CNS News reports distorting results of Busby/Bilbray race!

[cascadiance]

They either need to go to remedial math class, or someone needs to seriously take issue with their objectivity in reporting.

Check this article by Susan Jones that's being linked to by many sites there.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200606/POL20060607b.html

They're trying to say that Bilbray had "about 50% of the vote" and Busby had "about 45% of the vote" and therefore won by 5%. In addition to trying to make it sound like Bilbray had a "majority of the vote" instead of a plurality, the actual difference between 49.33% and 45.46% is 3.87%, which is closer to 3% than it is 5%. Official results from:

http://www.sdvote.org/election/congress.xml

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 50TH DISTRICT - (RUN-OFF)
Precincts: 500
Counted: 500
Percentage: 100.0%

BRIAN BILBRAY - REP (60319 votes) - 49.33%
FRANCINE BUSBY - DEM (55587 votes) - 45.46%
W. GRIFFITH - IND (4492 votes) - 3.67%
PAUL KING - LIB (1875 votes) - 1.53%

Now this is what those folks doing their "distortion news" are saying in the link above... They'll probably blame it on when they took these results down to account for this "distortion". Even though this article went to press way after these results were posted.

Bilbray Defeats Busby
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
June 07, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The Republican Party is congratulating Brian Bilbray on his victory in California's special congressional election.

With most of the vote counted, Bilbray led Democrat Francine Busby by about 5 points -- 49.5-45 percent, according to Wednesday morning press reports.

"In a hard fought campaign, Brian's commitment to fiscal discipline in the nation's capitol, border security and immigration reform, and his dedication to protecting children from predators were the difference in the race," said RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman.

"Voters in California's 50th Congressional District rejected the Democrats' agenda to raise taxes, grow government, and play politics with our national security."
...

[BlooInBloo]

1. I don't see it.

I don't see where they said Bilbray got a "majority of the vote" (your quote).

I have no problem calling 49.33% to 45.46 "about 5%".

Not sayin' the distortion ain't there, just sayin I don't see it in those two tidbits.

[cascadiance]

6. Rounding a 3.87% difference UP would be 4%, NOT 5%...

They aren't saying a majority, but they are almost implying it by saying "about 50%" of the vote, which in some people's terms could also mean above 50% too.

But the problem is that the difference isn't close to 5%! Any way you cut it, it should be at most 4% difference, and if you use their rules, we could argue the opposite and say it is closer to 3% than 5%, which would be just a little less incorrect... That is elementary school math!

[BlooInBloo]

9. (a) I only said "about 5%" wasn't absurd for a soundbite...

... (b) whether or not what you claim to be the case re: rounding depends ENTIRELY on the increments of the rounding.

There are two basic parameters to rounding: the increments, and the direction.

You seem to be under the impression that the increments HAVE TO be 1% increments. They don't. You may also be under the impression that the direction HAS TO be Nearest (increment). It doesn't.

But it's all irrelevant - the article didn't claim to be using any particular rounding method. They just said the vague and wishy-washy phrase "about 5%". Which doesn't strike me as outlandish for average-Joe consumption when the true value is 3.87.

Would "about 5%" be accurate enough for a political consultant? Presumably not. It seems alright to me for the average Joe(sephine) tho.

[cascadiance]

12. I would be more accurate saying that it was about 3%

and then the public would be scratching their head about who's right... The obvious and objective measure would have been to say 4%, even though that even gives Bilbray .13%. I'd accept that.

Saying about 5% IS a distortion of the truth.

[BlooInBloo]

17. Saying anything but 3.87% would be a "distortion" of the truth.

And even THAT is a distortion of the truth, since there's measurement error.

So really, you can't say ANY number without "distorting" the truth.

I'm questioning significance.

Approximation can be DEFINED (abstractly) as "the art of distorting the truth" - LOL - that's how we got calculus, in fact, by distorting the truth that a curve was, well, curvy, into the FALSEHOOD that it was a straight line.

If this is the biggest fish we got to fry, then we're gonna be REALLY hungry.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. 49.33 was upped to 49.5, while 45.46 was dropped to 45.00

If they simply were rounding numbers it should have been 49.5% to 45.5%, or 49% to 45%. There is no logic supporting rounding up 49.33% to 49.% while rounding down 45.46% to 45%.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Um, yah. And this atom moved one nanometer closer to this other one.

Moral: Fractions of percentages? If that's the best you got by way of "distortion", you should just pack it in.

I'll agree to the fact of the matter, that there's no real good logic for it. But it's fractions of a percentage point, folks. There's distortions, and then there are fractions of a percentage point.

And I still see nothing bizarre, in hum-drum contexts, about saying 3.87% is about 5%.

[cascadiance]

16. Guess you didn't care about those "atoms" in Florida in 2000 either?...

The one thing we can get out of this race for November is that we can show that Busby came close, even though she didn't win. If we allow them to distort that fact too, we're allowing them to minimize any effect this race could have in helping us mobilize for the November election. I say we call them out on these things when they try doing this!

[BlooInBloo]

18. As long as we're making idiotic analogies...

Why didn't you just go for the full monty and ask me why I sent all the jewish folks to die at aucshwitz (sp?)?

Sheesh.

