In a message dated 11/13/00 10:33:22 PM, spike66@ibm.net writes:
>I acknowledge the perception and I disagree that this is a
>legitimate means of comparing candidates. I calculate thus:
>if a county were to have some *special reason* to have
>strong negative feelings towards one of the non-mainstream
>candidates, then the other non-mainstream candidates, to
>whom the county had no special antipathy, would appear
>to be anomalously favored. Palm Beach had a special reason
>to have heartburn with Nader: his green stance doesnt play
>well in those parts.
If Nader's observed vote is low for the area, then Buchanan's
predicted vote would be *higher* and so the observed discrepancy
is too low. You're claiming the author *underestimated* the
accidental Gore --> Buchanan shifts.
>Note that I am not arguing that some voters mistakenly
>cast the wrong vote, I imagine a few did that. But looking
>at the Nader votes is the wrong way to determine it. spike
Well, based on the results elsewhere, the Nader vote is a good
way to estimate. The author tried several other methods to
estimate the excess goof rates, and all showed Gore lost thousands
of votes. That's normally irrelevant, which is why it happened.
If you've got a better estimator, I'm sure you could find an poly sci
academic who's open to suggestions; quite possible the author of
the paper would look at other estimators as it would improve the
quality of the paper.
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