...In Search of the Black Swan: Analysis of the Statistical Evidence of Electoral Fraud in Venezuela Ricardo Hausmann Harvard University Roberto Rigobón Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 3, 2004 *This study was requested by Súmate who also provided the databases we used. We appreciate the great information gathering effort carried out by this organization. We are equally indebted to a hard working collaborator who, because of institutional reasons, must remain anonymous. We thank Andrés Velasco as well for his useful comments. The opinions expressed in this report and the errors we may have incurred are our responsibility and do not compromise either Súmate, or the universities to which we belong. 1 Abstract This study analyzes diverse hypotheses of electronic fraud in the Recall Referendum celebrated in Venezuela on August 15, 2004. We define fraud as the difference between the elector’s intent, and the official vote tally. Our null hypothesis is that there was no fraud, and we attempt to search for evidence that will allow us to reject this hypothesis. We reject the hypothesis that fraud was committed by applying numerical maximums to machines in some precincts. Equally, we discard any hypothesis that implies altering some machines and not others, at each electoral precinct, because the variation patterns between machines at each precinct are normal. However, the statistical evidence is compatible with the occurrence of fraud that has affected every machine...
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...politicians use their language, to make them seem more electable and make them seem more favourable to the electorate. From this the Investigation will discover to what extent an election speech impacts on voting. Thus, this investigation aims to explore: • How politicians use a range of persuasive techniques to reinforce their influential power. I expect that the politician who uses persuasion most effectively will seem more favourable to the electorate. Politicians that aren’t confident may hinder their chances with the electorate, even though they use persuasive techniques. This would show them as a weaker leader, even though their speech when read may be the strongest. • To what extent might political rhetoric directly influence the decisions of potential voters? This is also key to discuss how the politician themselves deliver their speech; we would be able to see if the electorate responds to a more confident speaker, regardless how influential the speech is on paper....
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...Voting Problem in America Voting Problem in America Numerous studies have been steered to support with observing for influences that will demonstration by public do not contribute in voting. It has remained a mounting difficulties with appropriate voters not registering and object their ballot. Over the decades, Americans have vanished trace with the antiquity of voting. Voting for in determinations supports in providing underpinning on why society do not participate in voting. Analyses provide tangible influences with why societies do not vote with illustration clusters support. Discovery of behaviors will show the unabridged development with the existing system supports with the American community. The 2008 elections enquiry provides awareness with the diverse motives from highest to lowest. Giving some understanding on the origin of the unruly and outcome resolutions to battle these problems. Examination can transform that are currently in domicile and assuring voting contributions on the ability to speak on the issues and distresses. Observing at other countries for potential solutions to the problem can be one riposte for the United States voting delinquent. Using tads and shards can support with altering he existing classification that does not work. Without transformation, the voting contribution will endure to diminish. The history behind the voting in America helps wonder why this pass civil liberty has fallen to many Americans waist side in today’s world. As America...
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...It’s the economy, stupid! David Gross, Holo Zheng, IMBA, Bar-‐Ilan University, 2014-‐2015 ! Introduc4on As much as naConal security is considered to be the first duty of any government, naConal elecCons are generally decided on the issue of economic competence. This was most clearly seen in the UK General ElecCon of 1945, where aNer prosecuCng the Second World War successfully, it was widely expected that Winston Churchill was would be re-‐elected with a handsome margin. Not only did the Labour party win, but it did so in a landslide, indicaCng that the public wanted economic issues to be placed at the top of the naConal agenda. In 1979, a similar phenomenon occurred, where aNer years of insCtuConal obstrucCon, strikes and poliCcal chicanery by the trade unions, Margaret Thatcher was returned as Prime Minister with a specific mandate to reform the economic landscape in the UK. The conduct ...
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...chairperson C. State and Local Organization 1. election, caucuses 2. wards Prereading and Vocabulary 2 1. should cut back on expensive government programs Sample definition: Conservatives believe in cutting costs and government programs. 2. came to vote Sample definition: The electorate is the group of people who are allowed to vote. 3. voted at the polling place, elementary school Sample definition: A precinct is a small area from which all the residents report to vote at one location. 4. wards 5. bipartisan 6. nominate 7. Liberals 8. resign CHAPTER 5 Section 1 Reading Comprehension 3 1. Answers for rankings will vary. Historical basis: The two-party system is rooted in the beginnings of the U.S., when the ratification of the Constitution gave rise to the first two parties. Tradition: Most Americans accept the idea of a two-party system simply because there has always been one. Electoral system: Since only one winner per office comes out of each election, voters have only two viable choices—the candidate of the party holding office or the candidate with the best chance of replacing the current officeholder. Voters tend to think of a vote for a minor party candidate as a wasted vote. Republicans and Democrats work together in a bipartisan way to write election laws to make it hard for a minor party or independent candidate to win elective office. Ideological consensus: Compared with other countries, the U.S. has been free of longstanding...
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...Introduction to Political Analysis Question: Using illustrations from attempts at voter suppression and the challenges to these attempts, examine the strengths and weaknesses of the electoral system in the United States. Name: Winston Walker Course Code: GOVT 1000 ID #: 607005957 No electoral system is perfect, but the strengths and weakness of the electoral system is based on the system of government used. The two most common systems of government are the Federal system and the Unitary system. According to dictionary.com, the term electoral system refers to, the legal system for making democratic choices. The United States of America operate under a federal system of government, which by definition, refers to a government in which the powers of government are divided between a central government and several local governments. The electoral system of the United States is set up in this manner, you vote for a mayor, senator, a member of the House of Representatives, you vote directly for that person. However, when you vote for president, you are really voting for an elector who has pledged to represent that candidate. The electors chosen by each state are called the Electoral College. This consists of 538 members, comprising 100 senators, 435 congressmen, and 3 members from the District of Columbia. States with large populations, like California have over 50 electoral votes, while sparsely populated states like Alaska has only 3 electoral votes. This system of government...
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...President Obama won the elections because of the ground operation presented by volunteers of his elections' campaigns (CNN Wire 1). I chose this topic since reports in state media indicated that the Republican Party was leading in the pre-election polls, but in the end the Democratic Party won due to the use of technological innovation (Edsall 1). An in depth analysis reveals that the presidential contest favored President Obama for using social media. Social media is increasingly an easy, fast, and effective way for people to have personal contact through technology. The intention is to prove...
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...and agree to try to influence public policy to achieve those goals. 2. Alexis de Tocqueville- French political writer noted for his analysis of American institutions 3. public goods - benefits that everyone gets whether or not they join the group, 4. private goods- benefits that ONLY come to those who are members 5. free rider problem- Why would anyone join a group that will provide benefits to everyone regardless of membership? 6. union shop- anyone working for the company has to join the union or at least pay a part of the dues to cover cost of negotiating contracts 7. right-to-work laws- outlaw union shop contracts 8. benefits for group membership: solidarity- make people feel good for joining a group and working with others to make the world a better place. 9. Material- include things like discounts on goods or services, or low cost life or auto insurance. 10. Information- provide members with information that they find interesting and useful. 11. “Federalist Number 10”- how the new government created by the Constitution would help deal with the problem of factions. 12. Faction- He lumps parties and interest groups togetheras including both large groups (majority factions)and small groups (minority factions) ofpassionate people who are united bysome interest. 13. democratic pluralism- checking and balancing 14. lobbying- those activities in which people contact public officials to try and influence public policy 15...
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...TR-2003-19, July 23, 2003. Analysis of an Electronic Voting System TADAYOSHI KOHNO∗ A DAM S TUBBLEFIELD† DAN S. WALLACH§ February 27, 2004 AVIEL D. RUBIN‡ Abstract With significant U.S. federal funds now available to replace outdated punch-card and mechanical voting systems, municipalities and states throughout the U.S. are adopting paperless electronic voting systems from a number of different vendors. We present a security analysis of the source code to one such machine used in a significant share of the market. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast...
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...pelley and katie prowse Submitted to: Penny Moss Submission date: November 30, 2015 ------------------------------------------------- Carmex Case Analysis J&K Consulting Group MR1100 Submitted by: Jessica pelley and katie prowse Submitted to: Penny Moss Submission date: November 30, 2015 ------------------------------------------------- Carmex Case Analysis J&K Consulting Group [Company address] Table of Contents Brief Overview (Summary)………………………………….. Page Two Statement of Issue………………………………………………. Page Three Environmental Scan…………………………………………….. Page Four Questions and Answers……………………………………….. Page Five Appendix A………………………………………………………….. Page Eight Brief Overview Since 1973, Carmex has been manufacturing lip balms. The company has grown significantly, and in the past five years they’ve been making new efforts to become more competitive. Carmex used social media in the past to help market their products. With three new potential flavors, they can only put two into quantitative testing. Carmex will concentrate on using Facebook to help them determine which two flavors to move forward with, and to help drive their Facebook metrics. ------------------------------------------------- In order to narrow the flavor choices from three to two, the marketing team made a decision to do this through Facebook “likes” and “engagements.” The marketing team also decided to use contests and promotions in order to help increase the number...
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...world, the news media reaches and affects every person in the United States. The question now is does mass media such as newspapers, television, and the internet affect the voting trends of the voters? The ownership of the media (Djankov, Nenova, McLiesh, & Shleifer, 2003), targeting specific demographics (Clinton & Lapinski, 2004), the implications of the internet (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2003) and how candidates use media (Aarts & Semetko, 2003) are all important aspects in determining whether a potential bias exists (Eveland & Shah, 2003) on the part of the news media. It is hypothesized that when the mass media displays certain biases leaning towards one party over the other, the populace tends to vote in the direction of the media. The following five scholarly literature reviews will attempt to demonstrate and support the hypothesis. According to Eveland and Shah (Eveland & Shah, 2003, p. 101)there is “a large percentage of the public (that) believes that the news media are biased, and the majority of these individuals consider the direction of bias to be against their own viewpoint”. This drives the question this paper attempts to answer. This article looks at media’s credibility and integrity in the eyes of individual people. The author’s give several hypothesis to provide multiple angles at which to look at the issue of the perceived hostile media bias’s. Aarts and Semetko offer a different look on media and voter trends. They...
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... Their reports have a critical role in making the people choose a right person. But sometimes, some form of media fail to realize its responsibility but rather biased towards one or more political parties which results in choosing a wrong leader to rule the nation due to ignorance and faulty opinions. Not only this, media also has the responsibility to make the citizens know about the norms and regulations of elections, but most of the media reports fail to do that but only covers the political scenario, which keeps the citizen ignorant and results in less and false votes. And also the expected election reports published by the media which were paid by the political parties most of the time also creates a significant change in the mentality of the citizens. Media should therefore should make sure that it always portrays the actual and true information especially during elections for the betterment of people and the nation Democracy means right to freely express diverse opinions, and on the votes of well-informed citizens. Media organizations and journalists play a vital role in the electoral process by assuring the dissemination of news and diverse opinions. Media make possible deeper knowledge of candidates, parties and their programs. Journalists contribute to the effective participation of citizens in democratic debate, especially by ensuring that issues of public interest remain at the...
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...elections * Currently widely-deployed voting systems need improvement Voting on the Internet using every day PC's offers only weak security, but its main disadvantages are in the areas of anonymity and protection against coercion and/or vote selling. It's such a truly bad idea that there seems to be no credible academic effort to deploy it at all. The Presidential elections of 2000 brought national attention to problems with current American methods of casting and counting votes in public elections. Most people believe that the current system should be changed; there is much disagreement on how such changes should be made. The MIT/Caltech researchers [1] “see a promising future for electronic voting, despite its problems today” (under a few conditions). They advocate using the methods currently in use which result in the lowest average numbers of “uncounted, unmarked, and spoiled ballots,” like in-precinct optical scanning. Their report even proposes a framework for new voting system with a decentralized, modular design. Other researchers have done work in electronic voting; while they may not explicitly mention voting from remote poll sites, their work is nonetheless relevant to any effort at designing or implementing a remote poll site voting system. Lorrie Cranor [2] could be classified, like the Caltech/MIT researchers, as a cautious optimist. She acknowledges the problems inherent in each kind of voting apparatus, but doesn't make an over the recommendation on her...
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...Corporate Governance Blueprint 2011 Towards Excellence in Corporate Governance Suruhanjaya Sekuriti Malaysia 3 Persiaran Bukit Kiara Bukit Kiara 50490 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Tel: 603-6204 8000 Fax: 603-6201 5078 www.sc.com.my Copyright © July 2011 Securities Commission Malaysia All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (graphical, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, taping or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the Securities Commission Malaysia. Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Corporate governance blueprint 2011 : towards excellence in corporate governance Bibliography : p. 77 ISBN 978–983–9386–67–7 1. Corporate governance--Malaysia. 2. Industrial management. 1. Suruhanjaya Sekuriti Malaysia. 658.4009595 Cataloguing-in-Publication Data This book is printed using eco-friendly recyclable and bio-degradable paper CONTENTS FOREWORD BY MINISTER OF FINANCE II, MALAYSIA MESSAGE FROM CHAIRMAN OF THE SECURITIES COMMISSION MALAYSIA INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 v vii 1 5 SHAREHOLDER RIGHTS CHAPTER 2 13 ROLE OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS CHAPTER 3 21 THE BOARD’S ROLE IN GOVERNANCE – – – – ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES INDEPENDENCE OF THE BOARD COMPOSITION OF THE BOARD COMMITMENT OF BOARD MEMBERS 43 CHAPTER 4 DISCLOSURE AND TRANSPARENCY CHAPTER 5 53 ROLE OF GATEKEEPERS AND INFLUENCERS CHAPTER 6 61 PUBLIC AND...
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...the cornerstone of democracy. Voting should be viewed as a freedom, which consists of a certain amount of responsibility. When a person votes, voting makes a major impact on every piece of daily lives from free access to education to homeland security and financial solidity. When the people vote they are making their voices heard and expressing judgment on how they feel the government should function. The individuals who do not exercise their free right or franchise, by default they let others to make choices for them. Those citizens have to live with the judgment of the small minority...
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