[lbo-talk] What probability and statistics say about an election in Venezuela

[Wojtek S]

So the question is, how likely is it that this audit of 20,825 machines
could produce no errors, if in fact Capriles were the true winner? The
answer, as described in our [CEPR] new
paper<http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/a-statistical-note-on-the-april-14-venezuelan-presidential-election-and-audit-of-results>,
is that it is far less likely than one chance in 25 thousand trillion.
There is really no way around this conclusion, and it does not depend upon
any assumptions other than what tens of thousands of people witnessed in
the vote audit of the 20,825 machines.

The results are intuitive: if there was a fraud big enough to move 135,000
votes from one candidate to another, it would have been discovered in some
of those 20,825 machines. But it wasn’t. So you have a choice:  you can
believe that the world witnessed something so improbable that it cries out
for supernatural explanation on April 14:  an audit result that had far
less than a one in 25 trillion chance of occurring. That is what Capriles
and his supporters are asserting when they claim that an audit of the
remaining machines would change the election result. Or, you can believe
that Maduro actually won the election.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/05/2013510101743343447.html

-- 
Wojtek

"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."