The Statistical Significance of Palm Beach County

Abstract

This paper emphasizes certain issues and problems that arise when a statistical analysis must be undertaken on complex and evolving data, under tight constraints of time. In such circumstances, it typically is not possible to develop extensive or problem-specific methodology, yet an answer may be required almost immediately, and must be correct, defensible, understandable, and carry impact. It must also be able to withstand the test of comparison with analyses yet to come.

We illustrate these points by presenting the background to, and an analysis of, the State of Florida results in the 7 November, 2000 U.S. Presidential elections with emphasis on Palm Beach County. The analysis we discuss was carried out in the days immediately following that election. The statistical evidence strongly suggested that the use of the ‘butterfly’ ballot in Palm Beach County had resulted in a significant number of votes having been counted for presidential candidate Pat Buchanan which had not so been intended. The design of the ‘butterfly’ ballot suggests that many of these votes had likely been intended for the Democratic candidate Al Gore. This confusion was sufficient to affect the overall outcome of the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, conferring the office to George W. Bush, and this result is statistically significant.