Everyone's heard the conspiracy theory that Bush & Co. could try to pull a red/orange alert to delay or cancel the presidential election if they believe they are likely to lose. The problem with such theories is that it's very hard to back them up with any evidence. One clue has recently arisen, though. The futures market Tradesports.com has created contracts where traders can bid on the chances of various alert levels in each month from now until the end of the year. The early results:
- A red alert is significantly more likely in October/November than in any other month;
- The chance of an orange alert in October is more than double the chance of an orange alert in any other month!
Historically, futures markets have a good track record of predicting the likelihood of future events. They are more effective than polls at predicting election outcomes, for example. Still, these data are tenuous and the conclusions should be viewed as somewhat speculative. The possibility of Bush & Co. manipulating the terror alert system to forestall elections is only one potential way to explain the data.
Over at Odd Hours I've posted a more detailed analysis, including other possible interpretations of the data.