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Google Trends Electionland

electionlandtrends.appspot.com

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Re: Google Trends Electionland

#161

Post by foxylad »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #75
dmix wrote: post #69

Apparently a bunch of states (23?) are using a software system called Interstate Crosscheck to look for "double voters". > Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls. The problem is that it often only uses a persons name as…

Interesting. I'm registered in 3 states (I always kinda assumed registering in a new state unregistered you in another) and my wife is registered in 2. I wonder if my name is on that list. Damn even the criteria they use doesn't technically have to be unique; it's possible to have the same name, DOB and last 4 digits of a SSN (though that's likely incredibly rare but still the possibility is theoretically there). I f…

> I feel as if our entire election and voting process needs a `re-write`.

I'm not American, but in my opinion this should have been the the major issue in this election. All the tripe about email servers and orange-tinted buffoons seems designed purely to prevent people considering this.

May I humbly suggest two things: first, you swap the right to bear arms for the right to hold citizen's initiated referendums. As I understand it, the second amendment was designed to prevent government tyranny, but it's obviously not working and causes a LOT of collateral damage.

Second, somehow beef up your fourth estate. Citizens need reliable information that is not tainted by political or corporate agendas. I have no idea how to do this, but you are a resourceful people.

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#162

Post by farright »

folksinger wrote: post #88
nostromo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's meaningless. Near Seattle there are trends reported for "voter intimidation" and "long wait times" and "voting machine problems." Those trends make no sense for a region that votes by mail.

The reports of "voter intimidation" on the electionlandstrends map matches the boundary of this racial demographic map. http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhwhite.gif Here's those two maps combined: http://i.imgur.com/eKT5s0h.png

I'm honestly not seeing an relation there.

The problem is that both follow a very non-uniform pattern and so it's hard to even define what a "correlation" would look like.

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#163

Post by linkregister »

mangeletti wrote: post #45

I just had to vote "provisional" myself (Palm Beach County). I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of fraud reports against the Florida Board of Elections. We registered almost 2 weeks before our Oct 11 deadline, yet neither my wife nor I were in their system - we received no mail or anything from the BoE. My vote, I'm absolutely certain now, will be thrown in the trash. Even if it isn't, the election will be o…

Please rethink your characterization.

"Wholly corrupted" would mean 110% voted for the selected politician. "Wholly corrupted" would imply a completely bought and sold election board. This is absolutely not the case, and goes to feed apathy, violence, and adverse voting outcomes (Mussolini, Mugabe, etc.). Note that I am not implying any of the political candidates this year meet this qualification.

"Polling stations are engineered to underserve minorities", "voters are wrongfully being purged from the rolls", "districts are drawn for the advantage of a political party" are truthful statements that are more meaningful.

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#164

Post by TrevorJ »

foxylad wrote: post #161
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I'm registered in 3 states (I always kinda assumed registering in a new state unregistered you in another) and my wife is registered in 2. I wonder if my name is on that list. Damn even the criteria they use doesn't technically have to be unique; it's possible to have the same name, DOB and last 4 digits of a SSN (though that's likely incredibly rare but still the possibility is theoretically there). I f…

> I feel as if our entire election and voting process needs a `re-write`. I'm not American, but in my opinion this should have been the the major issue in this election. All the tripe about email servers and orange-tinted buffoons seems designed purely to prevent people considering this. May I humbly suggest two things: first, you swap the right to bear arms for the right to hold citizen's initiated referendums. As I…

>I'm not American, but in my opinion this should have been >the the major issue in this election.

It won't be a major issue unless it negatively effects the establishment candidate (whomever that happens to be).

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#165

Post by jpalomaki »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #37

It's pretty but what is this really telling us? There's a 126% increase in searchers for "Voter intimidation" in Hoback, Wyoming. OK, so does that mean that someone's being intimidated? Planning to intimidate? Curious about the news? Does a "126% increase" mean there were 7 searches today instead of just 4?

They are tracking what search terms people are using to search from Google. These search terms have been grouped under few headings, like "voter intimidation". Looks like they are not telling what search terms are actually used. Maybe this is to prevent people from gaming the system.

"[...] To ensure the map includes the most relevant trends, we compiled a list of ways English and Spanish-speaking voters might indicate voting issues through their search queries on Election Day, by looking at historical data from 2012 Election, Super Tuesday 2016, and early voting 2016. We combined hundreds of the most relevant search terms around the following voting issues [...]"

https://medium.com/google-news-lab/how-google-trends-data-wi...

