The controversy of crowd (over)estimation
Leni-Kiko rally in Pampanga draws a crowd of 220,000. (Photo: Team Leni-Kiko)
Political rallies are the bloodlife of election season. Especially for national level positions such as Senate and Presidential and Vice Presidential seats, large scale gatherings can help supporters and skeptics alike feel the energy that they would otherwise not be able to.
But they can also just as easily be just another part of political propaganda.
This week, the two leading Presidential Candidates Bongbong Marcos and Leni Robredo are set to hold back to back rallies in the province of Cebu. Robredo is scheduled to hold her gathering on April 21st, Thursday. On the other hand, the Marcos camp already held their rally on April 18th, Monday. Following the BBM gathering, Cebu police reported that 300,000 persons were in attendance.
Those claims then came into contention from critics accusing the police of partisan bias, which has been a common complaint from supporters of all candidates over the course of the 2022 campaign period.
Relaying misleading facts about crowd size has always been part of the tactics of political campaigns. Former US President Donald Trump has been found guilty of this to ridiculous degrees many times, from his Presidential campaign in 2017 and many other instances over the course of his four year term.
But how is crowd size even computed, and why do people lie about it — or, in some cases, accuse other people of lying about it?
An (in)exact science
Crowd estimates can be tricky, and the way it’s computed has been a subject of debate for as long as journalists have been reporting about public gatherings.
Often, it starts with basic research on the geography of the area: how many square meters does it occupy, and how much of that space is filled by the crowd? And then the Jacobs formula is applied, computing the number of people per square and then multiplying by the total number of squares.
It gets complicated once density comes into play. Using the Jacobs formula, a “light” crowd is one where people are at arm’s length of one another, and in a “very dense” crowd, the estimate sits at about four people per square meter — and even this is under contention, because anyone who has ever been in an actual very dense crowd will tell you that way more than four people can fit in one square meter.
At the time, the Emerald Avenue rally in Pasig was the biggest political gathering of this election season. Estimates of crowd size were different depending on who you asked. Some sources reported 137,000, while some cited organizers who put the estimate at about 180,000. That’s a difference of about 40,000 people, which goes to show just how inexact crowd estimates tend to be.
This is likely why people find it easy to lie about it, and accuse other people of lying about it. Large crowd sizes can show how well a candidate is doing, and potentially change people’s mind about who they’ll vote for. If 200,000 people are attending this candidate’s rally, then maybe they’re onto something? Surely this amount of people wouldn’t show up for someone who isn’t worth voting for?
This is why accurate reporting is so important. Journalists have the responsibility of unbiased reporting of facts, especially during politically volatile times like now. Or else, we’ll just be stuck staring at altered photos as proof of attendance.
