I thought I had put this baby to bed, but Stefan has updated his intentionally muddled rebuttal on Sound Politics, and, well… I wasn’t raised in a family that easily tolerates letting somebody else get in the last word.
Amongst other things, Stefan writes:
Statistics is the science of drawing inferences from the kind of messy data about real-world phenomena that David can only call “garbage”. Let’s have a real discussion of the statistical issues here.
The problem is, you can “statistically” prove anything you damn well please if you make the appropriate assumptions, and Stefan’s analysis is based on a faulty one:
If we make the reasonable approximating assumption that the percentage of votes given to Rossi in a count is a normal random variable, we can use statistics to calculate the odds that Rossi truly won more than 50%.
But the CalTech/MIT studies clearly state that variation in results from one count to then next is not simply random: recounts are more accurate.
Tabulations may change from the initial count to the recount for a variety of reasons: ballots may be mishandled; machines may have difficulty reading markings; people and machines may make tabulation errors. Because recounts are used to certify the vote, greater effort is taken to arrive at the most accurate accounting of the ballots cast. The initial count of ballots, then is treated as a preliminary count, and the recount as the official.
I am loathe to continue disputing Stefan’s “statistics” because that is exactly what he wants — it is nothing more than a well-worn rhetorical device intended to distract readers from our only substantive point of disagreement: are recounts legitimate? CalTech/MIT clearly says “yes,” but the reason Stefan won’t concede on this issue is that if Gregoire ultimately wins — in a very legal, if statistically insignificant way — Stefan and his sour band of neocons will continue to argue that her governorship is illegitimate.
His Tourettes-like spouting of Excel functions aside (not to mention his cowardly, dismissive, dishonest, and OCD-like focus on the definition of “statistical tie”), I think it is fair to say that Stefan and I agree that we will not come out of this election with confidence that we have accurately measured the will of the people. (And let’s not start a bullshit debate over “accuracy” versus “precision.”)
His notion that Rossi will be the statistical winner, whatever the outcome of the hand recount, is based on rhetorical convenience, not statistics.
If you really want a “reductio ad absurdum” response to the SoundPolitics statistical nonsense, try this one:
He initially predicted that his Excel-based statistical analysis of the vote-counting, after election night, would give Rossi a margin of 3,400 votes. After the second recount, Rossi’s lead is 42 votes. That obviously makes his Excel program wrong by a margin of 98.2%.
Taking that “statistical analysis” (his own) to a “logical” conclusion would therefore indicate that Rossi’s existing margin is off by a negative 49.1X while Gregoire’s is understated by 49.1X.
Therefore, using HIS statistics, we should see a reduction of 2,062 votes from Rossi’s total (42X49.1)and an increase of 2,020 votes (42X49.1-42). Therefore, his own statistical analysis should realize a conclusion that Gregoire actually received 4,482 more votes than Rossi!
That has to be right; after all it’s the progressive and accurate statistical analysis on how the vote-counting has progressed since election night, isn’t it? LOL
Oops. A little arithmetic error. The total should be 4,082, not 4,482. We wouldn’t want to cheat Rossi out of some votes, would we?
Slam dunk, Goldy. Right on the money. Give it right back to Stefan – he just doesn’t get it.
Jenny, more disappointing is that I believe Stefan does get it.
Update – Court case- Reed quoted in Times AP story … on line, “court to take up Democrats lawsuit on Thursday”
Comment by Bob from Boeing— 12/6/04 @ 12:24 pm
Folks, this is ABSURD. Absolutely absurd. I just called the SecState’s office and this lawsuit is nothing more or less than placing into the count previously rejected ballots. Gee, what’s the case for this?
Maybe we should have a runoff… or maybe in this runoff have the parties put forth new candidates like Tim Eyman as the Republic-in-the-can candidate versus David Goldstein for the Democrappers! YEE-HAW!
