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The words "spend[ing]", "budget", "get-out-the-vote", "precinct walk[ing]", "phone", and "direct mail" appear nowhere in this analysis – which indicate a pretty

by gojomo 11y ago

The words "spend[ing]", "budget", "get-out-the-vote", "precinct walk[ing]", "phone", and "direct mail" appear nowhere in this analysis – which indicate a pretty big blind spot for the researchers. What if the candidate with an overwhelming fundraising/spending advantage (Romney) focused his resources in larger precincts? The authors appear to have a pet theory ("larger margin-of-victory in larger precincts suggests fraud") and desired result ("fraud for Romney") and deploy all their reasoning powers towards that end. Rather than just running lots of Romney share-vs-precinct-size slopes, what are the slopes for other candidates (of both parties), in other elections (including non-Presidential)? Do Romney's slopes still stick out? Or do all "well-funded compromise frontrunners" show the same slope, where insurgents and protest candidates overperform in small precincts, farther from the influence of professional campaign/media operations? Notable, also, is that Romney has the 'suspicious' slope even in states where he came in 3rd (Oklahoma, Alabama), or a distant 2nd (Louisiana). The slope doesn't even serve to improve his rank-order in the final results. What's the plausible mechanism, or rational risk/reward calculation, for engaging in fraud in places where your supporters are ~25% or less of the local party, and the fraud has a negligible impact on your count of nomination delegates?

anigbrowl 11y ago
Some of these concerns are addressed on pages 19-21.
- gojomo 11y ago
  I find the hand-waving around the Maryland and Utah graphs to be great examples of the their motivated reasoning, and total blindness to the effect of conscious campaigning. (Appropriately, 'campaign' is another word missing from their 38 pages.) Romney easily won Maryland's 2012 primary – 49% overall, presumably with the 'big precinct' advantage they find suspicious. (But, the researchers don't show us that graph or include any Maryland data in their tables.) But because the Maryland-2008 graph is 'flat' for the "same candidate… same state… same type of election", we are to believe all non-fraud density-driven vote-share effects are refuted. But 2008 was a wildly different election! Other candidates were contending on the same axes of fundraising, organization, and compromise/moderation that Romney dominated in 2012. Another candidate (McCain) won the overall nomination, but looking at the Maryland graph, it appears both Romney and McCain barely even contested Maryland: both finished at about 6%, less than 1/5th the winner. Do they show us McCain's or Obama's or Kerry's or Gore's or Dole's or Perot's or Clinton's slopes in any state or election? No. They just pick one small, relatively urban, and electorally irrelevant (for Republicans) state, Maryland, in one year, 2008, and imply its flatness means something. The same problem applies to their choice of Utah-2012 as another flatness example: Romney won with 93%! No one else spent a cent there! How does that reflect anything about the effects of density and campaign expenditures in actively-contested races? This kind of cherry-picking of outliers makes their case, especially with regard to the density-issue, look extra-flimsy.

by gojomo 11y ago

anigbrowl 11y ago

Some of these concerns are addressed on pages 19-21.

gojomo 11y ago
I find the hand-waving around the Maryland and Utah graphs to be great examples of the their motivated reasoning, and total blindness to the effect of conscious campaigning. (Appropriately, 'campaign' is another word missing from their 38 pages.) Romney easily won Maryland's 2012 primary – 49% overall, presumably with the 'big precinct' advantage they find suspicious. (But, the researchers don't show us that graph or include any Maryland data in their tables.) But because the Maryland-2008 graph is 'flat' for the "same candidate… same state… same type of election", we are to believe all non-fraud density-driven vote-share effects are refuted. But 2008 was a wildly different election! Other candidates were contending on the same axes of fundraising, organization, and compromise/moderation that Romney dominated in 2012. Another candidate (McCain) won the overall nomination, but looking at the Maryland graph, it appears both Romney and McCain barely even contested Maryland: both finished at about 6%, less than 1/5th the winner. Do they show us McCain's or Obama's or Kerry's or Gore's or Dole's or Perot's or Clinton's slopes in any state or election? No. They just pick one small, relatively urban, and electorally irrelevant (for Republicans) state, Maryland, in one year, 2008, and imply its flatness means something. The same problem applies to their choice of Utah-2012 as another flatness example: Romney won with 93%! No one else spent a cent there! How does that reflect anything about the effects of density and campaign expenditures in actively-contested races? This kind of cherry-picking of outliers makes their case, especially with regard to the density-issue, look extra-flimsy.