>Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 14:45:03 -0800
>From: "L.M. Kane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: WSJ: Recount' Em All, or None at All
>To: "Federalist@Lists. Stanford. EDU" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Importance: Normal
>X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
>Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>ELECTION 2000
>
>Recount 'Em All, or None at All
>The Gore campaign tries an old statistician's trick.
>
>BY EDWARD GLAESER
>Saturday, November 11, 2000 1:45 p.m. EST
>
>There is a well-known trick among statistical economists for biasing
>your data while looking honest. First, figure out which data points
>don't agree with your theory. Then zealously clean up the offending
>data points while leaving the other data alone. The key to
>maintaining academic dignity is to ensure that you do nothing to the
>data other than eliminate errors.
>
>But while this approach may seem to improve accuracy, it actually
>leads to biased results. If you only clean the offending data
>points, then you will disproportionately keep erroneous data that
>agrees with your prior views. This leads many scholars to believe
>that data that is partially cleaned at the discretion of a
>researcher is worse than bad data.
>
>This lesson from the ivory tower has a clear implication for the
>current mess in Florida. Hand counting ballots in only a few,
>carefully chosen counties is a sure way to bias the results. Even if
>hand counting is more accurate than machine counting, there is a
>clear bias introduced because Al Gore chose which counties to hand
>count. Mr. Gore has selected the state and counties where recounting
>has the best chance of helping him.
>
>This is exactly the same as cleaning other data selectively.
>Naturally, if this opportunity for selective recounting becomes the
>norm, the floodgates will open and any candidate who loses a close
>election would be foolish not to demand a recount.
>
>The immediate implication of this is clear. If there is to be
>recounting by hand, it cannot be selective. There needs to be total
>hand counting, not just within Florida, but across the U.S. in any
>state that was close. One candidate cannot be allowed just to choose
>where he wants the data cleaned. If this is prohibitively expensive,
>or time consuming, then it is better to leave the process unchanged
>than to introduce the selective recounting bias.
>
>More generally, one of the principal lessons of macroeconomics is
>that rules generally work better than discretion. This is as true in
>elections as any place else. Giving candidates influence over how
>election results are processed does not help democracy to accurately
>reflect the will of the people. Judicial discretion is not much
>better, as judges will be responding to cases selectively filed by
>candidates. Furthermore, judges determining elections will exalt the
>judiciary to a king-making role it should not have.
>
>While it certainly may be appropriate to ban butterfly ballots for
>all of eternity, and while reform of balloting procedures seems like
>a must, it is also clearly wrong to selectively recount certain
>areas.
>
>Mr. Glaeser is a professor of economics at Harvard University and a
>visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.
>
>
--
J. Robert Latham
Public Affairs Director
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428
510/632-1366 phone
510/568-6040 fax
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.independent.org
