[E-voting] Interesting ....

[Fergus O'Rourke]

Dr J Pelan <J.Pelan at gatsby.ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, Fergus O'Rourke wrote:
[snip]
>>   Clinton Optical scan 91,717 52.95%
>>   Obama Optical scan 81,495 47.05%
>>
>>   Clinton Hand-counted 20,889 47.05%
>>   Obama Hand-counted 23,509 52.95%
>>
>> The percentages appear to be swapped. That seems highly unusual, to
>> say the least." (Bradblog)
[snip]
>
> Seeing patterns or coincidences in data sets without any rational
> consideration of their likely correlation, or lack thereof, is pure
> numerology. How can assertions like 'highly unusual' and 'remarkable'
> be  justified without some quantification of a chance occurrence ?
>
> In any case, reporting stories many times removed from the original
> source  can lead to delays or distortion and indeed a check of the EDA
> website
> shows that their data was updated a week ago and the so-called
> 'remarkable' coincidence subsequently disappeared - more votes were
> optically scanned than first thought.
>
> http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/new_hampshire_2008_primary_analysis

Oh dear ! I shall have to have a word with Herr Lenz.

FERGUS O'ROURKE
www.irish-lawyer.com
(Not just law stuff)