Was watching TV3 at 7:30, and their news updated reported that the smacking petition had “failed” because “people cheated by signing more than once”.
Quite aside from the fact that the petition has not failed, it paints those who signed as dishonest where reality is that all petitions have this.
The real story here is very, very different. From the Kiwi Party email:
The Government’s Statistician asked for a sample size of 1/11th to be carefully checked. That turned out to be 29,501 signatures out of the total count of 324,511. Of those signatures the Electoral Enrolment Centre ascertained that 25,754 where valid.
Accordingly, assuming that the sample was representative of the whole, the number of valid signatures should have been; 25,754 x 11 which equals 283,294. The number required is 285,027 so this indicates a shortfall of just 1,733 signatures!
However the Government’s Statistician has said that his best estimate is just 267,000 or a shortfall of 18,027; 16,294 greater than the 1/11th sample would indicate.
I think the 283,294 people who, based on the sample, validly signed the petition, deserve an explanation from the Government’s Statistician of that discrepancy. Why has he decided that the signatures of 16,294 people who are validly enrolled on the electoral roll are to be set aside?
Why indeed.
Something should go here, maybe later. 
So, let’s go out and collect the requisite signatures. Thirty minutes in a local shopping mall should do the trick.
Why indeed? If you got the email you may have got the attachments that went with it. He estimated it on the highest confidence level ( why?) based on the estimator of Goodman and Kiranandana. No idea what that is. If you want to see the attachments, e-mail me