How many people are thinking outside of the box?

Image Credit: Michael Taylor

As a mathematician, elections are great fun to watch. We get to see TV channels competing for the best presentation of descriptive statistics. Unfortunately it is common practice to use pompous pie charts without quantifying the raw data used to calculate slice angles, blaring bar charts without scales, or raucous ranking with missing entries like the no vote. As they each battle it out for their own share of TV viewers, people’s voting patterns often tell a very different story from what is presented.

During the Greek regional elections today, numeracy was struck two enormous blows by innumerate election journalism. Two hours after initial results started to be announced, all eyes turned toward the spokesman of Singular Logic – the data communication company used to collate election ballot data. In a serious tone, he began his speech by making conclusions about which of the two main parties won the most regions and city councils, and by what margin. This was followed by him presenting the vote for representatives of different political parties region by region. While ranking tables were displayed, a percentage in the bottom left of each window was clearly visible. Political commentators immediately pounced on the data, analysing the significance of the results. Amazingly, the untalked about percentage in the corner was suitably ignored. It was the proportion of total votes counted so far. At the time the spokesman of Singular Logic was giving his polished “predicted results” speech, it varied from only 10% to 12%. Conclusions were being drawn on only about a tenth of the vote. And that was without using multiple sampling or the use of bootstrap methods to test that the claims made on 10% of the vote were anything like what the population vote was expected to be.

The second blow was the fraction of votes won by each party candidate. While, the results of this election for regional and city council seats correctly reported the percentages of total votes cast (typically 45%-75%) as well as the number of blank or cancelled votes due to empty or damaged ballots (typically 5%-10%), the rank tables then went on to list only the percentages of the votes cast. They conveniently side-stepped the real picture painted by the percentage of total votes. And in this election which is compulsory, it appears that on average 40% of votes were not cast – i.e.  no-votes.

If, in their tables,  a rank was assigned to the percentage of people who didn’t vote, then the winner would be nobody. The election map of Greece would look very different with the majority of regions left autonomous due to a majority of no votes i.e. selection of no candidate = Vote E.

Image Credit: Michael Taylor

It has become something of a tradition in elections for government administrations to downplay and under-analyse the no vote. They often refer to it when referring to voting methods and patterns of voter turnout. It is usually attributed to voter apathy or voter fatigue or dismissed altogether. It is not usually counted as a vote in itself. But, is this the case? After all, if nobody votes for anybody, doesn’t that mean that they choose not to vote for any of the candidates on the list? Of course it does. In maths, a box is a box even if people choose to think outside of it or not put their ballot slips into it. Imagine the outrage if voters for one of the main parties had their votes censored? This is exactly what happened to the no-vote in Greece today. Here, votes for E (nobody) is a big number – more than a million real people with two legs each. And, as we all know, legs are made for walking.

Image Credit: Michael Taylor

Contemporary parliamentary democracies are the product of a slow but gradual increase in tolerance to opinion thanks to our voting ancestors who fought and won the right to vote. It is ironic that today, administrations are being elected on a minority of votes. In Europe, the excluded majority is no longer female or non-white, it is the no-vote and it has grown to such an extent that it can no longer be hidden from the statistics. Exactly what role those thinking outside the box will play in the future, only time will tell.