Goldy

Friday morning I wrote about why numbers matter, castigating my friends in the legacy media for failing to do their math. It was perhaps a nitpicky complaint in focusing on the R-71 signature count, but it was part of a larger pattern of failing to accurately and truthfully represent numbers in the press.

Early news reports claimed that R-71 would likely qualify for the ballot, despite the fact that the numbers, if you bothered to add, subtract, multiply and divide them, clearly said otherwise. As the sample expanded and the full effect of the duplication rate started to be reflected in the daily totals, comment threads started to fill with conspiracy theories about how the Secretary of State’s Office was jiggering the numbers to keep R-71 off the ballot. In my mind, shallow reporting led to misguided expectations that would ultimately further undermine public faith in the integrity of our electoral process.

But of course, all that was written before I learned that the numbers we were getting from the Secretary of State’s Office were total bullshit… a preliminary, half-cocked accounting that didn’t reflect that actual invalidation rate at all. On Friday afternoon I received a call from Darryl telling me that all the numbers had changed and all of our well reasoned conclusions could be tossed out the window. Oh, our equations were still valid, but with the SOS moving over 400 signatures from the bad to the good pile, they now produced dramatically different results.

And to complicate matters, after suddenly adjusting the totals a week into the validation process, the SOS failed to provide the all important breakout of duplicate signatures in the final result, leaving us unable to rerun our equations with the supposedly more accurate data.  I mean… WTF?

From what I know (and at this point, I obviously don’t know much for certain), it still looks like R-71 will likely fail to qualify for the ballot, but that’s actually beside the point. We had just spent a week congratulating the SOS for their timely and helpful daily updates, and the speed at which they responded to public and media inquiries.  And now we learn that the data they fed us was crap, which I guess would’ve been okay, if they had only warned us. So much for defending the integrity of the office.

Bullshit in, bullshit out, and all that.

I just thought the public deserved (and was getting) a little better.

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.

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.

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.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKI9be55N00&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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.

Another half a notch in my belt today as the Seattle Times endorsed Jordan Royer and Robert Rosencrantz for Seattle City Council Position 8. I had predicted Royer, and if they went for a dual endorsement “here’s the reach… Forch.”

So far I’ve been dead on for all my flat out predictions, but missed the mark on the two on which I issued caveats, the admitted reach on Forch, and an ill-advised second-guessing in the City Attorney race. They always like to throw in one predictable surprise, and these two races seemed like the most likely suspects, but alas, I picked the wrong one.

Coming up soon, my last remaining prediction, the Times’ presumed “No” endorsement on the Bag Fee measure.

The SOS counted an additional 6,140 R-71 signatures yesterday, accepting 5,268, for a raw invalidation rate of about 14.2 percent for this batch, and 13.31 percent over the 23,457 total signatures processed thus far. They haven’t provided a breakout of the number of duplicates in this fourth batch yet, but if previous trends hold up it should be about 31, and the total, duplicate-adjusted invalidation rate should now be running about 14.9 percent.

Once he gets his hands on the break out numbers Darryl will pound the final statistical nail in R-71’s coffin, while regaling you with more than you ever wanted to know about the methodology thereof. And sometime thereafter, I’ll attempt to explain why this kind of obsessive coverage matters.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtTBkxvBq88&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Good staff don’t let candidates look this stupid:

There may be a reason why Seattle mayoral candidate James Donaldson, is one of the seven dwarves in the race against Mayor Greg Nickels.

This, a tweet from White Center’s Full Tilt Ice Cream:

James Donaldson came to WC yesterday, askin folks to vote for him. I asked him if he knew that we were not in Seattle. He looked confused.

Political advice from the Blathering One: the city limits, man, the city limits!

You know, some of the most important decisions an executive makes involve hiring the folks who work under him. So honestly, who would you rather have running the show as Deputy Mayor… Tim Ceis or Cindi Laws?

Last week I stuck my neck out and predicted the Times endorsements in the Seattle City Council races:

Conlin, Bagshaw, Licata and Royer in the City Council races… If they do dual endorsements in Council Districts 4, 6 and 8, throw in Bloom, Israel, and here’s the reach… Forch.

Well, today the Seattle Times endorsed Bagshaw for Position 4, and Licata and Israel for Position 6, proving me right on the money. I’m a psychic.

Updated twice.

The SOS processed another 5,815 R-71 signatures yesterday, and as expected, the percentage of duplicate signatures increased again. 7 dupes in the first batch, 16 in the second, 22 in third; it’s almost exactly what my spreadsheet predicted.

