[EL] Limits of scientific method for policy decisions
Justin Levitt
levittj at lls.edu
Wed Aug 6 21:38:09 PDT 2014
I linked to it in my Wonkblog piece -- the best study out there on the
issue is, I believe, this piece
<http://harvardlawreview.org/2008/05/vote-fraud-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder-the-role-of-public-opinion-in-the-challenge-to-voter-identification-requirements/>
by Steve Ansolabehere and Nate Persily.
And I don't know if the results are all that surprising. There's a
fairly extensive literature on the difference between expressed choices
and observed choices. The fact that some people say that more
restrictive ID laws would make them feel more confident in the integrity
of the election process does not mean that people actually feel more
confident after such laws are passed (or that people are measurably more
confident in states with more restrictive ID laws than in states
without). One possible explanation is that people gauge the integrity
of the election more based on whether their favored candidates win than
on the election mechanics. One possible explanation is that people's
beliefs about whether elections are being stolen or not are resistant to
change, even as conditions vary. One possible explanation is that some
people grow more confident in the integrity of the election as the rules
get tighter (with more protection against fraud) and others grow less
confident in the integrity of the election as the rules get tighter (and
more possibility that eligible voters' ballots aren't counted). I'm
sure there are others.
Justin
On 8/6/2014 7:04 PM, Justin Riemer wrote:
> Can someone point me to the study that showed photo ID laws did not in
> fact increase voter confidence in the system? To the best of my
> knowledge (I could certainly be wrong), there was only one report of
> note that indicated as much. It seems awfully hard to reconcile the
> overwhelmingly strong public support for the laws, by anyone's measure
> really, and their supposed lack of positive impact on voter confidence.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> J Justin Riemer
> 772-559-1567
> JJustinRiemer at gmail.com <mailto:JJustinRiemer at gmail.com>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 9:42 PM, Schultz, David A.
> <dschultz at hamline.edu <mailto:dschultz at hamline.edu>> wrote:
>
> Jon:
>
> You respond as if both sides in the debate are equal in their
> approach to evidence. This is not the case. Repeatedly those who
> believe that wide spread fraud exist have have had their evidence
> debunked over time. The line of debate, at least the way I
> approach it, is between those who assert that fraud exists despite
> what the evidence says versus those (when I argue it at least) who
> make it an empirical claim to test. Yes there are limits to
> scientific knowledge and you wax well about it in your e-mail but
> all that you argue is mostly irrelevant to what is supposed to be
> an empirical debate. My point is that arguing with those who
> believe in voter fraud is like arguing with those who believe a
> second shooter existed in Dallas in 1963. No matter what you
> argue you cannot win. And that is the point--in the end claims
> about voter fraud are not empirical, they are either political or
> simply based on belief. They are powerful tools to move people.
> Finally, I just disagree with your assertions about the use of
> evidence in the making of public policy. I have written an entire
> book on this topic that you should read after you read my book on
> election law. Perhaps if we had more evidence-based policy the
> government would do fewer dumber things like enact voter id laws,
> subsidize professional sports teams, or enact laws that restrict
> immigration or public assistance on the belief that immigrants and
> welfare recipients are a financial drain on the economy. Too much
> of our policy making is based on fear, ignorance, and prejudice.
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 6:34 PM, Jon Roland
> <jon.roland at constitution.org <mailto:jon.roland at constitution.org>>
> wrote:
>
> As powerful as scientific method <http://pynthan.org/> is, for
> situations that lend themselves to it, it is important to
> understand its limitations, particularly for making policy
> decisions that do not always allow for the level of certainty
> that scientific method can provide, but have to be made
> anyway, on perhaps flimsy evidence, if the evidence on all
> sides of an issue is flimsy.
>
> The old saw is, "What is the rate of occurrence of
> undetectable crimes?"
>
> Game/decision theory can provide some insight. A confidence
> function applied to a proposition assigns a value on the unit
> interval, [0,1], where 0 is falsity and 1 is certainty. Those
> extreme values are only for propositions in mathematics or
> logic. Empirical model propositions get levels of confidence
> in between.
>
> A policy choice is usually cast in terms of which of several
> alternatives have the highest level of confidence, but it is
> possible for every alternative to have a confidence level of
> less than .5. The alternatives might even all have levels
> close to zero.
>
> The obvious question then is, if the confidence levels of
> every alternative are close to zero, why choose any of them?
> The answer is that there are other confidence measures that
> come into play.
>
> One of these is confidence in the estimates of the costs and
> benefits of deferring a decision, and of getting the choice
> wrong. If the estimate of the chance of an adverse outcome is
> low, but the cost of choosing the alternative is low, and the
> cost of such outcome is high, one may rationally make a
> prudent choice on weak evidence of the chances of the
> alternative happening. (Precautionary principle
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle>.)
>
> There is a separate assessment of when a decision is needed.
> It is often possible to have a high level of confidence that a
> decision is urgent, even if one cannot have a high level of
> confidence in any of the decision alternatives. This leads to
> a second dimension of analysis, in which confidence levels in
> the costs and benefits of alternative decisions, including not
> choosing any of the positive actions, are plotted against
> time, which may result in an assessment of the optimum
> decision time, which could be immediately, or it could be never.
>
> Systems analysis, combined with a knowledge of human nature,
> provides another approach. One such approach is opportunity
> analysis: If a system affords an opportunity to commit an
> offense ("defect"), there are players with motive, method, and
> opportunity to do so, at little risk and a high payoff, then
> one can reasonably presume that if it can happen, someone is
> doing it, even it the defections are undetectable. It may be
> worth the cost to close off some such opportunities
> ("temptations") even if no violations are detected.
>
> In the field of elections, we need to analyze the kinds of
> vote fraud that can be done (such as ballot access,
> registration, impersonation, box stuffing, counting, and
> reporting), and the costs/risks/benefits of each method that
> might be used. Clearly, the payoffs are very high, so one can
> expect the temptation to cheat will be irresistible to some.
> That leads to comparing the relative costs/risks/benefits of
> each opportunity and exploitation method. There is no strong
> incentive for fraudsters to risk impersonation fraud if they
> have rigged the counting.
>
> My own admittedly informal analysis is that the cost and risk
> of impersonation fraud is too high for the payoff of getting a
> few more votes. That leaves registration and counting.
> Clearly, voter ID cards will not prevent registration fraud,
> unless people try to vote multiple times at the same polling
> places with different ID cards and some poll worker recognizes
> them. That means such impersonators would have to scatter
> their illegal votes at multiple polling places and that adds
> to the cost for the small payoff.
>
> That leaves box stuffing and counting. If measures are taken
> to prevent the first, then it is counting where the system
> vulnerability lies, and where efforts for reform need to focus.
>
> On another note, it is unconstitutional to require
> government-issued ID as proof of eligibility, because that
> that adds a qualification not in any constitution. It is
> reasonable to require proof of citizenship and residence, but
> government-issued ID gives anonymous bureaucrats the power to
> decide who gets to vote, and that amounts to an opportunity
> for registration fraud.
>
> -- Jon
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
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> Austin, TX 78750512/299-5001 <tel:512%2F299-5001> jon.roland at constitution.org <mailto:jon.roland at constitution.org>
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> --
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