Then we can finally sit back and enjoy ourselves…
In the meantime, in case any of you need to be reminded: It’s Governor-ELECT Dino Rossi!
Josef – I know you are a dinocrat, but vis a vis the Supreme Court…..well…
With the curent justices, it is the SUFFRAGETTE Court…. Women who have achieved real power is this USA and especially those who have prevailed in very maled dominated professions, like law, have a real link back to women finally gaining the vote in this century. Many heard stories from their own families. Their personal heros are women like Susan B Anthony. Mine too.
Be prepared for the court asserting real jusristiction and fashioning pro voter remedies. Something tht sounds like– count every vote and every vote counts. All said in the rarifed language of courts.
This is the prefect court for the just filed Democratic lawsuit to clairify the election laws. Oh, and by the way, Christine Gregoire is attempting to be the first woman gov. in a very long time. I don’t think that will create bias, but certainy no hostility.
I can hear Dino people howling as I push send.
Comment by Bob from Boeing— 12/6/04 @ 1:46 pm
HOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWLLLL! Marummy Lane has your house’s GPS coordinates…. And you’ll be in the new Washington State Secretary of Defense’s next press conference! (Kidding)
Look, I think the US Supremes are going to pull the plug on all of this soon enough. The State Dems have gone rogue with this one.
I also hope everybody enjoyed my attempt to interject some humor into this…
Good comment Josef-you go my brother!
Does anybody know the difference between recounting ballots AND re-evaluating ballots???????????? My understanding is this is a RECOUNT! Doesn’t that mean recounting what was already counted???? I’ve been gone a couple days…but I observed the process gone thru for all rejected ballots. The decision was already made by local canvassing boards who have that power. I see no where that it allows anyone to go back through those lock-boxes of rejected ballots under the guise of a “recount”. I can’t blame the Dems for trying…it’s probably the only way they can win. That siad, other stuff could happen if County Auditors and Election Supervissors failed to do their jobs properly. But adding ballots to be re-re-re-evaluated now???? Come on?? I’m more concerned that illegitimate ballots have already been approved due to lack to proper internal controls….like those King County provisional ballots”. How are we going to weed those out??? They’ve already been included & counted. SO IF WE ARE GOING TO ADD BALLOTS BY RE-RE-EVALUATING, SHOULDN’T WE ALSO RE-RE-EVALUATE ALL THOSE BALLOTS PREVIOUSLY APPROVED AND PULL SOME OUT?????
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! THIS IS A COMPLETE DISASTER!!! I believe the 1st 2 machine counts ought to be it. The machines did not conspire with each other to screw Gregoire. Each County did it’s thing…they were added up…and she lost. A manual recount, with the human factor, is far, far from foolproof. I’m an observor and have been for many elections. This is sad..pathetic really.
Well, yes… we should. I just got a copy of the legal documents the Dems filed, and will post them later. I haven’t had a chance to read through them yet, but my understanding is that they are asking for a statewide standard by which the signatures on all provisional ballots should be reevaluated.
Goldy–
What about all absentee ballots previously approved?? Are we going to re-re-evaluate all those signatures too?? How about all the signatures at the polls? Are we going to re-re-evaluate those too? Where do you stop? They problem is that all ballots already counted cannot be identified by voter…they are in the big tub of goo….co-mingled. How are you going to identify previously counted ballots where, upon further review (like the NFL), it’s deemed that ballot shouldn’t have been counted?? Just asking some practical questions! So what if we can’t identify votes previously counted that were illegitimate? Aren’t the Dems really saying on one hand, let’s accept all the votes previously approved by election officials and canvassing boards……..and on the other hand saying let’s re-re-evaluate those the same election supervisors and canvassing boards rejected??? It’s not reasonable to say they were imperfect in rejecting ballots and that they were perfect in accrpting questionable ones, is it???? How do you ever reconcile this…really?
