The Green Line and the Security Fence:

34
model, the Ethnicity factor became only ** significant, but lost one * after adding issues,
and lost the last * after adding “performances.”
The correlation of individual votes in the 1996 and 1999 elections (those older than 26y,
including Arab votes) in our poll is 95.6%, which means that 4.4% of voters switched
sides, while in reality 6.6% voters changed their affinity to Netanyahu in the 1999
elections (from 50.5% in 1996 to 43.9% in 1999, see The Elections in Israel – 2001, 8).
The difference between 4.4% and 6.6% is not * significant. 37
Further, our poll shows a 93.3% correlation of the individual vote in the 1999 and 2001
elections (those older than 23y, including Arab votes), which means that 6.7% of voters
changed sides. In the 2001 elections, Barak got 18.5% fewer votes, compared with the
1999 elections. However, in 2001 there was the lowest turnout for the elections ever
known: 2.7 million vs. 3.2 million in 1999 (The Elections in Israel-2001, 8). It is known
that many of Barak’s 1999 supporters, Arabs included, were reluctant to vote in 2001,
while our poll included only people who did vote in 1999 and in 2001. Despite this subtle
point, overall, we believe our poll represents fairly the entire Israeli population in its
diversity.
9. The Individual Poll vs. Aggregate Data
The poll highlighted the problems known as “ecological inference” regarding the Income
and Ethnic background variables.