Reply #52: OK [View All]

[OnTheOtherHand]

1) I think the Dem ground game in PA did run exceptionally well -- but unless we're going to assume that the Reps don't really have a ground game (and frankly, it's hard for a lifelong Dem like me to imagine it), I don't think we can infer much from the mood among Dem activists in Harrisburg.

2) I think it's pretty plausible that there is some "far eastern phenomenon" that we can set alongside the "swing state effect." But we don't have any strong basis for arguing that this mysterious effect extends to NY but not to PA or OH.

3) There isn't a full explanation of the Best Geos, but I'm pretty sure they incorporate the demographic weights for non-response, and I'm pretty sure that the WPE figures don't. So that's a consideration.

Just to sum up, my big problems with the swing state effect are that

-- it seems sensitive to alternative measures,

-- it is undertheorized (are we positing that votes were stolen in all the swing states and nowhere else, so that the rest of the error is response bias? are we positing that maybe votes were stolen everywhere, but extra votes were stolen in the swing states, although in most cases not enough votes?), and

-- it is susceptible to alternative explanations (E/M apparently take it as weak support for their idea that response bias correlates with interest, which should have been higher in the swing states since that's where the campaigns actually operated).

That's my analytical objection to the swing state effect. It has nothing to do with whether there was actually vote theft in any particular state. And I think it's worth saying again, by the way, that if people stole or willfully suppressed votes in PA or anywhere else, they should go to prison for a very long time whether or not it affected the outcome in that state.