was the new hampshire primary rigged?
by Matt Hampson
Published: January 14, 2008
Yes, without a doubt.
According to Jon Krosnick, a Professor at Standford University, the order of the candidates’ names on the ballot drastically affects the choices of voters. This effect is known as “framing.”
Voters typically mentally eliminate “minor” candidates and then decide between the major candidates on the ballot. The first major candidate listed on the ballot typically receives a 3% boost in votes, while later major candidates suffer drastic reductions. Major candidates toward the end of the ballot suffer the most.
In the past, New Hampshire put the names of the candidates in a different order in each precinct in order to counter this effect. In fact, some of the data Krosnick is using to support his claims comes from previous New Hampshire primary elections, where precincts where a given candidate was first or close to first on the ballot showed a marked increase in votes for that candidate.
This year, however, the New Hampshire Secretary of State changed the policy. Instead of rotating the order of the candidates names in each precinct, all precincts had the candidates in alphabetical order, starting with a randomly chosen letter.
The randomly chosen letter was Z. This meant that Joe Biden was first on the list, with Hillary Clinton being the first major candidate to appear. Barack Obama was near the end of the list.
Krosnick says, “[I]f New Hampshire had rotated name order in the voting booth as it has always done in the past, the race would probably have been too close to call without a recount and might even have been an Obama victory.”
So yes, the race was rigged, but that brings up a harder question: Was it rigged intentionally, or was the biased situation merely a result of administrative mistakes? Either way, who is responsible?
Well, if the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office knew about the psychological effect of the order of the candidates names, and New Hampshire was having the data this issue analyzed by Stanford University, and had already devised a plan to deal with this issue, and had already been successfully using that plan for several years…why on Earth would they change it?
That’s a question that doesn’t seem to have been answered yet, but allow me to speculate:
Up until the primary, polls indicated that Obama held a commanding lead over Hillary. The alphabetical system is known to give a random major candidate a significant boost in the election. Obama had nothing to gain from such a boost, because he was already in the lead. He was expected to win.
On the other side of the coin, a Clinton supporter has everything to gain by changing to the random letter alphabetical system. If the boost goes to Obama, they haven’t hurt Clinton, because she was going to lose anyway. But if Clinton gains the 3%+ boost, that might be enough to turn the tables in her favor.
I live in Chicago, so I’m not nearly optimistic enough to believe that there’s not dirty politics going on in this race. I’m also quite sure that someone in the office of the New Hampshire Secretary of State could be motivated to change little details like this. Now, there’s no proof yet, and there’s not many people making allegations, so we may never know for sure.
Was the race rigged intentionally? Probably.
Regardless of how it happened, the framing of the candidates names means big things for the upcoming primaries. It means that Clinton’s lead isn’t as commanding as it seems, and she probably can’t expect the same kind of comebacks in other states. However, it also means that voters will have renewed faith in Hillary, which could translate into more legitimate votes for her… scratch that. It translates into more votes for her, but not necessarily legitimate votes.
Jon Krosnick’s report was published by ABC News and can be found here: ABC News
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