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Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

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Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#71

Post by maxerickson »

dionian wrote: post #66
maxerickson wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice, interested parties observe the process. It's relatively party based (where parties have better access). https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/polici... It's relatively difficult to pull off hoodwink when you've got adversarial observers standing there.

There are cases in court right alleging this was not allowed to happen. "The Trump campaign said it is calling for a temporary halt in the counting in Michigan and Pennsylvania until it is given “meaningful” access in numerous locations and allowed to review ballots that already have been opened and processed." - https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-seeks-voting-stop-25...

Michigan case was dismissed by the judge:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/...

As was the PA case:

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/11/07/trump-campaign-pa...

Has the Trump campaign taken further action beyond what is discussed in your link?

I know they had a press conference at the Four Seasons in Pennsylvania, did anything come of that?

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#72

Post by belltaco »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #54
nanny wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The electoral college is a form of protection for the naturally less densely populated agrarian states against the densely populated urban ones. This is commonly repeated, but it's BS. What "protection" does the electoral college give to Kansas, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Idaho, or Montana? Presidential candidates don't pay any attention to any of those "less densely populated agrarian states". In addition, dense states…

How about renegotiating the number of electors to be equal per state. If we are a republic of states each state should get equal say. By going to popular vote a third of the country loses a voice.

The Senate is already like that and has a disproportionate amount of power compared to the House and the President.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#73

Post by grahamburger »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #36
grahamburger wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of it as giving some representation to the land itself (and it's natural resources) as represented by the people who work and live there.

The coast of California would then like to send 20 electors (most of them with rather nice beards, some in wetsuits). Harvard wants to send another 40. Science is, after all, more important these days than natural resources. Just compare Switzerland (absolutely nothing of value in the ground) to Equatorial Guinea (top-10 oil reserves). The one export market where the US dominates is culture. Mind if Hollywood sends i…

The scientists and Hollywood folks are already represented, though - they can vote. The land itself can't. True that today our natural resources aren't our most valuable asset. That makes them easy to ignore and neglect, especially for city dwellers. However, in the event of a major war or natural disaster our natural resources will quickly become very important again, and we'll be glad someone was taking care of them, even if we (and I definitely do) staunchly disagree with their voting preferences.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#74

Post by timtylin »

Bedgeseb wrote: post #47
aceon48 wrote: post #42

This is too high level. You would have to look at individual state levels, particularly swing states.

https://github.com/cjph8914/2020_benfords

The more I think about it, the more I believe Benford's Law can be violated too easily within more urban areas, especially when precinct sizes are artificially limited to a fixed size (500~1000 people) without geographically-induced truncations. As long as voter turnout is consistently above 10-20%, with the 2-party system you're simply not going to get the vote count number to span the several magnitudes needed to induce Benford's Law. (Exception of course for smaller/independent candidates, and perhaps if one of the major candidates really sucked and kept getting 10% of the votes)

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#75

Post by nl »

currymj wrote: post #9
nl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The adjective form of Democrat is Democratic. This doesn't seem to be widely supported. Vox.com (a left-leading outlet) uses "Democrat voters" frequently, eg: "...while 82 percent of Democrat voters named the pandemic the top issue.." https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21548770/exit-polls-election-t...

it is absolutely true that “Democrat party” as opposed to “Democratic party” is a Republican shibboleth for some reason. Democrats themselves don’t seem to think about it much but there is a portion of conservative media that is very careful to always say “Democrat party”. see here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

Ha, I never knew. What strange behavior on their part.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#76

Post by mistermann »

maxerickson wrote: post #65
mistermann wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The system is secure and robust, at least with regards to the mechanics of individual votings. Not a single vulnerability or shortcoming? How would one know such a thing? > You just can't run a scam with senior citizen volunteers in thousands of individual precincts. Is this the only possible exploit? Is corruption of thousands of precincts even needed in a tight race? > It would be impossible for fraud to happen o…

In practice, interested parties observe the process. It's relatively party based (where parties have better access). https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/polici... It's relatively difficult to pull off hoodwink when you've got adversarial observers standing there.

> In practice, interested parties observe the process.

On paper, interested parties are supposed to observe the process. What actually happens in physical reality does not always match the guidelines laid out on paper.

> It's relatively difficult to pull off hoodwink when you've got adversarial observers standing there.

I read assurances about what happens in physical reality on a regular basis. Often, these assurances are not actually correct (in no small part because the person providing the assurances was not actually physically present).

I am not asserting that something improper has occurred here, but when journalists are asserting unequivocally and in unison that nothing improper has happened, because the US election system is non-exploitable (while providing zero evidence of this), after having just finished telling me in unison for the last 4 years that Russia "hacked" the 2016 election, I hope you can pardon me if I'm not too keen on taking evidence-free assurances on pure faith.

There was a lot going on across a huge number of voting stations that evening, the notion that not one single thing went wrong is a bit of an extraordinary claim, especially coming from a group of people who don't exactly have a pristine track record of bias or accuracy.

I doubt we'll ever find the truth, or even exert any significant effort in discovering it - that's just the way it is and I can accept that. But it's frustrating that the public is so accepting of this state of affairs.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#77

Post by tastyfreeze »

Glyptodon wrote: post #68
tastyfreeze wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been thinking that maybe states should get an equal number of electoral votes. We would get the protection of the electoral college and every state would have an equal say.

That's why the Senate exists basically.

Yet when it comes to electing a president some states are more equal than others.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#78

Post by metiscus »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #69
anonu wrote: post #67

I think arguably the electoral process makes fraud harder. If the goal was to tip the scales, in a popular vote you could basically do this anywhere across the country. But in an EV system, you would need to pick and choose 1 or probably more places (vulnerabilities) to attack to tilt things in your favor

Great point. I don't know why some states all of the sudden want to trust the others' voting systems. One state could choose to go electronic with no paper trail, for example, and we all know that's a bad idea. Voter fraud does not happen on any sort of wide scale. Election fraud could.

There are a few reasons I've heard. The one I hear most frequently is that the electoral college is outdated and should be replaced on that basis alone. The second one is that it is undemocratic and allows disproportionate representation to small state voters. The third one that I believe underlies the two previous is that when the popular vote has been contradicted by the electoral college, it typically has elected someone from the "wrong party" depending on who you ask. Looking at the states in the popular vote compact there is some truth to that.

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#79

Post by jeffreyrogers »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #20
ve55 wrote: post #12

What 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…

The system is secure and robust, at least with regards to the mechanics of individual votings. Among the main factors is its distributed nature. You just can't run a scam with senior citizen volunteers in thousands of individual precincts. Then, there are observers. Famous case from this week's election was Republicans complaining that their two dozen(!) observers weren't allowed closer than 6 feet to the ballots. It…

Fraud obviously happens that doesn't come to light until later: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-philadelphia-judge-ele...

Re: Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization

#80

Post by umvi »

TheDong wrote: post #61
tastyfreeze wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are all states that should have an equal say in what president is elected. A republic of states is beholden to the states. Each state is beholden to its population.

Federal law impacts all citizens. It doesn't just make laws concerning the states. Why should a man in wyoming's opinion on what federal laws I should live under count 70x as much as mine? Why should a minority of the country make a decision that impacts the majority of people?

Well if you believe Wyoming should just be steamrolled by California's desires 100% of the time, why shouldn't Wyoming secede from the union? In fact, why should any "small states" join the union in the first place if they are just going to be steamrolled by California and New York?
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