IQ and Voting: 2004 US election
Posted on: November 10, 2008
- In: Other | Politics | Uncategorized
- 28 Comments
Update: Thanks to the journalistic skills of Kimble and StephenR we know this chart is a hoax, it has however sparked some amusing comments on the IQ/party matches for NZ:)
While procrastinating doing work on the weekend I found this little stunner
Would be interesting to see a similar exercise for the 08 election
Agnitio
28 Responses to "IQ and Voting: 2004 US election"
November 10, 2008 at 12:09 pm
It could probably be done, not sure we have IQ by geographic area though? I’m pretty sure the census data has what percentage of the popoulation has a university degree for different regions, not sure if that data is readily availble at a dissagragted level though…
November 10, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I’ll bet it would be the opposite in New Zealand.
What this really shows is that religion changes everything. Without religion in politics, the high IQ voters would not be turned off Republicans and the low IQ voters would vote Democrat to get themselves handouts.
Also, the chart surely needs weightings for state population and margin of victory.
November 10, 2008 at 3:17 pm
If I was speculating I’d say ACT would have the highest, Greens would be relatively high due their large student support base, National and Labour would be similar (Labour would have a larger spread with higher IQ civil servants and lower IQ beneficiaries), and NZ First’s would be very, very low. The other parties are too small (nationwide) to be able to speculate meaningfully.
I’m very thankful religion plays such a small role in society here. 🙂
November 10, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Do you think NZ First would be low due to the fact that people’s intellict deteriorates as they get really old or becuase NZ First voters are in general not very intelligent? 🙂
November 10, 2008 at 3:38 pm
A healthy dose of both. 😛
The party appeals to the elderly and conspiracy theorists.
November 10, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I’m not sure why Goonix thinks ACT have the most intelligent supporters. I can’t offer any particular quibble with his other picks, but I’m sceptical of the intellectual support for a party that essentially denies global warming. I would have picked the parties with intelligent supporters to follow the scientific consensus on such issues.
November 10, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Maybe there is a slight bias in that goonix is an ACT supporter and he thinks that all ACT voters are as intelligent as he is:P
November 10, 2008 at 5:16 pm
ACT’s traditional support base are educated professionals and business owners, which would have higher IQs than the norm. Although this election ACT also probably widened their base a bit, with more rural support (for their anti-Emissions Trading Scam stance) and some populism too (law and order), which may have dragged down the mean to some extent.
And consensus is a very strong word.
November 10, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Like Kimble, I smelt BS. WAY too neat.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/stateiq.asp
November 10, 2008 at 6:46 pm
haha, at least we got some good comments from goonix out of this:)
I should be more thorough next time or under goonix’s classifications people might think I’m an NZ first voter:)
November 10, 2008 at 8:39 pm
With Kimble’s Sherlock Holmes-like intuition and my virtually limitless Google skills we will educate you all!
November 11, 2008 at 3:17 am
If anybody has data that links IQ to party affiliation in NZ, send it to me. I’ve just about finished some work on political ignorance in NZ showing that ignorance has predictive power in explaining party and policy preferences above and beyond the demographic factors that predict ignorance. The ignorant are more likely to disagree with basic economic propositions, are more likely to vote Labour, and less likely to support the Greens.
November 11, 2008 at 7:59 am
Will as soon as I’ve finished writing up the results. Next couple days at latest. I’d expected it to show up in explaining NZ First support, but there’s nothing there not explained already in the demographics (education, etc).
[…] IQ and Voting: 2004 US election Would be interesting to see a similar exercise for the 08 election Agnitio. Posted in Other, Politics, Uncategorized… […]
November 12, 2008 at 8:52 am
If you have access to the journal ‘Intelligence’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5068743.ece
November 12, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Goonix, send me an email and I’ll send you the working draft. There’s some problem with my being able to FTP from off campus so I’ll have to do things the old fashioned way.
November 18, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Most people couldn’t pass an election policy test if they were given one only a small minority understand the issues.
This article by Gareth Morgan suggest NZ First voters aren’t so dumb:
http://nbr.infometrics.co.nz/column.php?id=409
Immigration ‘small benefit’ to UK
Record levels of immigration have had “little or no impact” on the economic well-being of Britons, an influential House of Lords committee has said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7322825.stm
[…] IQ and Voting: 2004 US election « The visible hand in economics IQ and Voting: 2004 US election. 10 11 2008. Update: Thanks to the journalistic skills of Kimble and StephenR we know this chart is a hoax, it has however sparked some amusing comments on the IQ/party matches for NZ:) … […]
December 3, 2008 at 8:39 pm
What about the correlation between IQ and a states percentage of people voting for Obama in the 2088 presidential election as plotted on: http://blog.faithnscience.com/
August 16, 2011 at 9:46 am
I believe you have observed some very interesting points , appreciate it for the post.
agnitio
cpworthington
dant03
goonix
metrosideros
rauparaha
Robbie Allan
stevedoogue
Matt Nolan
The visible hand in economics 
November 10, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I’d like to see one for NZ based on party support.