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Mexico, Elections 2012

I was encouraged to look at the 2012 elections in Mexico by Alejandro Martínez Gallardo, who said, "there is a very polarized election in Mexico, with great controversy, at the wake of a massive protest movement fueled by university students. Yesterday, there were 300 thousand young people in the central square in a political protest. I think the data collected could be very interesting." We discussed the parameters and agreed that the event should be treated in the same way as the 2008 US Election.

From Reuters:

The party that ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century claimed victory in a presidential election on Sunday as exit polls and early official results showed its candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto, with a clear advantage over his rivals.

The telegenic candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had about 38 percent support and a lead of least 6 percentage points over his nearest rival, according to an official "quick count" by election authorities, putting the PRI on course to return to power after 12 years in opposition.

"Mexicans have given our party another chance. We are going to honor it with results," Pena Nieto told supporters in the capital shortly after the quick count was announced.

Departing President Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, congratulated Pena Nieto and promised to work with him during the transition.

But the second-placed leftist challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to concede defeat. "The last word hasn't been spoken yet," he told supporters.

The GCP event was set for the 24 hour period from noon on the 1st to noon on the 2nd of June. This corresponds to 17:00 June 1st to 17:00 June 2nd UTC. The result is Chisquare 86994.793 on 86400 df for p = 0.076 and Z = 1.429.

Mexico, Elections 2012

It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.


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