[cascadiance]

22. Look, I'm not wanting to fight about this at all...

But small differences are relative to the thing being measured. And in some cases small differences are important. If you let the other side constantly tweak in their direction, it DOES affect perception over time. The Rethugs have been expert at this, and we have to take issue with it at times. Now granted, forcing a correction here isn't going to swing a correction, but a 3-4% difference is a difference that I've seen made up in an election over night, etc. 5% is harder to overcome. Busby started with the vote counting of the absentees at the beginning of the night 8% down. She upped that to be ony a 3.87% difference. That shows she made up over half of that difference with the regular votes. Saying that it was only a shift of 3% to 5% difference makes people feel like their efforts are more pointless. I do think that subtly is important to point out at times. If it is so meaningless, why did they put in place obvious math errors to their favor, if they didn't think it was worth looking stupid to some to distort the truth to others?

[BlooInBloo]

24. I take it "correction" shoulda been "election"?

(shrug) I guess we're just gonna disagree on the (in)significance of this.

I hold that we're all gonna die of starvation if this is the biggest fish we can land. You seem to regard this as a veritable FEAST.

I suppose that issue is largely in the eye of the beholder.

[cascadiance]

25. I guess part of this is because I LIVE here...

And probably feel the significance of losing this much more than you do. We've been without any representation at all for many months while this Cunningscam saga has played out. And now replacing him with another bastard that won't listen to us is entirely frustrating, especially at a time when we want our congress critters to do something for us. Many of us have worked a lot of hard hours on this election as well as for Donna Frye and against Arnold earlier... It has been a frustrating year for us in San Diego, and articles like that tend to spit in our face, and we don't like just taking it up the back door all the time!

[SteppingRazor]

2. So, you're calling them out because...

they rounded to the nearest half percent?

[Kikosexy2]

3. I would demand..

a recount...Diebold gives me the willies...

[BlooInBloo]

5. That makes NO sense. The nearest 1/2 percent would be 4%.

I still don't see the distortion, but they PATENTLY didn't round to the nearest 1/2 percent.

[SteppingRazor]

8. My bad. You're right. It'd be 4 instead of 4.5...

Who's quibbling now? :eyes:

[cascadiance]

10. But they are then rounding up the rounded up 4.5% to 5% in that statement.

Don't you see that distortion of over a percentage point? You may say this is peanuts. But showing a gain from her earlier total of slightly less than 44% in the April totals to close to 45.5% of the total shows a pickup of close to 2% of the voting totals that shows a lot of indies and Repubs going towards Busby. They are obviously trying to minimize this by trying to take away at least a percentage point from the difference totals to "poo poo" the official results.

[SteppingRazor]

15. I concede that this could be a distortion...

but I don't think it makes a lick of difference.

Even at 5 percent, the fact that Busby lost by such a slim margin is telling. If some conservative tries to say Busby lost by 5 percent, I say give it to them. If that's their last, whining effort to discredit this, it's pathetic. In a district where Republican registrations outnumber Democrats by more than 15 percent, they're gonna try to stretch a 3.5 (sorry, I know that's not precisely, exactly the right percentage. Just saying I realize that, so I don't upset BlooInBloo) percent loss into a 5 percent loss? That's laughable. If that's the best they can do to play up this win, they're in serious trouble.

[MADem]

4. C N S news is hardly a CREDIBLE source

They wallow somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun....

[LSK]

13. let me translate Mehlman

"We are still able to fool 49% of the district voters into believing we are something that we are not. Good thing they are clueless and dont pay attention."

[coffeenap]

14. Thom Hartmann just talking about the provisional ballots that

thousands of Dems used to vote for Busby--they have not been counted--no word on when they will be counted. Thom asks people to call the Cal Sec. of State to request info on the date of the count, the number of ballots cast provisionally, etc. 4500 vote difference in the race--guest said maybe as many as 65,000 provisional ballots cast.

Still talking--questioning why she conceded? (updated) June 30 certification date announced--still counting.

[cascadiance]

20. I think that same site I have up there showed 68,000 votes still uncounted

both absentees and provisionals. But that amount isn't as large as it sounds folks. Have to note the following:

1) That total is for the whole San Diego area. 50th district probably has about a 4th or 5th of that total with about 5 congressional districts here. That probably puts the amount in question around 15,000 to 17,000 ballots.
2) How many of those provisional ballots will actually be legitimate and countable.
3) of that 15,000 or 17,000 that are counted as legitimate ballots, you'd have to have at least 4000-5000 more break for Busby than Bilbray.

Now mind you I think that still is possible. With all of the voter registration scams, etc. going on down here, I wouldn't be a bit surprised that most of those provisional ballots were for Busby. So it's still possible, but I think it's important that we don't exaggerate the numbers here and get people's hopes up too much. It would be interesting to see how many of these votes were cast by TSX Diebold machines too (for assistance needing voters). If there were more than 5000 votes cast through them, then as Brad Friedman indicates, that means that this election is inconclusive, as there is no way we can recount those votes to verify that they don't make the difference in totals here.

[rinsd]

21. 65,000 provisional ballots?

What was the guest basing that on?

More people voted on April 11th but it seems this was more an issue of low turnout.

[cascadiance]

23. They are actually at the top of this page...

http://www.sdvote.org/election/congress.xml

And the number is actually cited here as about 68,500 ballots. As I noted in my other post here, this is for the whole county, not just the 50th district, which is why it seems like a lot compared to the totals cast in the race. Only a portion of those are probably for the Busby race. I would expect perhaps as many as a quarter (probably higher turnout than the other congressional seat areas of which there are five here).

[rinsd]

26. Thanks (nt)

[Mr_Spock]

19. Big whoop

Get a life - as if this makes a fucking difference :eyes: