Friday, September 28, 2012

VN&V final campaign coverage and exit poll: help requested

We are in the last campaign stretch and I am asking readers to help for the following, while informing of other activities:


1- Caracas event next Sunday.  I cannot attend. But I would like very much to publish pictures from readers in Caracas attending.  So if you are going to attend let me know so we can figure out ways to publish pictures you may be able to mail me live.  NOTE: I cannot publish all and any picture because a) my internet in San Felipe sucks and b) we do not want to make the page too heavy for other victims of Venezuela's bad internet.  So I will ask you to chose the pics you will send me for publication.

Also, I would like very much to have someone in EACH starting point, in particular a soul brave enough to march in Oeste part, not because of its danger but because it is the longest part.

If you plan a live tweet or facebook of your Sunday, let me know so I can advertise your tweets.

2- I will do a live tweet from the formal final closing ceremony in Barquisimeto. More details on that later. I am organizing my schedule as I may have my own press card :) We may even do a group picture of readers that may attend.

3- I am also considering a VN&V exit poll. For it to be meaningful and to be ready to publish at 7 PM a result of "tendencia" we need to have an observer in at least 25 voting stations.  If you or one of your friend or relative is in a polling station let me know so we can work out a system. It does not matter whether you are a Capriles witness or an actual "miembro de mesa".

Communication would be through a safe new tweeter account to be provided. If you have no tweet we can manage an SMS system but I would prefer not as less safe in Venezuela.  You can be the link between me and the witness or miembro de mesa if you can find one.

The contact will give me one tweet at opening time to confirm that installation went well and how many people are indeed registered at its voting station.

A second tweet around noon as to how many people have already voted.

A third tweet when your voting station closes.

A last (?) tweet when you know Capriles and Chavez total.

If needed additional tweets if your table is audited or if some trouble were to happen.

Of course, I will not reveal anything of the polling station info you will be attending.

I will be doing the math as results arrive, for participation  etc...  Note, it does not matter whether you are in a pro Chavez or pro Capriles district: what I will watch is whether the opposition vote increased since 2006 and whether the shift indicates a possible Capriles victory. Example: you are in El Cafetal where Capriles CANNOT lose. In 2006 the results were 80% participation  80% for Rosales. Well, if October 7 there is 85% participation and 85% for Capriles then this is significant although not definitive.  But worry not, I will do the math.

As you may imagine this is a lot of work to set on my side (special tweet and gmail accounts, excel tables for each center, excel tables for total results, etc, etc...). So, before I get started on it I need to know by Monday if indeed I can get at least 25 people to inform me. No more than 5 overseas, by the way.

13 comments:

  1. Charly6:30 PM

    I will attend the closing ceremony in Bqto

    ReplyDelete
  2. Given that Yaracuy is a chavista stronghold, wouldn't it make more sense to report the goings-on in Sn Felipe, Daniel?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. syd, living in yaracuy does not mean i know people inside voting centers. nor would i want to do that, not wanting to attract attention.

      besides in yaracuy i know already the result: capriles around 45% with a 51 at best. in Sn Fel he wins with at least 55%.

      now, if you want to volunteer for ottawa or montreal........

      Delete
    2. I'm 2.5 hours sw of Toronto, the ven consulate there being my voting ctr. I've just asked the regular oppo organizers of these types of voting events, if the totalización is open to all voters (it has been a few times before). I'd like to be present at thi historic momnt, and would, of course, report. But here's the glitch. I got left behind, when wi-fi was gearing up. I've never updated, so I wouldn't be able to report in real time, assuming entry as a witness to the totalling of votes. I'll see about connecting with a much younger venny friend, who lives in TO, who votes and who's got all the bells and whistles.

      Delete
    3. toronto will do. as long as you have a contact inside that can inform, you have one week to get a better cel phone :)

      Delete
    4. Daniel, I need tranquility; a cellphone doesn't give me that. I'll find another way to get information to you. But first, I'm working on getting into the consulate for the vote tally at the end. I'm sure there will be others who are equipped and will allow me to add your email to the text msg addressees.

      Delete
    5. Daniel, Vz expat voter registrations at the Ven consulate in Toronto are up 300% in the past 10 years. There are now over 2000. Voter totalization is open to the public. But there may be more interested voters in witnessing the tally of votes than there is space in the small area in the consulate.

      So, I don't know if I'll be able to stay. But I'll do my best, before heading back to home base, Sunday night. And I'll try to get a message to you on the results.

      For all us labelled naïve Venezuelans, voters in particular, the die is cast. Nothing much else to do but to "Keep calm and carry on."

      Delete
  3. Interested in Washington DC? I'll be working the election (outside, but have access to the folks inside)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. washington will do. write to me.

      Delete
  4. Manuel7:50 PM

    One other thing you can do with your small sample is to applied a stratification methodology as in the following paper: Engel & Venetoulias (1992) The Chilean plebiscite: Projections without historic data, Journal of the American Statistical Association. (I can email it to you if you want). Loosely speaking, it allows you to weight your (non-random, non-representative) sample in a way that it "becomes" representative. Given your knowledge of the results of recent elections as well as other characteristics of Venezuelan elections, you could classify each electoral circuit according few criteria such as rural or urban, heavily pro-Chavez or pro-oposition, midly pro-Chavez or pro-opositionto , and any other relevant characteristic you can think of. A dozen types of electoral circuits would be enough. Then you need to assign a weight to each type. On election day, you just need to have few data points for each type, average them out and, finally, calculate the weighted average across types.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. errhh... I am not a statistician but if you are....

      what i know is what is a chavista or oppo circuit and the track record to prove it :-)

      write to me.

      Delete
  5. I will attend Caracas event

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous3:42 AM

    I will be in New Orleans Daniel. I can tweet you whats going on from there. I follow you from my TW which is @anti_chabestias. If you want to use another twitter account you can DM me the details. Great blog by the way!

    ReplyDelete

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