DOES ANYONE REALLY NO WHAT TIME IT IS? DOES ANYONE..REALLY CARE? AND SO I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY…………
Goldy–
I though you wanted a perfect election?? Or is it “only perfect enough”??
Cynicla-di-da… whatever you do, don’t destroy Chicago Transit Authority for me. (Great album.)
Like I said, I haven’t read through the legal documents yet, so I can’t comment on what exactly the Dems are asking for. The one question I can answer, is that signatures at the polling place are not compared. Of course, they can’t be can they, after the fact, as your ballot is secret.
Hmmm… which suggests it would be impossible to reevaluate those provisional ballots already counted, as we should have no way to associate them with their envelopes. But I don’t know, so don’t jump down my throat.
More when I’m better educated on the subject.
Comments by Mr. Cynical-dy
Please, chill. I feel your pain. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Marummy Lane (f.k.a. Mary Lane) (who I cannot believe is still not Goldy’s target of choice) is leading OPERATION WASHINGTON FREEDOM… :-)
We will win. With patience, the electoral thieves will be pursued; they will be isolated, surrounded until there’s no place to run, to hide or to rest.
Josef–Ahhh! Now I can sleep tonight! You make these “electoral thieves” sound like Osama B!!!
It is apparent to anyone with even a smattering of brain-matter that no matter what you do…you will never have a “perfect election”. And manual recount will only make a bad situation worse. I can feel the ugliness coming…especially if Lean Dum makes anymore “rulings”. I can only hope his next ruling isn’t accompanied with his schtick about how the courts shouldn’t have to be involved….and then he proceeds to overrule Dean Logan and King Co. elections.
Oh Josef–did you ever contact that woman you’ve been “sweet-talkin'”? Did it ever occur to you that the Seattle Weekly was just lookin’ for controversy? It’s easy to take things out of context….it’s called Hollywood!! If you saw how dard cute that Ms. Shannon is and met her…you’d have a tough time being too pissed for too long. Did she agree to date you yet???
Comment by Mr. Cynical-dy— 12/6/04 @ 9:48 pm
I was just having fun with you a bit and slightly modified a Rumsfeld quotation in tribute to Mary Lane, our fearless Secretary of Defense who makes ME look like a pansy!
Comment by Mr. Cynical-dy— 12/6/04 @ 9:52 pm
I’ll talk to her next week when I’m not so busy. Probably use the F-word a few times…
I’d be getting tired of history being made, if it were not for scotch. After surviving having been in the State Capitol when the earthquake hit (it’s an earthquake…it’s a BIG earthquake…cool, I get to watch this building crash down around me…Look at the crack in the Dome…Let’s go see which watering hole is still open…) I figure I can survive this election. Single malt cures much stress…
Amen Jim!!!
Josef–Ms. Shannon may have an F-word fetish…but I doubt it. Perhaps just a “slip of the tongue”….when she made her quote I mean!
Seriously, in my brief conversation, I was impressed by her and how hard she works for her members. Don’t penalize her too long for being the one to say what a lot of folks were thinking…besides Josef, some of the stuff that has come out of your keyboard is mighty foul. What if someone pulled something you said out of context and put it in the newspaper. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, right?????
Besides Josef, this is a great country because we are free to say what is on our mind…even with a little excess passion sometimes. Too much political correctness & civility bullshit these days. In some Country’s they duke it out over little things. This is nothing. I would think Josef you would really admire someone with the courage to speak out publicly…even if they don’t always agree with you.
PS I doubt Eyman will ever successfully get another tax initiative passed. But someone else might…especially if Gregoire ends up winning and the Dems do something stupid..as they are prone to do in this state!!!
Lastly Josef–you seem to be kind of tough on woman? Mary Lane, Condy Rice, Ms. Shannon, Ms. Gregoire????????? There are support groups in Washington for almost every affliction!
I’m just havin’ a few grins…at your expense. Really, I appreciate your passion for things you believe in…even if I don’t always agree.