In the nation of Linden, recent political campaigns have focused

Question

In the nation of Linden, recent political campaigns have focused on a desire to curb voter impersonation fraud, a situation in which party officials send operatives to pose as registered voters and fraudulently cast ballots on their behalf. But despite this rallying cry, the nation’s Commission on Electoral Security has found only one reported case of voter impersonation over the past ten annual elections in Linden, representing exactly one fraudulent vote in an election decided by several thousand votes. Therefore, the Commission recommends that no action is necessary to address this supposed issue.

Which of the following is an assumption required by the Commission’s conclusion?

A) The Commission on Electoral Security’s research on voter impersonation fraud was more extensive than similar studies conducted by other organizations.
 
B)Nations other than Linden have not had higher incidences of voter impersonation fraud in recent years.
 
C)The Commission on Electoral Security is the only agency qualified to determine whether voter impersonation fraud has occurred.
 
D)That the Commission on Electoral Security has found few instances of reported voter impersonation fraud is sufficient to determine that such fraud has not widely occurred.
 
E)Linden is a large enough country that it is unlikely that an election of great national importance would ever be decided by fewer than several hundred votes.

Abhishek009 · Answer

So, when will action be considered necessary ?

When there are a lot/few more complaints of impersonation

Only (D) matches our pre-thinking , others are all out of scope...

emeraldweapon · Answer

Premise: X is considered bad. But an organization Y has found out that the occurrence of X has been low over the past 10 years
Conclusion: There is no need to prevent X.

Underlying assumption: Make sure that the supporting evidence (low occurrence) is reliable

Only (C) and (D) address this assumption. D directly address the issue at hand and hence the correct answer choice.

Rumikido3 · Answer

Here I point out my analysis

Structure  
 Conc: The CES recommends: no action is necessary to address this supposed issue. 
P1 (Bases of Conc): CES has found only one reported case of voter impersonation over the past 10 annual elections in Linden (1 fraudulent vote/ several thousand votes). 
P2: Recent Political C focused on curbing voter impersonation fraud (to pose as registered voters and fraudulently cast ballots on their behalf).

Pre-thinking  
Find assumption:
1st. Falsify conc: The CES  recommends that an action is necessary  to address this supposed issue.
2nd Negated scenarios (negation test): In which scenario an action would be necessary? 
-CES can not reliably determine whether one fraudulent case is representative of in the entire population of voters or whether is determinant to the outcome of the elections. (uncertainty)

So the Assumption would be the negation the previous scenarios
-CES   can reliably determine   that one fraudulent case can be representative of in the entire population of voters or can be a determinant factor of the outcome of the elections.

Answer choice analysis  
C)The Commission on Electoral Security is  the only agency qualified to determine whether voter impersonation fraud has occurred .  Incorrect 
 The conclusion of the argument relies on whether the finding of the CES are enough to determine that the fraud would occur in the entire country. If the CES is the only qualified agency is not in discussion.

D)That the Commission on Electoral Security has found few instances of reported voter impersonation fraud is sufficient to determine that such fraud has not widely occurred.  Correct
Aligned with pre-thinking. If negated, this option shatters the conclusion.

rekhabishop · Answer

Please negate C for me.

I am confused, why C isn't correct.

emeraldweapon · Answer

Negation of C: The Commission on Electoral Security is  not  the only agency qualified to determine whether voter impersonation fraud has occurred

C is not correct because

1. Negation of C doesn't destroy the argument. CES need not be the only qualified one to make the argument true.
2. It doesn't touch the "hidden bridge" (aka assumption) deep enough. Also, C in fact is somewhat similar to the popular fallacy named "Appeal to Authority" (i.e., Using the opinion or position of an authority figure, or institution of authority, in place of an actual argument)

Hope it helps

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

The argument states this -

Only one case of voter impersonation over the past ten annual elections in Linden --> Commission recommends that no action is necessary.

We have to find a flaw with this line of reasoning. The flaw should destroy the Commission's recommendations.
Negating that flaw would yield the assumption. 
Let us now look at each of the answer options -

A - Not relevant. Let us negate this statement. One negation would be - 
"The Commission on Electoral Security’s research on voter impersonation fraud was  as extensive as  similar studies conducted by other organizations"
This does not weaken the commission's recommendations.
Even if the commission's research was less extensive than that of others does not mean that the recommendation is invalid. "less extensive" does not necessarily mean that the conclusions arrived at are false.

B - We are concerned only with Linden not with other nations.

C - Negate this statement -
There are other agencies to determine whether voter impersonation has occurred. 
This statement does not invalidate the conclusion. We do not know what the conclusions of other agencies were. If they were the same as those of the commission, the argument would not be destroyed.
Even if their conclusions were different, we do not know the validity of those conclusions. It is possible that the conclusions of other agencies are based on faulty premises and hence invalid.

D - correct answer. If such findings are insufficient, then the commission's recommendation falls apart.

E - this option states that elections of great national importance would likely be decided by at least a few hundred votes.
We do not know whether 'elections of great national importance' are the same as 'annual elections'. If none of the annual elections are of great national importance, then this option would not be relevant.
Also, if such elections were decided by less than a few hundred votes, we know that only one incidence of voter impersonation has occurred (representing exactly one fraudulent vote). The conclusion still stands.

Shiv2016 · Answer

Premise: In the nation of Linden, recent political campaigns have focused on a desire to curb voter impersonation fraud, a situation in which party officials send operatives to pose as registered voters and fraudulently cast ballots on their behalf.
Premise: But despite this rallying cry, the nation’s Commission on Electoral Security has found only one reported case of voter impersonation over the past ten annual elections in Linden, representing exactly one fraudulent vote in an election decided by several thousand votes. 
Conclusion: Therefore, the Commission recommends that no action is necessary to address this supposed issue.

