Voter fraud! With Maths!

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
17,643
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A couple of things.
  1. Would need to know that the underlying data used in the analysis was correct
  2. Would need to see the analysis duplicated by a non-biased third party ending with the same results
  3. Would need to see sold evidence that the distribution was created by fraud and not some other innocent means
That’s off the top of my head.
 

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
8,146
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compcons

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2004
2,270
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1) voting is a not a natural phenomenon and should not be expected to follow some bullshit natural order of numbers.

B)This unnatural voting thing we did this year was pretty fucked up with heightened emotions, changes to process, and a disinformation. Machine trying its best to lie its way to victory.

:). I got to the part about Chicago having an "unnatural" curve and gave up. Under no circumstances, EVER, does Chicago not vote for a Dem. EVER. If some math nerd in Australia wants to throw FUD, he should probably not use examples that invalidate his limited data set. Dems putting forth effort to influence Chicago would be like Obama buying a new car for Michelle so she would vote for him.

Fucking idiot.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,964
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This is comically, hilariously stupid. The author is either an idiot or a liar.

1) if this analysis were correct it would mean that any area in which supporters were extremely heavily concentrated it would be prima fascie evidence of fraud. For example, as Philly went 90-10 for Biden almost by definition most, nearly all precincts would have to have a high first digit for Biden.

2) a key assumption is that this is a naturally occurring set of numbers when we know people who are liberal deliberately sort themselves into cities at very high rates. Therefore one of the foundational assumptions is obviously wrong. This geographic concentration is something conservatives readily admit to when they aren’t trying to make up bullshit math to salve their hurt feelings.

3) The author concludes that this analysis indicates Trump won Chicago. lol
 

jameny5

Senior member
Aug 7, 2018
300
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I can never understand why "math" gets a break for almost 3 1/2 years - then all of a sudden a Presidential election comes up and "counting" plus "math" gets attacked for no reason other than doing its job. There has to be another way to protect their reputation! I mean really...
 

pete6032

Diamond Member
Dec 3, 2010
8,146
3,584
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Ignoring the source someone want to help me out with the maths on this?
I kind of fell asleep after the first paragraph.
Pretty confident it’s bullshit


The proliferation of elections in even those states that are arguably anything but democratic has given rise to a focused interest on developing methods for detecting fraud in the official statistics of a state's election returns. Among these efforts are those that employ Benford's Law, with the most common application being an attempt to proclaim some election or another fraud free or replete with fraud. This essay, however, argues that, despite its apparent utility in looking at other phenomena, Benford's Law is problematical at best as a forensic tool when applied to elections. Looking at simulations designed to model both fair and fraudulent contests as well as data drawn from elections we know, on the basis of other investigations, were either permeated by fraud or unlikely to have experienced any measurable malfeasance, we find that conformity with and deviations from Benford's Law follow no pattern. It is not simply that the Law occasionally judges a fraudulent election fair or a fair election fraudulent. Its “success rate” either way is essentially equivalent to a toss of a coin, thereby rendering it problematical at best as a forensic tool and wholly misleading at worst.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,964
55,355
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Consider the source tho


Oh another thing I forgot to mention - this analysis assumes that all precincts for Philadelphia are engaging in a coordinated conspiracy to commit election fraud. Why? Because if someone manipulated the numbers at the state level then the precinct data wouldn't add up to the state number in an audit. SO, the only way this works is if all or nearly all of the precincts in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chicago worked together to fabricate ballots. Needless to say this conspiracy would need to have hundreds, likely thousands of members, none of whom spilled the beans.
 

pauldun170

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2011
9,493
5,708
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As someone who remembers the beginnings of the "Intelligent Design" era , I recommended everyone get their comfy pants.
The dumbass on your social network list is about to start posting shit they didn't understand until the guy on youtube explained it all AND WAS SHOCKED!!!
 

feralkid

Lifer
Jan 28, 2002
16,860
4,972
136
As someone who remembers the beginnings of the "Intelligent Design" era , I recommended everyone get their comfy pants.
The dumbass on your social network list is about to start posting shit they didn't understand until the guy on youtube explained it all AND WAS SHOCKED!!!


It's true.
It's going to be a dark winter.
 

