Yesterday both we and Media Matters had the same idea for a post about the press’ continued confusion over registered and eligible voters in both the recent Iraqi election and past U.S. elections. But after a few Google searches, we learned that our argument couldn’t stand on its own two feet, and we dropped the idea.
Media Matters didn’t.
The Media Matters post focuses on the widely reported figure provided by the Iraqi Electoral Commission that 58 percent (8.55 million) of Iraqi registered voters voted in the January 30 election. Media Matters complains:
[C]ontrary to assertions by numerous media outlets, [58 percent] is substantially lower than voter turnout in the U.S., which in 2004 was approximately 122 million out of the approximately 173.6 million registered voters, or 70 percent. Between 1992 and 2000, the percentage of registered voters who cast ballots in U.S. presidential elections ranged from 66 to 78 percent.
In making the erroneous comparison, the media presumably relied on the more typically reported 2004 presidential election figure of 60.7 percent turnout in the 2004 presidential election. But that percentage is not of registered voters; it is of a larger pool of eligible voters, numbering approximately 201 million.
While Media Matters has got its statistics in order, it leaves out one important fact that kept us from writing yesterday: The set of registered voters and the set of eligible voters in the past Iraqi election were virtually identical. And pretty much everyone agrees that no one has any idea about the definite size of that body of voters.
All Iraqi citizens over the age of 18 were eligible to vote and those holding a valid ration card for the UN “Oil for Food” program were considered registered.
Given that about 40 percent of Iraq’s population of 25 million is less than 14 years of age, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq estimated the number of registered voters at 14,660,000. But both Gregg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post have called into question the accuracy of the estimate. Some experts, Kurtz wrote, say that number could be as high as 17 or 18 million.
If Kurtz is correct, then Media Matters might have an argument. But, as Kurtz pointed out, the list of registered voters was just as unreliable as the estimate of eligible voters. He later told Mitchell, “The point is, it’s all fuzzy math, and I was just trying to illustrate that.”
The Media Matters post isn’t totally off base. As the group notes, it’s evident that the media has eaten up the 58 percent figure and is touting it as cold, hard fact. But the real issue here, as with Social Security projections, is the press’ failure to explore the validity of the numbers being tossed around. And that includes Media Matters.
–Thomas Lang
Thomas Lang was a writer at CJR Daily.