* Measurement Error and the 2000 US Election

Topics: Democracy
11 Nov 2000

From: Clive Woodward

[Here's the version *after* spell checking it! Sigh.]

[In the interest of full disclosure: I'm a long time resident of the US and
a British citizen considering US naturalization, wondering if it really
matters after all. So I'm admittedly confused and you may want to discount
my opinions accordingly.]

I think that the presidential election was a tie given that the difference
in the final tally, whatever it turns out to be, will be much less than the
measurement error inherent in the official estimate of the true vote.

For example, the recount of the Florida vote was about 1400 votes different
from the original count. Now Gore wants a manual tally that Bush is suing
to prevent, which suggests that both camps know this would result in a
third set of numbers. This tells us much about the precision of any count
of the votes: there is an margin of error that is unknown but undeniably
higher than the 327 votes being cited -- for now at least -- as the
difference in the race. This ultimately casts doubt on the validity of the
electoral college count without even questioning the validity of that
institution.

Yes, the candidates have agreed to go by the current constitutional system
with all its flaws. The difference between them appears to be that Gore is
emphasizing the internal checks and balances of that system while using his
apparent lead in the popular vote as a PR justification for aggressively
pursuing every avenue he can within the system. Whether the Republicans
like it or not, the existing system does include options for recounts and
legal challenges, and Gore's lead in the popular vote does give him some
insulation from the inevitable charge of being a sore loser. How much
insulation it gives him remains to be seen. And yes, it would have been a
very different election if the campaigns had been targeted at the popular
vote. None of which amounts to an argument for keeping the electoral
college -- it just means we're stuck with that particular anachronism for
at least this election.

Given the current and agreed upon system neither candidate will be able to
claim victory without relying on some technicality or other about how we
should arrive at the final tally, and there are enough technicalities out
there for both to make reasonable claims of victory since the effect of
those technicalities swamp the tiny difference in the vote. That quandary is
inherent in a vote so close as to be within the system's measurement error,
and there's no way to settle those contending claims outside of a court
decision unless one side or the other blinks. In that context, no single
vote seems to matter unless you happen to be a judge. It is debatable if a
thousand votes matter, and that is a terrible shame. It should not be
acceptable and we should learn from it.

My modest proposal (for 2004) is to disband the electoral college in favor
of the popular vote and have run off elections between the two highest
polling candidates if no one gets 50% of the vote. This is a generally
accepted standard in modern non-parliamentary systems. The probability of a
run off election could make people feel freer to vote for third party
candidates in the initial election, which could make the process more
interesting and informative but unfortunately also makes Republicans and
Democrats less likely to propose it. The run off election also has the
effect of manufacturing an artificial "mandate" that is at least as
credible as that created by the electoral college. Meanwhile, nationalizing
the election process would be one way of standardizing the ballot, the
voting procedures, and the counting process and imposing quality control
procedures that appear to be greatly needed, nationwide. Perhaps we should
force recounts everywhere and require states with high error rates to model
their methods on the other states. Just a thought.

However we go about it, we need to know the measurement error of the vote
counting process and we need to minimize that error. Fortunately that is a
discoverable characteristic of the process. Any vote close enough to fall
within that margin is really an undecided election and should be recognized
as such -- pretending otherwise is intellectually dishonest. Having a judge
pick a criteria by which to give an artificial edge to either of the
otherwise statistically equal candidates is a completely arbitrary
disenfranchisement of 50% of the voters.

There is no fair and democratic resolution of such a stand off without a
run off election. Every conceivable alternative amounts to pretending there
is no such thing as measurement error just to avoid the hassle of another
vote.



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