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2000, Revisited
(I know I said I would leave this topic for a while. Maybe after this I'll be able to.)
The results of the Florida election are no longer considered to be an issue by the mainstream press. This is somewhat surprising; the suggestion that the oldest and largest continuing democracy in the world may have been subverted should be at least as newsworthy as the on-again off-again romance of a pair of talentless actors.
A consortium of newspapers hired an independent team of analysts to go over the ballots; the results have been made available to the public on the world wide web. The viewer selects options from the various counting methods possible and the results are then calculated and presented.
But that offers only a limited view of the possible outcomes of the election in Florida. What might we learn from a bigger picture? I was curious, so I made a chart of the results:
Well, this certainly seems to vindicate Bush supporters. He wins in 17 out of 24 scenarios! But perhaps we should take a more careful look at the data. Are all voting scenarios equally possible?
The answer, actually, is "no". Florida law requires that EVERY ballot which makes the intent of the voter clear must be counted (Title IX, Ch. 101.5614). A number of the disputed votes in the Florida election were "overvotes", in which a (confused) voter both marked the box next to the name of their candidate and wrote that candidate's name in. In such a case, the intent of the voter was clearly to vote for that candidate. We must therefore eliminate all scenarios which exclude those valid votes. The result:
This is quite a reversal of fortune! George W. Bush has gone from a 17-7 advantage to a 5-7 disadvantage. Very illuminating. But perhaps an additional look at the data would be appropriate. Is there any other case in which the intent of the voter is clear?
Well yes, there is. Remember those annoying fill-in-the-box standardized tests from school? If you haven't run across them, optical ballots are basically the same thing. You need to fill in the box completely or else the scanner can't read them. Unfortunately a number of voters only put a checkmark or a line in the box next to their candidate's name, but their intent is nonetheless quite clear, and thanks to that darned Title IX, Ch. 101.5614, we must eliminate those choices which do not count those valid votes.
And so:
In all the scenarios in which Florida voting law is obeyed, then, George W. Bush ONLY wins if dimpled chads are counted and the decision of the three judges is unanimous. Since the Bush team itself mocked the very idea of dimpled chads, this at the least places the legitimacy of the election in serious doubt.
"Oops!" - Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court "Justice"
The results of the Florida election are no longer considered to be an issue by the mainstream press. This is somewhat surprising; the suggestion that the oldest and largest continuing democracy in the world may have been subverted should be at least as newsworthy as the on-again off-again romance of a pair of talentless actors.
A consortium of newspapers hired an independent team of analysts to go over the ballots; the results have been made available to the public on the world wide web. The viewer selects options from the various counting methods possible and the results are then calculated and presented.
But that offers only a limited view of the possible outcomes of the election in Florida. What might we learn from a bigger picture? I was curious, so I made a chart of the results:
Well, this certainly seems to vindicate Bush supporters. He wins in 17 out of 24 scenarios! But perhaps we should take a more careful look at the data. Are all voting scenarios equally possible?
The answer, actually, is "no". Florida law requires that EVERY ballot which makes the intent of the voter clear must be counted (Title IX, Ch. 101.5614). A number of the disputed votes in the Florida election were "overvotes", in which a (confused) voter both marked the box next to the name of their candidate and wrote that candidate's name in. In such a case, the intent of the voter was clearly to vote for that candidate. We must therefore eliminate all scenarios which exclude those valid votes. The result:
This is quite a reversal of fortune! George W. Bush has gone from a 17-7 advantage to a 5-7 disadvantage. Very illuminating. But perhaps an additional look at the data would be appropriate. Is there any other case in which the intent of the voter is clear?
Well yes, there is. Remember those annoying fill-in-the-box standardized tests from school? If you haven't run across them, optical ballots are basically the same thing. You need to fill in the box completely or else the scanner can't read them. Unfortunately a number of voters only put a checkmark or a line in the box next to their candidate's name, but their intent is nonetheless quite clear, and thanks to that darned Title IX, Ch. 101.5614, we must eliminate those choices which do not count those valid votes.
And so:
In all the scenarios in which Florida voting law is obeyed, then, George W. Bush ONLY wins if dimpled chads are counted and the decision of the three judges is unanimous. Since the Bush team itself mocked the very idea of dimpled chads, this at the least places the legitimacy of the election in serious doubt.
"Oops!" - Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court "Justice"