Nov. 15, 2000
TO: Editors, news directorsFROM: Barbara Wolff, (608) 252-8292; [email protected]RE: Statistics support claim of voting problems
A statistical analysis of the Palm Beach, Fla. presidential vote by an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows without doubt substantial irregularities.
Bruce Hansen says that 2,058 of the 3,407 votes cast for Patrick Buchanan in Palm Beach are inconsistent with the area's demographic characteristics. Hansen, UW-Madison's Stockwell Professor of Economics, says that the population characteristics of Palm Beach should have shown only a few Buchanan ballots cast in the Palm Beach precinct.
"Palm Beach has a high percentage of elderly and college educated residents, and high median household income. Those are all factors which contribute to few votes for Buchanan," Hansen says. "The recorded high number of Buchanan votes is inconsistent with county's demographics."
Hansen says the strength of his finding is rooted in the use of a statistical method, regression analysis, with the demographic information. "If you just look at the percentages, Buchanan's vote count in Palm Beach is not very unusual," Hansen says. "Buchanan's votes only are revealed as irregular when you analyze the characteristics of the county's population."
Hansen also found that overvoting -- marking the ballot for two different candidates -- cost Gore almost 4,300 more votes than Bush. "This is a statistically significant result," Hansen says.
Consequently, political scientists from Harvard and Northwestern Universities who are advising on the Florida legal case have contacted Hansen about using his data and methods in their court briefs.
For more information about these findings, contact Hansen, (608) 263-3880; [email protected]. Or visit: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~bhansen/vote/vote.html.
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