In this space several weeks ago, I criticized a
candidate for being too casual in his use of statistics and numbers. It
is only fair that I give myself the same treatment. In last week’s
analysis of Cape Elizabeth’s elections, I expressed the results for the
Town Council and School Board races in a way that was both
uninformative and confusing. For an analysis of these specific
mistakes, see “For the record” on page 1. I hope to use this space to
take a longer view of the importance of getting numbers right.

    The soon-to-be-former Secretary of Defense once
proffered a now famous explanation of facts. He described facts as
falling into three categories: “known knows,” (we know what we know);
“known unknowns,” (we know what we don’t know) and “unknown unknowns”
(we don’t know what we don’t know). What was left unsaid, either
intentionally or not is a fourth set of facts: false knowns (we know
there are weapons of mass destruction in the vicinity of Tikrit). Many
critics of the administration’s policies have cited a case of “tunnel
vision” for a strategy based upon so many false knowns.

    On the Wednesday after the election, with the
returns in hand, I began the process of converting the raw numbers into
percentages– something I know I know how to do. With the clickity-clack
of the calculator I checked and rechecked my results. But I did not
take a step back to see what these numbers were revealing. The answer
is: not very much. I thought my premise was sound in assigning each
candidate a proportion of the votes cast for all candidates and it
would have been if the candidates were pursuing a single seat. Because
there were three seats contested and each candidate could only receive
one vote per voter, under this methodology no candidate could receive
more than 33.3 percent of the vote. (See page 1 analysis).

With malice toward none and no agenda other than to describe the
results accurately, my analysis effectively downplayed the victories of
the winning candidates by leaving the impression that not a single
candidate was elected by a majority of voters. There are significant
implications that could result from this confusion. By falsely
concluding that three of seven councilors and the same proportion of
school board members won with less than a majority of votes, those
bodies could be robbed of any mandate derived from their victories. In
a contentious budget debate or an unpopular stand on an issue, this
false conclusion could lead residents to believe the decisions made
lacked popular legitimacy.

    Numbers and statistics can be accurately massaged
and manipulated to leave false impressions. Sometimes this is done
intentionally and in my case, sloppily.

    I apologize to the candidates and the voters of Cape Elizabeth for the confusion caused. –Ward Peck