Mathematics Says Romney and Santorum Tied In Iowa

Hugh Pickens writes "Presidential candidate Mitt Romney received eight more votes than candidate Rick Santorum or 0.007 percent of the total number of caucus votes in the Iowa caucus, 'eking out a victory' on the path to winning the Republican nomination for president but experts in statistics say Romney and Santorum actually tied. 'From a statistical point of view, you can't say Romney won any more than you can say Santorum won,' says Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at New York University who studies election error. That's because in the Iowa caucus, where voters marked their choices with check marks or by writing the candidates' names in by hand, the error rate in counting the votes, which is also done by hand is orders of magnitude above the victory margin — around 0.5 to 1 percent. There are several sources of error that could easily render eight votes meaningless." (Read on for more.) Hugh Pickens continues: "First, ballots sometimes stick to the bottom of ballot boxes when the boxes are overturned, and fail to be counted. Next, election officials occasionally misread messy handwriting, or tally their totals incorrectly. Finally officials can misjudge who a voter intended to vote for: 'You'd be surprised how often people place a check mark in an ambiguous place,' says Seife. Whether it's statistically significant or not, any official declaration of victory can have big ramifications. With political pundits regarding Romney's 'victory' as evidence that he's in a good position to win the Republican nomination, the failure to recognize a statistical tie in Iowa could impact the future of the country. 'It's Romney, not Santorum, who can head to New Hampshire claiming the win,' writes Nick Rizzo. 'But if you just counted the exact same votes all over again, there's a good chance the result would be different.'"

Comments

Dude,

[cshark]

It's a non binding vote. A straw poll. It's already totally and completely meaningless.

So... what's the difference?

[SuricouRaven]

All the republicans candidates look much the same to me, except Ron Paul. They seem to be all playing it safe, avoiding saying anything too out-of-the-mainstream at such a critical time.

Re:So... what's the difference?

[dpilot]

Some (Republican) friends were over for New Year's Eve, and one of them quoted someone else, "Looking at the economy, there's no way Obama can be reelected. Looking at the Republican field, there's no way Obama can lose."

The real disservice to the country is that something terribly bad has happened to the American English language, at least as it appears in the mainstream media. With very few exceptions, the late Ted Kennedy being a notable one, the word "Liberal" is unquestionably bad. The phrase "too conservative" appears to be null and meaningless. From what I can see in media coverage of the Republican race, with the possible exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, it all comes down to who can be more conservative than the others, and the possibility of being "too conservative" hasn't been considered, where any amount of "liberal" is "too liberal".

And I guess the only phrase for "too conservative" has become "right wing nutjob", which gives it a pejorative rather than descriptive feeling, and thus removes its effectiveness.

Re:So... what's the difference?

[dkleinsc]

Actually, the 3 who did well in Iowa represent 3 different strains of thought within the Republican Party:
- Mitt Romney represents corporations and business interests. His electoral base are the sort of moderately successful business owners and middle managers you'd find a local meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, while his monetary base is fat cat corporations.
- Rick Santorum represents the religious right. His electoral base are members of evangelical churches. He hasn't raised all that much cash, but has some monetary support from fat cat corporations and from evangelical Christian groups.
- Ron Paul represents the libertarians. His electoral base is a mix of independent farmers and suburbanites who believe they don't depend on the government for anything. He also has nowhere near as much money as Romney, and interestingly is funded almost half by small contributors.

Not in the Republican party, but relevant:
- Barack Obama represents the 'Washington consensus' on most issues. His electoral base are urban residents, racial minorities (those constituencies overlap but are not identical), and educated voters who don't consider themselves business management. His monetary base is fat cat corporations.

Re:So... what's the difference?

[michael_cain]

We raised taxes in the early 1990s and got an eight-year boom where unemployment fell to record low levels for peacetime, and at the end of the business cycle got a very mild recession. In response, we cut taxes dramatically and got eight years of mediocre-at-best job growth followed by the worst recession since WWII and a fall in the worker-to-p0pulation ratio that took us back to the 1980s.

Based on the last 20 years, you can conclude that tax rates and job growth are directly (not inversely) related, or you can conclude (more likely, IMO) that job growth depends on other things and is unrelated to tax rates across a broad range of values. But there's no evidence to support the theoretical position that increasing tax rates results in lower job growth.

Re:Higher Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, they don't have to -- it's not a government election, so it's not a government matter.

Re:Delegates Won

[SteveFoerster]

The sad thing is that you were able to describe this in just four sentences, yet the mainstream media hasn't mentioned this at all because all they can see is the horse race.

"Momentum"

[JSBiff]

What candidates hope to get out of Iowa, mainly, seems to be being able to say they won an election, or did way better than expected (e.g. Santorum), essentially in the hopes that it will persuade primary voters in other early primary states (NH, SC, FL, etc) to jump on the bandwagon and vote for them.

Which is sad. If you're just going to vote for the candidate everyone else is voting for, why bother voting at all, especially in a primary? Primaries should be all about voting for your *favorite* candidate, not the guy you think might win if you can just push him over the top.

Re:Delegates Won

[SteveFoerster]

Not lose much other than vital media attention. Rudy Guiliani found out in 2008 that this is a disaster when he skipped everything before Florida, and found that by then no one was taking him seriously anymore.

Re:Higher Power

[DesScorp]

"The same Congress that did recess and had Bush make the recess appointment of Jon Bolton as U.N. Ambassador?"

The US Senate was recessed when the Bolton appointment was made. The current US Senate is still in session according to the rules of the Senate and the law.

Why is this modded down? It's absolutely true. The President doesn't get to decide when the Senate is in session. The Senate does. For all of the bitching about Bush's recess appointments, they were done according to the letter of the law, during a Senate recess, and when it came time to vote for them, the Senate voted against those appointments, and they didn't stay in office. Just as the Constitution and law provide. Obama's appointments yesterday, simply put, are unconstitutional, and will almost surely be struck down in court.

By the way, for the people cheering those appointments, answer a serious question: do you want Republican presidents to have the power to bypass the Senate for appointments?

Re:Higher Power

[DesScorp]

And bypassing Congress, like it says in the Constitution, Clause 3, Section 2, Article 2?

And Obama, the Senate Majority Leader during the Congressional sessions in 2007-2008?

Please point out where that gives the President unilateral power to appoint people to office without the consent of the Senate, and while the Senate is still in session?

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The Constitution gives the Congress the authority decide if they'll let the President appoint minor officials on his own. Congress has not. Further, Congress says these appointments are not to minor offices, but important ones that require Senate confirmation. Obama pulled a Caesar on this one and dared the Congress to do anything about it.