'Fuzzy Math' and the Iraqi Election

[tishaLA]

I'll be delighted if the turnout figure, when it is officially announced, exceeds the dubious numbers already enshrined by much of the media. But don’t be surprised if it falls a bit short. The point is: Nobody knows, and reporters and pundits should stop acting like they do know when they say, flatly, that 8 million Iraqis voted and that this represents a turnout rate of about 60%.

Carl Bialik, who writes the Numbers Guy column for Wall Street Journal Online, calls this “a great question...how the journalists can know these numbers--when so many of them aren't able to venture out all over that country.” Speaking to E&P on Wednesday, Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, one of the few mainstream journalists to raise questions about the turnout percentage, referred to the “fuzzy math” at the heart of it.

Those with long memories may recall the downward-adjusted turnout numbers that followed violence-plagued elections in South Vietnam in 1967 and in El Salvador in 1984.

And one thing we now know for sure: the early media blather about a "strong" Sunni turnout has proven false. Adding a dose of reality, The Associated Press on Wednesday cited a Western diplomat who declared that turnout appeared to have been "quite low" in Iraq's vast Anbar province. Meanwhile, Carlos Valenzuela, the chief United Nations elections expert in Iraq, cautioned that forecasts for the Sunni areas were so low to begin with that even a higher-than-expected turnout would remain low. Editor&Publisher