The raw invalidation rate in yesterday’s batch was also the highest thus far, coming in at 14.4 percent, nearly two full points above the 12.43 percent threshold. That brings the raw invalidation rate on the 17,317 signatures processed to date to 12.99 percent. Adjusting for duplicates, and removing from the count the 49 signatures not on file, the invalidation rate on the total sample is now running at approximately 14.55 percent, up only slightly from the total for the first two batches.

While it should be noted that these numbers do not technically represent a random sample, at 12.5 percent of the total signatures submitted, it is already sufficiently large enough to predict R-71’s failure with a high degree of certainty.

Update [Darryl]

This figure shows the required signatures and, for each data dump, a statistical estimate of the expected signatures required.

The estimate of total signatures adjusts for both duplicates and invalid signatures, and to be conservative, I have assumed that all of the “missing signature card” signatures will be found and counted as valid.

There are error bars showing standard sampling error for each day—they are tiny for yesterday’s dump. Clearly, if sampling error is the only error involved, there is no way R-71 will pass. Even after the first data dump day, there was slightly under an 8% chance the final count would put R-71 on the ballet.

The graph does suggest substantial error other than sampling error (i.e. the big swing from day 2 to day 3 that is way outside sampling error), but there is now a huge amount of ground to make up. Still, with only 12.6% of the sample counted as of yesterday, there could be some surprises.

Update 2 [Darryl]

Oops…When I looked back at the program I used to estimate the number of valid signatures I had entered 150 instead of 45 as the number of duplicates (150 is actually the total number of no-matches found so far). So here is the corrected figure:

Correcting the number of duplicates makes a huge difference in a qualitative interpretation. Now, it looks like there is very little non-sampling error (and very little sampling error). If so, this pretty much spells doom for R-71.

But I do know when I’ll be back again. A week down the Jersey shore, a few days in Pittsburgh for Netroots Nation, and then a few days with my family in Philadelphia, flying back on the night of Aug. 19th.

Not that I won’t be blogging during the next two weeks… just not quite so much.

There’s a new Washington Poll on Seattle races out today, and it has the pundits punditing. Over on Slog, Bryan remarks on the four-way statistical tie for second place in the mayor’s race, and the Bag Fee measure’s unsurprising 41-55 deficit. Meanwhile, mayoral challenger James Donaldson is touting his (outside the margin of error) advantage in a head to head matchup with incumbent Greg Nickels, while over at Publicola, Josh seems transfixed by Mike McGinn’s relative advantage with Republican voters.

But the data that jumps out at me are the job approval ratings for Mayor Nickels, and the right track/wrong track numbers for the city of Seattle as a whole.

Now normally, anytime an incumbent’s job approval falls below 50 percent, that’s pretty bad news for one’s reelection prospects, but with Mayor Nickels consistently mired in the mid-thirties throughout much of his two terms, you kinda hafta grade him on a curve. So 46 percent…? I’m betting Nickels people are giddily pinching themselves at such an unexpected outpouring of mild nonsupport.

Combine that with a 55-32 percent advantage on the right track/wrong track question, and Seattle voters don’t come across nearly as negative and pessimistic as Nickels challengers were counting on.

I know this was supposed to be the Summer of our discontent, but if you still believe that the runner-up, whoever he or she may be, will waltz into the mayor’s office come November, get ready to be disappointed.

I received a mailing from Susan Hutchison. It’s vapid, empty, and nonspecific (apparently, she’s for accountability, against waste, and supports small business, jobs and the environment), but that’s all really beside the point. The point is, I received a mailing from Susan Hutchison.

Quite frankly, I don’t remember the last time I’ve received a mailing from a Republican. What little information there is in the voting roles about party affiliation (zip code and participation in presidential primaries), there’s enough to mark me as a strong Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, so Republican campaign consultants generally assume that it’s a complete and utter waste of money mailing me literature. And rightly so.

But not Hutchison’s.

Either the Hutchison campaign is not efficiently targeting their mailing lists, or, as I’m guessing is more likely the case, they’ve made the strategic decision that they’ll have enough money to target strong Democrats in the hope that we won’t have enough information to know that Hutchison has long been a partisan, conservative Republican.

This is, of course, the major drawback to our new “nonpartisan” elections for county offices; by removing the R or the D next to the candidates’ names we deny voters one of the most useful pieces of information in determining where candidates stand on crucial issues. That is, we end up with a less informed electorate.

And that is exactly what Hutchison is counting on.