[EL] Self-fulfilling Prophecy Dep't

[Doug Hess]

Perhaps just as important is the small number of cases they found. According
to the article, they searched 8 general elections (how many votes?) and
found a handful of possible cases. Compare that to the number that can be
turned away (or not attempt to vote) under various ID requirements and the
"cost-benefit" becomes overwhelmingly in favor of not implementing these
laws. I noticed the USA Today editorial got this point right.

-Doug

From: Justin Levitt <justin.levitt at lls.edu>
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:29:53 -0700
Subject: Re: [EL] Self-fulfilling Prophecy Dep't

The article that Rick links to, below, repeats yet another example of the
"birthday problem" that Michael McDonald and I have written about.  The
article below cites a case of alleged fraud from New Mexico, apparently
"discovered" when the Secretary of State matched the names and dates of
birth of people on the voter registration rolls to other state lists.

As Michael and I have shown, this may well be nothing more than basic
statistics at work.  If you have a room of 23 people, there's about an even
chance that at least two of them will share the same birthday -- month and
day  (with 60 people, the chance is up around 99%).  If you have a room of
180 people, there's about an even chance that at least two of them will
share the same date of birth -- month and day and year  (with 460 people,
the chance is up around 99%).   With common names in a large population, you
fill up those "rooms" pretty quickly.   Put differently: in a population of
over two million, you just need 180 John Smiths or Maria Rodriguezes to bet
that two of them will share the same date of birth.

The New Mexico State Police are apparently now investigating.  Before making
noise about "destroying the integrity of the elections," I'd want to make
pretty sure that those alleged problems weren't really just based on
problematic math.

-- 
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA  90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
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