SEVERAL news portals today reported that Barisan Nasional won the Johor Elections with 66.25% of the popular vote.  My understanding of the percentage of popular votes refers to the total voted received by a particular party over the total number of votes cast.  This understanding was further defined in the article as “Popular vote refers to the number of votes won by each party or its coalition.”

The numbers didn’t quite add up and so I visited the SPR Website to have a look.  I then tabulated all the results for each of the 56 DUN Seats votes for my own analysis.  For ease of calculation, please note that I grouped together PH with PKR.

Based on the results from the SPR website, BN obtained 43% of the popular vote and not 66.25% as published by various news portals.  The total numbers published is in error as my analysis shows that BN received a total of 599,753 votes against 445,085 that was reported. Table 1 below shows the total votes received for all parties while Chart 1 and Chart 2 show the data in graphical format for ease of reference.

The second bit that doesn’t seem to add up is that SPR reported total voter turnout as 1,426,573.  However, adding up the results from the SPR website shows the total to be 1,391,162, a shortfall of 35,411 votes.  Perhaps the SPR results page hasn’t been completely updated?  And if not, why? Giving all those 35,411 votes to BN still means that they only get 45% of the popular vote.  So something is really wrong with the numbers.

This begets several questions.  Firstly, it appears that the news article came from Bernama which is cause for concern.  Bernama is the National News Agency and if their reports are presenting inaccurate data, this is certainly troubling.  

Secondly. how did so many news portals simply rehash the article without even looking at the numbers and be alerted to the fact the data was inaccurate? Didn’t the fact that Muda’s numbers showing 22,884 that was their total vote count for the Puteri Wangsa seat not set off alarm bells?  Didn’t the fact that the total number of votes not tallying raise any concern?  Do news portals simply rehash whatever is given to them without checking?

On further analysis, it appears that the data used were the winning votes, meaning votes that were tabulated for winning seats.  This explains why Muda’s ‘popular vote’ is reported as 22,884 for the only seat they won.  This is a completely inaccurate statistical analysis and in no way reflects the popular vote!

More concerning is how Bernama could have let this through.  Did no one check the numbers?  Was this an honest mistake by someone that doesnt fully understand what “popular vote"means or was it a deliberate attempt to fool the rakyat?  Is this not Fake News? The fact that this error has been published by so many news portals makes everyone complicit in the mistake.

Perhaps I am the one that doesn’t understand statistics and if that’s the case then I apologise unreservedly.  I do think however, that I am correct in this instance.  So please, correct the mistake and give the rakyat the true picture.

Dharm Navaratnam reads the Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.