In Science News there is a report on statistical research into correlations between voting patterns and election fraud.
Scientists analyzing data from several recent international contests, including the questionable 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia, have proposed a new mathematical measure to discern fraudulent elections from fair ones.
Fair enough.
The researchers examined voter turnout and votes received by the winning party for recent parliamentary elections in Russia, Austria, Finland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and for presidential elections in Uganda and the United States. Graphing the relationship between turnout and votes for the winner revealed unusual peaks in the data for the elections in Russia and Uganda — a signature of funny business, the scientists contend.
Excellent work chaps. But then we are told :-
Thousands of precincts in Russia and districts in Uganda reported 100 percent voter turnout with 100 percent of those votes for the winning party, the researchers found. Graph these data various ways and the fraud signature pops out.
Graph these data various ways? I'm not sure I'd need to go that far - and I'm not even a statistician. In fact the words Russia and Uganda would be enough for me.
4 comments:
Damn! I was already composing my comment before I had even finished reading - and there it was, already written in your last sentence.
You're a mind-reader, AK, how do you do it?
You know what they say about great minds David!
Come on, chaps, give credit where it is due. In the case of Uganda, we ought to be grateful that the turnout didn't exceed the constituency population.
SV - I agree 110%.
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