The Quick Count and Election Observation

CHAPTER FIVE: STATISTICAL PRINCIPLES AND QUICK COUNTS
60 unnecessary, since a single blood sample reveals all that a physician needs to
know about the contents of a patient’s entire blood supply.
Quick count samples
provide a reliable foundation
for making
accurate estimates of
the total population.
Quick count samples rely on exactly the same principles. An observer group
might consider asking volunteers to observe every single polling station in the
country and report every single result. That strategy would require a huge
amount of resources, and it is unnecessary. Like the chemist and the physician,
observer groups can learn everything they need to know about the entire
voting population by using a carefully designed sample. The method is faster,
cheaper and more practical.
Quick count samples provide a reliable foundation for making accurate estimates
of the total population because a sample is a particular subset of the total
population, a subset that reveals population characteristics. Even so, designing
samples means making choices, and those choices have a profound effect on
both the accuracy of the data and the kinds of data analysis possible.
The Population
Technically, a population refers to all the relevant individual cases that exist
within a certain boundary. Often statisticians are not concerned with counting
individuals. Quick counts are not interested in every individual living within
the boundary of a particular country. Quick counts are concerned only with
the relevant population—every individual who is eligible to vote.
Quick counts begin
with the assumption
that the vote count
data themselves are
reliable and valid.
The quick count’s relevant population excludes all people who, for whatever
legal reason, are not eligible to vote. The electoral laws of most countries have
clear rules concerning voting age, for example. Very young people are not
usually eligible to vote, although the precise age limit varies from one country
to the next. Similarly, most countries have citizenship requirements that
allow only citizens to vote in national elections. 4
Getting from a Sample to a Population
Quick counts begin with the assumption that the vote count data themselves
are reliable and valid. In other words, quick counts assume that the official
vote counts produced at polling stations—the data collected by observers from
each and every sample point—are robust information. In fact, observer groups
are able to verify that assumption by undertaking a systematic qualitative observation
of the voting and counting processes at the polling stations. 5
If a systematic qualitative observation of election-day procedures establishes
that the vote count data are reliable and valid, and if basic statistical princi-
4
It should be noted that the democratic nature of an election can be negated by improper, discriminatory
exclusions from voting eligibility and/or by manipulations of official voter lists. Such issues
are not addressed by quick counts but should be covered by other election monitoring activities.
See, e.g., Building Confidence in the Voter Registration Process, An NDI Guide for Political Parties
and Civic Organizations (2001).
5
Chapter Six, The Qualitative Component of the Quick Count, details the procedures followed to systematically
evaluate the quality of the voting and counting procedures.