Dulanic

Diamond Member
Oct 27, 2000
9,968
592
136
A couple of things.
  1. Would need to know that the underlying data used in the analysis was correct
  2. Would need to see the analysis duplicated by a non-biased third party ending with the same results
  3. Would need to see sold evidence that the distribution was created by fraud and not some other innocent means
That’s off the top of my head.

It's total bullhonkey. They used aggregated tables, not RAW VOTES! Noone lists raw votes. Just look the their github.....


They pull the data from https://enr.electionsfl.org/DAD/2779/Precincts/35849/0/865/ which tells you NOTHING except how many voted, no ID by vote that could be used for Benford's Law. I know python and know what this does, and this does not do that they think it is doing. They are comparing precincts not votes, totally useless.

Actually I think it is doing exactly what they think it does, which is incorrectly apply Benford's law to AGGRGATE data not raw low level vote data.
 

Paratus

Lifer
Jun 4, 2004
17,643
15,830
146
It's total bullhonkey. They used aggregated tables, not RAW VOTES! Noone lists raw votes. Just look the their github.....


They pull the data from https://enr.electionsfl.org/DAD/2779/Precincts/35849/0/865/ which tells you NOTHING except how many voted, no ID by vote that could be used for Bedfords Law. I know python and know what this does, and this does not do that they think it is doing. They are comparing precincts not votes, totally useless.
Well it did have the distinct odor of bullshit.
 
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herm0016

Diamond Member
Feb 26, 2005
8,516
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stats can say whatever the person working the numbers wants.

my step mom sold voting equipment and then became a city clerk, and now is on a canvasing board. been running elections for 40 years. has seen very very little evidence of anything like fraud in that time, including 2016 and 2020
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
26,199
15,605
136
Benfords law is used with great success in anti money laundering applications... the math is sound. However I dont know why this applies to ballots.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,353
1,862
126
The linked article reads like pure fantasy fiction. Chicago and Milwaukee going to trump? Are they mad?
 

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,026
2,879
136
This is comically, hilariously stupid. The author is either an idiot or a liar.

1) if this analysis were correct it would mean that any area in which supporters were extremely heavily concentrated it would be prima fascie evidence of fraud. For example, as Philly went 90-10 for Biden almost by definition most, nearly all precincts would have to have a high first digit for Biden.

2) a key assumption is that this is a naturally occurring set of numbers when we know people who are liberal deliberately sort themselves into cities at very high rates. Therefore one of the foundational assumptions is obviously wrong. This geographic concentration is something conservatives readily admit to when they aren’t trying to make up bullshit math to salve their hurt feelings.

3) The author concludes that this analysis indicates Trump won Chicago. lol

As far as I can tell, this is being applied at a county level by looking at vote tallies at various polling stations. Did I get that right? But it looks like they are analyzing the frequency of the first digit. That's ridiculous at that level of granularity where one person would dominate a particular county. We wouldn't necessarily expect much diversity between polling locations.

On another board I was looking at a similar kind of thing where the author reported the p-values for each candidate. Bidens was much smaller, but Trump's was something like 0.00005 ... People couldn't be convinced that this meant there was a problem with the model or the underlying data (or I guess possibly that both tallies were significantly fraudulent).
 

Dulanic

Diamond Member
Oct 27, 2000
9,968
592
136
Benfords law is used with great success in anti money laundering applications... the math is sound. However I dont know why this applies to ballots.

It can, with a larger dataset. But these datasets are tiny.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,964
55,355
136
As far as I can tell, this is being applied at a county level by looking at vote tallies at various polling stations. Did I get that right? But it looks like they are analyzing the frequency of the first digit. That's ridiculous at that level of granularity where one person would dominate a particular county. We wouldn't necessarily expect much diversity between polling locations.

On another board I was looking at a similar kind of thing where the author reported the p-values for each candidate. Bidens was much smaller, but Trump's was something like 0.00005 ... People couldn't be convinced that this meant there was a problem with the model or the underlying data (or I guess possibly that both tallies were significantly fraudulent).
Yes, I think you're right that I misunderstood the piece and he was looking at counts and not percentages by precinct.

That being said, this is still a giant load of bullshit.