Election by Statisticians?
The challenge to the election of Washington Governor Gregoire is scheduled to go to trial May 23rd. National Republicans are paying big money to fund this challenge to the closest election for a State Governor in American history. There is a principle at stake for Republicans - developing the right to overturn elections of Democrats based on cherry picking Democratic precincts for convicted felons who voted illegally.
The Washington State law on contesting an election is not very detailed. General rules of law and evidence apply and votes proven to be illegally cast will be subtracted from the party receiving them. The problem is how to prove for whom the illegal votes were cast. This is where the Republican "principle" comes in; they want to argue that if a precinct went 80% for Gregoire and there were 10 illegal votes cast in that precinct, that should be sufficient proof that 8 of those votes were cast for Gregoire. The Democrats argued that such statistical evidence should not be allowed, but the Judge ruled that he would let experts testify at trial as to the validity of the statistical method and then he would decide whether to allow such evidence in this case.
Statistical evidence has been used in some voting, civil rights and discrimination cases as I understand it, though I have not researched the subject. My sense though is that the use of such evidence is valid only when there is a fraud or abuse of power by one of the candidates or by persons in a position of authority, such as a government rigging election results for re-election or authorities otherwise systematically tampering with a legitimate selection methodology to produce a prejudiced outcome. That is not the case in this Governor election. Illegal votes were cast by individuals and there is no allegation of any systematic tampering or cohesive plan on their part to elect a particular candidate.
What if there was only one illegal vote in a precinct that voted 80% Democrat? Does statistical probability show there is a 4 to 1 chance the vote was for the Democrat and therefore, by a preponderance of the evidence it should be discarded? When there is a systematically co-ordinated plan by the elected party to obtain illegal votes and the results are statistically skewered, that may in fact show the election is invalid, but where several felons independently decide to vote, how can statistics prove the way they voted? Presuming disenfranchised felons voted like the others in their precinct is inherently fallacious, since the felons are illegal voters and the others are voting legally - they differ on the very fundamental aspect of integrity.
Supposedly a big reason Gore lost to Bush in the US Supreme Court was because the Democrats cherry picked certain Florida Counties to recount instead of recounting State-wide, thereby unconstitutionally making the vote of a resident of one of those Counties more important than the vote of a County that was not picked. Isn’t that what the Republicans have done in the Washington case, choosing only some Democratic precincts to audit? True, the Democrats have cherry picked some Republican precincts in response, but since the Republicans are the challengers, shouldn't they have been required to audit the entire State?
For the racial discriminatory history of laws denying the vote to convicted felons, check out the Sense piece Do the Time and Serve the Time . If Washington State had no such law, then lawsuits such as the current Republican generated one would not be available to throw the will of the voters into uncertainty. Ironically, the very felons the laws were designed to disenfranchise may now become key witnesses at the trial, with their testimony as to for whom they illegally voted possibly determining the ultimate outcome of the election.
The two-faced Republicans are hoping "activist" judges of the Washington State Supreme Court will eventually make new law to decide this case in their favor. If not, they may have to try again with the Supremes in the other Washington.
The Washington State law on contesting an election is not very detailed. General rules of law and evidence apply and votes proven to be illegally cast will be subtracted from the party receiving them. The problem is how to prove for whom the illegal votes were cast. This is where the Republican "principle" comes in; they want to argue that if a precinct went 80% for Gregoire and there were 10 illegal votes cast in that precinct, that should be sufficient proof that 8 of those votes were cast for Gregoire. The Democrats argued that such statistical evidence should not be allowed, but the Judge ruled that he would let experts testify at trial as to the validity of the statistical method and then he would decide whether to allow such evidence in this case.
Statistical evidence has been used in some voting, civil rights and discrimination cases as I understand it, though I have not researched the subject. My sense though is that the use of such evidence is valid only when there is a fraud or abuse of power by one of the candidates or by persons in a position of authority, such as a government rigging election results for re-election or authorities otherwise systematically tampering with a legitimate selection methodology to produce a prejudiced outcome. That is not the case in this Governor election. Illegal votes were cast by individuals and there is no allegation of any systematic tampering or cohesive plan on their part to elect a particular candidate.
What if there was only one illegal vote in a precinct that voted 80% Democrat? Does statistical probability show there is a 4 to 1 chance the vote was for the Democrat and therefore, by a preponderance of the evidence it should be discarded? When there is a systematically co-ordinated plan by the elected party to obtain illegal votes and the results are statistically skewered, that may in fact show the election is invalid, but where several felons independently decide to vote, how can statistics prove the way they voted? Presuming disenfranchised felons voted like the others in their precinct is inherently fallacious, since the felons are illegal voters and the others are voting legally - they differ on the very fundamental aspect of integrity.
Supposedly a big reason Gore lost to Bush in the US Supreme Court was because the Democrats cherry picked certain Florida Counties to recount instead of recounting State-wide, thereby unconstitutionally making the vote of a resident of one of those Counties more important than the vote of a County that was not picked. Isn’t that what the Republicans have done in the Washington case, choosing only some Democratic precincts to audit? True, the Democrats have cherry picked some Republican precincts in response, but since the Republicans are the challengers, shouldn't they have been required to audit the entire State?
For the racial discriminatory history of laws denying the vote to convicted felons, check out the Sense piece Do the Time and Serve the Time . If Washington State had no such law, then lawsuits such as the current Republican generated one would not be available to throw the will of the voters into uncertainty. Ironically, the very felons the laws were designed to disenfranchise may now become key witnesses at the trial, with their testimony as to for whom they illegally voted possibly determining the ultimate outcome of the election.
The two-faced Republicans are hoping "activist" judges of the Washington State Supreme Court will eventually make new law to decide this case in their favor. If not, they may have to try again with the Supremes in the other Washington.
posted by Tom Blake | 3:08 PM
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