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Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
21–30 of 467 posts
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#22Am I the only centre-left type person in the world who thinks the Electoral College isn't a bad thing (in theory at least). In the Westminster 2-house system in Australia voters vote for representation from their seat. These seats have approximately the same number of people, but they also vote for an upper-house representative and the smaller states are over-represented in terms of population. This is because otherw…
> I don't think it's perfect, but in principle I don't see it as a bad things that people in say Montana have a means to influence the presidency.
Under the electoral college system, voters in so-called swing states have much more influence on the outcome of the election than voters in states with established political supremacy. To your point above, in a system where the popular vote determines the outcome, every person's vote weighs equally.
On top of that, the electoral college enables the "faithless elector" scenario, in which chosen electors who cast the legally-binding vote for president opt to either vote against the wishes of the electorate or to abstain entirely[0].
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#23The author says about turnout:
"One clarification: The turnout number at the bottom is slightly wrong: You’d think that you can easily get these statistics for past elections, but I can’t find the turnout number anywhere. Instead I was able to get the population of the counties, so this is the number of votes divided by the population."
Isn't this quite inaccurate? I think counties release registered voter numbers, so shouldn't we be instead comparing registered turnout, as votes/registered voters? (yes, some states do allow same-day registration, which might muck up numbers, but I still think its better than just going off population). But anyways, where do the population numbers come from? I imagine they're from the last census, which was in 2010.
edit: yes, they are using the census yearly estimates. I suppose that's as accurate as you can get, but its still not a true turnout statistic.
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#24What I dislike about a lot of these potential fraud analysis techniques is that if a group that was performing fraud was aware of them, then they would simply perform the fraud 'properly' such that the given technique(s) don't show evidence (since they know what others are looking for and hoping to find, they simply ensure it isn't there). The same goes for similar techniques like Benford's law: once you know about t…
I’m not a statistician or political scientist, but my intuition would say that it is probably easy to defeat any given statistical analysis of voting data, but would be difficult to defeat two or more simultaneously. In cryptographic terms, it might be possible to find a collision in MD5 or SHA1, but finding a collision in both for the same target payload would be significantly more difficult.
This is actually a very valid use of blockchain, imho, that would go very far in securing elections, make remote online voting more secure, and provide a public, auditable, immutable log.
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#25Am I the only centre-left type person in the world who thinks the Electoral College isn't a bad thing (in theory at least). In the Westminster 2-house system in Australia voters vote for representation from their seat. These seats have approximately the same number of people, but they also vote for an upper-house representative and the smaller states are over-represented in terms of population. This is because otherw…
Why don't people in California deserve a means to influence the presidency as much as Montana or DC?
California has 55 votes, Montana and DC only have 3 each. Is that not enough influence? Cali and NY make up almost a third of the electoral votes.
Is it really fair for these two places to control and dictate the policies of a country spread as far and wide as the US? Hasnt the blue/red divide, not only in the country but within states themselves show that the desires and attitudes of people are heavily influenced by their geographic location? Isn’t a good thing there’s a political system (the electorates) that accounts for this?
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#26Am I the only centre-left type person in the world who thinks the Electoral College isn't a bad thing (in theory at least). In the Westminster 2-house system in Australia voters vote for representation from their seat. These seats have approximately the same number of people, but they also vote for an upper-house representative and the smaller states are over-represented in terms of population. This is because otherw…
> I don't think it's perfect, but in principle I don't see it as a bad things that people in say Montana have a means to influence the presidency. Under the electoral college system, voters in so-called swing states have much more influence on the outcome of the election than voters in states with established political supremacy. To your point above, in a system where the popular vote determines the outcome, every pe…
I thought the result of the supreme court cases is that the votes of faithless electors are nonbinding?
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#27What I dislike about a lot of these potential fraud analysis techniques is that if a group that was performing fraud was aware of them, then they would simply perform the fraud 'properly' such that the given technique(s) don't show evidence (since they know what others are looking for and hoping to find, they simply ensure it isn't there). The same goes for similar techniques like Benford's law: once you know about t…
One very important point to consider in all of this is that the states administer their own elections and election processes directly. While this makes unifying the voting system practically impossible, it prevents a singular federal authority from directly interfering in the electoral process.
I don't think we can safely assume that a president or any other federal authority should have the power to oversee any aspect of the voting process, regardless of party affiliation. We discovered the value of that power check during this election cycle.
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#28The author’s analysis seems a bit one sided.
He speaks of poor turn out in LA, because of the electoral college system which means additional democratic votes don’t matter. Then speaks about the same lack of Democratic turnout in Texas, because it always go Republican (again, due to the electoral college).
But wouldn’t those same effect apply to Republicans as well? They don’t bother to vote in CA because there is a 0% probability they will affect the outcome. And in addition, there are likely Republicans in Texas who don’t vote because they know the state will go Republican.
I would argue that if you dropped the electoral college, you’d see a massive change in how people vote and it’s not obvious that the popular vote would remain the same.
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#29Am I the only centre-left type person in the world who thinks the Electoral College isn't a bad thing (in theory at least). In the Westminster 2-house system in Australia voters vote for representation from their seat. These seats have approximately the same number of people, but they also vote for an upper-house representative and the smaller states are over-represented in terms of population. This is because otherw…
Why don't people in California deserve a means to influence the presidency as much as Montana or DC?
They have one, via a significantly amplified voice through media, technology and economic influence.
The difference is that California has the power to govern itself. The policies it pushes forward at the federal level make it clear that it also wants to govern everyone else. The electoral college gives everyone else a way to protect themselves from that unwanted governance.
Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization
#30Am I the only centre-left type person in the world who thinks the Electoral College isn't a bad thing (in theory at least). In the Westminster 2-house system in Australia voters vote for representation from their seat. These seats have approximately the same number of people, but they also vote for an upper-house representative and the smaller states are over-represented in terms of population. This is because otherw…
This entirely vacuous argument is surprisingly popular. Possibly because it gets mixed up with a related, more convincing one.
It can never be right to assign the majority of power to a minority of voters. If giving that power to the majority means they can only govern for the majority, then the opposite also holds true: governments elected by a minority can govern for only that minority. And that would seem to be even worse.
There is an argument for the minority to have some powers. First among them is a sort of veto power: requiring (some) support from the minority for enacting laws, or the most significant laws (and constitutional changes) is very effective at protecting them.
The US implements as much by requiring supermajorities for constitutional amendments, and by the non-linear apportionment of power in both houses of congress, and by the Senat's filibuster.
But all that's completely different from awarding the presidency to the minority! And your arguments about the the higher value of rural populations is equally ridiculous. "One person one vote" is a fundamental principle, and for every oh-so-important-farmer in Montana, I can find 10 scientist in a city that are each more important for the supply of food. Plus an additional 10 poets and musicians, because that's also something people need.
Tying political power to land isn't democracy, it's feudalism.