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#166

Post by mangeletti »

linkregister wrote: post #163
mangeletti wrote: post #45

I just had to vote "provisional" myself (Palm Beach County). I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of fraud reports against the Florida Board of Elections. We registered almost 2 weeks before our Oct 11 deadline, yet neither my wife nor I were in their system - we received no mail or anything from the BoE. My vote, I'm absolutely certain now, will be thrown in the trash. Even if it isn't, the election will be o…

Please rethink your characterization. "Wholly corrupted" would mean 110% voted for the selected politician. "Wholly corrupted" would imply a completely bought and sold election board. This is absolutely not the case, and goes to feed apathy, violence, and adverse voting outcomes (Mussolini, Mugabe, etc.). Note that I am not implying any of the political candidates this year meet this qualification. "Polling stations…

> 100% voted for the selected politician

Wrong.

This is not 1930s Dominican Republic. Politicians are not so stupid these days (at least not in terms of their political cleverness). Corruption is not so obvious when the public has become much more informed.

"Wholly corrupted" in election terms can be very correctly defined as "The politician selected is not the one who received the most intended actual votes", even if the vote disparity is a very small number. To extend it even further, you could include the fact that this can happen legally under the electoral college system, but what I am referring to is simply a situation where the lesser desired (by vote count) candidate wins, by means of the combined effects of a number of subtly and carefully corrupted systems.

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#167

Post by throwanem »

tmaly wrote: post #136
takeda wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really (or at least you would lose privacy part), one reason why voting is anonymous is to prevent 1) intimidation 2) paying people to vote in favor of specific issues. If block chain would be used it would be easy for someone buying votes to verify that the people who got paid voted in certain way.

I only mentioned it because I saw a post on HN the other day that mentioned zcash which is suppose to add anonymity to what bitcoin does. We get a lot of people claiming the machine switched their vote etc. Over the years, there have been stories of people forging paper ballots etc. I just wanted to raise the issue for discussion, why all the down votes?

> why all the down votes?

Because "blockchain" is the new "rewrite". There's always someone who suggests it, whether or not it's applicable - which it almost never is.

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#168

Post by zeveb »

foxylad wrote: post #161
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I'm registered in 3 states (I always kinda assumed registering in a new state unregistered you in another) and my wife is registered in 2. I wonder if my name is on that list. Damn even the criteria they use doesn't technically have to be unique; it's possible to have the same name, DOB and last 4 digits of a SSN (though that's likely incredibly rare but still the possibility is theoretically there). I f…

> I feel as if our entire election and voting process needs a `re-write`. I'm not American, but in my opinion this should have been the the major issue in this election. All the tripe about email servers and orange-tinted buffoons seems designed purely to prevent people considering this. May I humbly suggest two things: first, you swap the right to bear arms for the right to hold citizen's initiated referendums. As I…

> May I humbly suggest two things: first, you swap the right to bear arms for the right to hold citizen's initiated referendums.

Most states have them, and they're pretty terrible. Get 51% of those of your fellow citizens who bother to show up to support it, and a referendum can rewrite any law — worse, an amendment can write anything into the state constitution.

Our problem at the moment is that we're too much a democracy and too little a republic.

> Second, somehow beef up your fourth estate.

I think that the media — particularly their coverage of the primaries — bear a great deal of the blame for today. Making them stronger would exacerbate that.

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#169

Post by traskjd »

nthitz wrote: post #77
traskjd wrote: post #36

What's the visualisation library they're using here? Looks great (I'm guessing D3, but it's hard to break through the webpack file to figure it out).

React + d3 + Canvas + More. Disclaimer: I helped build it.

Thanks. Great work - looks great!

Re: Google Trends Electionland

#170

Post by loeg »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #75
dmix wrote: post #69

Apparently a bunch of states (23?) are using a software system called Interstate Crosscheck to look for "double voters". > Election officials in more than two dozen states have compiled lists of citizens whom they allege could be registered in more than one state – thus potentially able to cast multiple ballots – and eligible to be purged from the voter rolls. The problem is that it often only uses a persons name as…

Interesting. I'm registered in 3 states (I always kinda assumed registering in a new state unregistered you in another) and my wife is registered in 2. I wonder if my name is on that list. Damn even the criteria they use doesn't technically have to be unique; it's possible to have the same name, DOB and last 4 digits of a SSN (though that's likely incredibly rare but still the possibility is theoretically there). I f…

Every time someone brings up a national ID card (unique key), everyone gets really upset, unfortunately.
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