-FOCUS OS POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS……..TO CURB VOTER IMPERSONATION FRAUD.
-BUT (contrast) commission on electoral security recommends NO ACTION because only one REPORTED case in past TEN elections.
Now if we try to understand the situation the commission is not worried about the ‘FOCUS’ because according to their research they have found only ONE INCIDENT that too in 10 years. So according to what the commission says the situation looks fine.

This means that the commission has done its research nicely, keeping in mind all the factors and made unbiased decision.
Therefore we have to pick a choice that strengthens the fact stated above and supports the research done by the commission.

Let’s look at the choices:

A) The Commission on Electoral Security’s research on voter impersonation fraud was more extensive than similar studies conducted by other organizations.
Even after negating this statement, we do not understand whether the study was sufficient or not. Yes! It was extensive but did it include the most important factors or other factors that might not have any impact on the conclusion. Therefore, INCORRECT.

B)Nations other than Linden have not had higher incidences of voter impersonation fraud in recent years.
OUT OF SCOPE

C)The Commission on Electoral Security is the only agency qualified to determine whether voter impersonation fraud has occurred.
OUT OF SCOPE. Even if it is the ONLY agency, we do not get the answer to our question ‘is the research done perfectly well to conclude ‘NO ACTION’…………

D)That the Commission on Electoral Security has found few instances of reported voter impersonation fraud is sufficient to determine that such fraud has not widely occurred.
This is the correct answer and shows that these instances are SUFFICIENT to determine that such fraud has not widely occurred.
Negated statement: The Commission on Electoral Security has found few instances of reported voter impersonation fraud is NOT SUFFICIENT TO DETERMINE THAT SUCH FRAUD HAS NOT WIDELY OCCURRED. The Conclusion falters.

E)Linden is a large enough country that it is unlikely that an election of great national importance would ever be decided by fewer than several hundred votes.
OUT OF SCOPE

guialain · Answer

Narrowed down to C and D. Then, went for D after using the negation technique.

Option D- If the opinion of the CES (Commission on Electoral Security) is not sufficient, then we can not conclude that fraud has not occured. Hence, the conclusion falls apart.

Why is Option C wrong?
Because: If the CES is not the only agency qualified to determine whether fraud occured, 
it is still possible that only the report of CES counts. there might be multiple agency qualified to report, but only the report of the CES might be considered to determine whether frauds occured. In this case, the conculsion is valid.

sananoor · Answer

This is such a good question, a,b,c and e all are almost out of scope..D is the only right option...

souvik101990 · Answer

Hope you guys got this one right! Feel free to post questions/thoughts. This question has also been included in the  Assumption Mondays Revision Thread . Check back there next Monday for more questions!

anud33p · Answer

My two cents:

A) The Commission on Electoral Security’s research on voter impersonation fraud was more extensive than similar studies conducted by other organizations.
-> This can be used to STRENGTHEN. Doesn't qualify as an ASSUMPTION.

B)Nations other than Linden have not had higher incidences of voter impersonation fraud in recent years.
-> Out of Scope. Not relevant.

C)The Commission on Electoral Security is the only agency qualified to determine whether voter impersonation fraud has occurred.
-> IMO, if this were untrue, it wouldn't have hurt the conclusion much. It would read: The Electoral Security is not the only agency to determine frauds -> Eh, okay, so there are other agencies as well which can determine fraud. Now what? Doesn't affect the conclusion that  No Action is to be Taken .

D)That the Commission on Electoral Security has found few instances of reported voter impersonation fraud is sufficient to determine that such fraud has not widely occurred.
-> This is the one. Negate: If few instances aren't sufficient to conclude that it has not widely occurred, the conclusion and line of reasoning falls apart.

E)Linden is a large enough country that it is unlikely that an election of great national importance would ever be decided by fewer than several hundred votes.
-> Isn't directly affecting the Conclusion. If anything, it just provides another reason to not undertake any Action.

Bunuel · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

The flaw in the given argument is that "reported cases of voter impersonation" is not exactly the same thing as "cases of voter impersonation." Could cases go unreported? if so, the major premise does not directly connect to the conclusion. The Assumption Negation Technique can be very useful here, as the negated version of D would say that the report is NOT sufficient to determine that widespread voter fraud has not occurred. In that event, there would be no evidence to support the recommendation. So answer choice D is correct, a required assumption in order for the argument to be valid.

The Assumption Negation Technique also helps to rule out other answer choices. For A, even if the Commission's research was not the most extensive, it could still have been extensive enough to support the conclusion. For B, even if the problem exists outside Linden, this argument is specific to Linden itself, so the fraud rates in other countries is not relevant. For C, the word "only" is critical. Negated, C would read that the Commission is "not the only" agency qualified to determine whether this is a problem. But as long as the Commission is qualified - whether or not it's the only such group - its findings are still valid. And choice E is also incorrect: the argument isn't specific to margin of victory, but deals more with whether voter fraud is an issue at all.

dcummins · Answer

The argument is that no action is necessary to address the supposed issue.

This is based on the facts
- political campaigns have focused on a desire to curb impersonation but - only 1 fraudulent vote was found over the past 10 years

We are asked to find the assumption
A is incorrect because the argument isn't concerned about research of other organisations we are concerned about this one study
B is incorrect because what happens in other countries is irrelevant
C is incorrect as it could be true that it is the only agency or there may be others, but the fact is the argument is based on evidence given by one agency.
D is correct but I chose E. D is correct because negated we find that few instances is NOT sufficient to determine that the fraud has not widely occured, so further investigation would be required.
E is incorrect- it implies that a few ingenuine votes won't hurt the campaign, but this isn't specific enough for us to have assumed in making the conclusion.

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In the nation of Linden, recent political campaigns have focused

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