The performance of techniques for estimating the number of eligible signatories to a large petition on the basis of a sample of signatures : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Statistics at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Abstract

The New Zealand Citizens' Initiated Referenda Act, 1993, states that if a petition signed by at least 10 percent of eligible electors is presented to the House of Representatives, then parliament is required to hold an indicative referendum on the petition. Normal practice at present is to check a sample of the signatures and from that estimate the number of eligible electors who have signed a petition, making allowance for signatories who are not eligible and multiple signatures from eligible electors. We review a number of techniques used for similar problems such as estimating the size of a population through capture-recapture studies, or estimating the number of duplicate entries in a mailing list. One suitable estimator was developed by Goodman (1949). A number of variants on it are reported by Smith-Cayama & Thomas (1999). An estimator proposed by Esty (1985) was found to give unreasonable estimates, and so a modification was developed. In order to test the performance of the modified estimator, simulations, drawing repeated samples from artificial petitions with known distributions of multiple signatures, were performed. The simulation results allowed us to investigate bias in the estimators and the accuracy of the variance estimates proposed by Hass & Stokes (1998). The effect of sampling fraction on bias, variability and estimated variance of the estimators was also investigated. The simulation program was modified to include ineligible signatures. Results of these simulations showed that estimating the number of ineligible signatures added to the variability of the overall estimate of number of eligible signatories. Although Smith-Cayama & Thomas (1999) mention that the estimated number of multiple eligible signatures and the estimated number of ineligible signatures are correlated, the simulations suggest the correlation is small and makes little difference to the final estimate of variability