic that a press corps that is often so cynical of government and the words and actions of government officials, can at the same time be so credulous when it comes to the numbers these government officials feed them. And it is an unfortunate disservice to the public as well.

The goddamn, knee-jerk liberals on the Seattle Times editorial board endorsed “Yes” on the bag fee yesterday, constituting in my mind, my only 100% unqualified, no caveat miss in predicting their editorial endorsements this primary season:

We do not reach this conclusion lightly. This editorial page is uncomfortable with a City Council always seeking to raise the property tax for pet projects, and always — name the reason — imposing higher rates for just about everything.

But the mayor got the idea from faraway Ireland, which has had a very good experience with its “plastax.” Ireland was able to reduce litter significantly and cut plastic bag use by about 90 percent.

Of course, how could they take the bag fee lightly, when somehow inexplicably conflating it with property taxes and Ireland?

Will says that I was an idiot for predicting a “No” endorsement, that if I had read their editorials on the subject closely (and I admit, I hadn’t) they had clearly telegraphed their position.

But here’s what I think really happened.  They were all set to endorse “No”, but they switched to “Yes” just to fuck with me. I do take this conclusion likely, and I have absolutely no evidence to support it, but it makes me feel better, so I’m sticking with it nonetheless.

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to get rid of the infamous crack-cocaine sentencing disparity.

Oregon becomes the latest state to allow hemp farming.

Russ Belville writes about the hypocrisy of television networks who happily air shows about marijuana that are entertaining, but censor content about marijuana when it’s about legalization.

Media Matters breaks down the recent lame attempt by the health care industry to scare old people away from reform. More here.

Bill O’Reilly is still terrible at math.

Publius at Obsidian Wings looks at the new Net Nuetrality bill.

Violence erupted at health care forums in Tampa Bay and St. Louis today, as angry mobs of teabaggers successfully shut down the proceedings, and there’s every reason to expect the violence to escalate. Somebody will get hurt. Somebody may get killed.

But I wonder… would these extremists be so eager to resort to violence and intimidation if they believed that their enemies might respond in kind? Or do they really want the civil war for which they seem to be advocating?

UPDATE:
From a personal account of a confrontation with teabaggers from the town hall meeting in St. Louis:

I am 6’4″ and 250 pounds, and not one to back down from ANYONE. I told the whiner to shut up, he didn’t run this meeting and he should wait for the Q&A session like an adult. I was then told by three male “teabaggers” sitting behind me to shut up or they would shut me up. My adrenal gland opened up. I emptied my pockets and was fully prepared to duke it out. After eight long and deadly years of the Right running this country into the ground I was not about to let those douchebags muscle me. And for them to try and hijack this meeting was making me go nuts. But reason prevailed and I got up and walked out. I had at least ten people slap my back and high five me on the way to the door.

This is the fight the right is itching for, planning for and intentionally provoking, and we can’t always count on reason to prevail. If this keeps up there will be violence.

Today was not a good day for R-71 supporters. With the 5th batch of data, the total of signatures examined is now 27,288 (almost 20% complete), with 3,695 invalid signatures found.

The number of duplicates has risen to 90. (Consider that there were only 7 found by the end of the first day, and you can see how the duplicate count snowballs as the sample grows.) Ninety duplicates in a sample of 27,288 reflects a duplicate rate of 1.67% in the total sample.

Using the methods described here, a good estimate of the number of valid signatures is 118,184, a shortfall of 2,393 signatures of the 120,577 needed to qualify the referendum for the ballot. The total rejection rate should be about 14.2%.

Here is the trend since the start of signature verification:

This graph shows the daily estimates of valid signatures (red) and the number needed to qualify (blue). What is most salient here is that the estimate of valid signatures is extremely stable from day-to-day. If the trend continues, R-71 fails.

Starting today, signatures will be checked in two shifts, with an update in the morning and the afternoon.

CREDO Mobile is sponsoring a handful of blogger awards at next week’s Netroots Nation, and you get to vote… for me for best state blogger. Just text “State Goldy” to short code 27336 between now and 10AM August 15th.

The winner receives a BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 and one year’s service, which I suppose I don’t really need, but I’d apparently have the option of choosing a $1,000 donation to a charity of my choice. So if you help me win this award, I’ll also ask you to help me choose the charity. More details on the contest here.

The full numbers from Wednesday’s counts were released this morning by the Secretary of State’s (SoS) office. They’ve driven another nail in the coffin of R-71.

A total of 23,457 signatures have been checks, which is 17% of the total. Overall 3,054 invalid signatures have been found and eliminated, including 68 duplicates, 2,764 individuals not on the voting rolls, 221 signature mismatches, and 69 signatures for which the corresponding signature is missing.

The cumulative error rate is 13.3%, if the signatures with missing signature cards (hereafter “missing”) are thrown out, or 13.0% if the missing signatures are fully counted. As Goldy has explained, the cumulative error rate for the sample is misleadingly low. This is because duplicates are exponentially underrepresented as the sample size goes down.

Given the number of duplicates found in this sample, the best estimate is that is about 1.7% of signatures are duplicates on the petition. That gives an estimated total rejection rate of 14.7% (treating all “missing” signatures as valid). A rejection rate over 12.4% keeps R-71 off the ballot.

Rather than focus on percentages, we can use the number of good and bad signatures to estimate the expected number of valid signatures. This figure shows the daily estimated number of valid signatures on the petition (red line) and the number of signatures required (blue line) for the measure to make the ballot:

These estimates are conservative because I am assuming all “missing” signatures will be treated as valid. (I’ve changed my methods a bit since yesterday—a journey through the methodological details begins below the fold).

The important things to notice here are:

• The estimates are stable rather than bouncing around from day to day. This means that there is little evidence for non-sampling error. Such errors can arise if batches of petitions showed widely different error rates (more generally, from non-independence among signatures on petitions and in batches of petitions).
• The 95% confidence intervals are now so small that sampling error is no longer relevant. If God plays dice, she clearly doesn’t want R-71 on the ballot.

The trends, so far, indicate that, short of a miracle, this measure will not qualify for the ballot.

At this point, I am going to totally geek-out and discuss methodological stuff. If you’re interested, venture below the fold.

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Apparently, most Republicans believe there is no fundamental right to health care, but there is a fundamental right to profit extravagantly off selling private health insurance. And that is their main opposition to a public option… that it threatens the profitability of private insurers.