Are our people statistics-literate?

Quick-count has been such a mandatory activity during the election of regional leaders in Indonesia. Many political research agencies, press, or even universities involve and do their own quick-count to predict the vote result. Sometimes, they just did it to show off that they have superior sampling methodology than other institutions. Ah…

Today, people of South Sumatera give their vote to one of two couples of candidates: Alex Noerdin-Eddy Yusuf (Aldy) and Syahrial Oesman-Helmi Yahya (Sohe). It is noticed that there are three agencies that held quick-count. And here is the result (http://www.detik.com/):

• Pusat Kajian Pembangunan Strategis (Puskaptis) : Sohe 51,11%, Aldy 48,89%
• Lingkaran Survey Indonesia: Sohe 49%, Aldy 51%
• Lembaga Survey Indonesia: Sohe 47,88%, Aldy 52,12%

Supporters of Sohe did a winning ceremony by doing a convoy. They claimed that their candidate won the election. So did Aldy’s supporters. What is happening in our society? They are not patient in waiting final result that will be counted by election commission. All of them forgot that quick-count by those agencies are based on the vote in a subset of voter, just a sample and not a complete one. Number resulted by quick-count is statistic; it is a prediction and probably wrong. Of course, the result may be completely wrong when the agencies is not independent and has an interest to the vote result.

I just want to say that people should be aware that sample may give similar result to the actual, however it would be wiser to wait until complete enumeration finished. And it will be happened in a few future days. Just be patient….