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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

#311

Post by cassepipe »

thu2111 wrote: post #298
mschuster91 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in the USA the problem of illegal immigration has reached such scales that a large part of the left basically advocates for giving up on border enforcement of any kind I'm not even an American, I only have a massive dislike against borders that let money and goods flow unimpeded, but not people. The economy, the government, the system should serve the people - not the other way around. Besides: the official imm…

That's actually not that wise a strategy. Think of it like tech debt. Working around a bug can be useful if there's genuine time pressure. If you're doing it because you don't think you can fix it, or worse, haven't convinced other people there's any bug at all, then it is inadvisable to keep doing that in the long run. There are good reasons why the rules for people are different to those for goods and capital. Howe…

Small nitpick : "people have fought and died for the rights to create borders (or a nation, as they saw it)"

Well people have fought and died for many many stupid pointless things so it hardly constitutes an argument in favour of it. People have fought and died for conquering other's people land, to enforce the "true" religion, for money, for glory...

"Are you sure all those people were that wrong that they sacrificed so much, for something they shouldn't have wanted?"

The more wrong, the more stubborn. More seriously : This a a very abstract reasoning. How do you apply it to WWI? What did "people" want then? Did it matter what they wanted?

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

#312

Post by macintux »

kjaftaedi wrote: post #240
maxerickson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What 'modern improvements' can be made over paper ballots?

Introduce a machine to print the ballot once candidates are selected. Voters take their properly formatted ballot, verify the information is correct, and drop it in a box. Machines should be able to do recounts quickly, and the paper trail receipts can be verified. No more having to worry about the different mistakes people make on their forms, and counts and recounts would be much faster and require less effort.

That’s a fairly common approach. That’s how I’ve been voting in Indiana for decades.

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

#313

Post by matwood »

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…

> The system is secure and robust, at least with regards to the mechanics of individual votings.

Agreed. If anything this has shown me just how robust the voting system is currently. Many of the counting locations live streamed the process, there are watchers from all interested parties, and the various people in charge/control seem to be from a mix of both sides. Small errors can still occur, but like we saw from 2016, a recount changed the final tally by a couple hundred votes in close states.

The real effective fraud, is voter suppression. Shutting down polling places where one side doesn't want people to vote, and making absentee voting seem like something that isn't done every single election for example.

Then there is after election fraud where one side attempts to delegitimize and throw out legally cast votes.

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

#314

Post by matwood »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #291
chillwaves wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you commit fraud on the national level?

You don't need to. In the US you can lose the nation by 3 million votes as long as you win 3-4 swing states in the presidential or senate vote -- be it your brother making 538 votes disappear or your staffers creating 203 ballots with your name on it...

3-4 swing states is still a national level. You're also talking about 20k-100k type numbers. This isn't someone winning by 100 votes.

What's funny about this situation is that Biden is on track to win most of these states by a larger margin than Trump did against Clinton. She did ask for a recount, but I don't remember her ever going on and on about fraud.

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

#315

Post by rayiner »

michaelmrose wrote: post #280
rayiner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would dissuade big states from trying to get all of their policy goals done at the federal level, which would be a good thing.

Rendering the federal government impotent by ensuring that 10% of rurals owned it but 90% of populous states were subject to it wouldn't discourage people from getting their policy goals done at the federal level it would insure that there wouldn't BE a federal level in 10 years.

Which would be great.

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

#316

Post by mgoetzke »

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…

Exactly. Gerrymandering and other methods work way more effectively

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

#317

Post by rjmunro »

tcgv wrote: post #306
michaelmrose wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- How does this work and simultaneously protect the secret ballot. For example how do I as an outside audit it if I can't check the a vote for foo wasn't counted as a vote for bar. I know in theory you could provide a means for THEM to verify it and again you have broken the secret ballot and they can prove to others how they voted. - With one technology used to secure the entire election on which hinges trillions of…

For one, a blockchain based voting system would allow individual voters to ensure that their votes haven't been tampered with, without breaking anonymity. If one or more voters fail to check their vote registered in the blockchain, they could submit a complain providing their voting key and voting receipt (this receipt could be any proof of vote, like a public verifiable signature provided by the blockchain at the ti…

The main reason you can't force people to vote for you is that once they get in the polling booth, no one knows how they specifically voted. If you allow people to "check their vote" later, an attacker could verify that they voted in the way the attacker wanted.

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

#318

Post by matwood »

guscost wrote: post #140
tptacek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not at all fishy. You could --- and places like DDHQ did --- scrape the SOS sites to know almost exactly where the ballots were coming in. The central premise of this analysis is not just that the mail-in process was partisan-neutral, but that it had the effect of randomizing the returns statewide. Of course, it did nothing of the sort. Again, what you really saw here was that the election day vote trended sharp…

> The mail-ins took longer to count, because unlike in Florida, they couldn't be counted early. So what you were watching as time went on was large tranches of mail-in ballots that took forever to count coming in from D-heavy areas (or from areas where Biden outperformed Clinton, and where the mail returns were, like everywhere, more D than the election day returns). So if I understand correctly, you're saying that t…

FL was allowed to process and count mail in votes early (they always deal with a lot of absentee votes b/c many people have their residence there to avoid state taxes). Once polls closed they were able to transfer those with the early batches of day of votes. Because absentee was such a big thing this year, many states were also telling the networks/reporters what each batch of counts was made up of (absentee vs. in person). Even in GOP areas, absentee went heavily towards Dem.

The GOP legislature in PA denied the SOS request to begin processing absentee early. It was known for weeks that the count would not be done until Friday or possibly the weekend. Because the pandemic has been politicized, many GOP voters saw in person voting as a statement. Dem voters just wanted to vote.

There also wasn't really a gradual shift. Day of gets counted more quickly because states use machines that take the the vote directly from the user at the time. Absentee takes longer because the votes are opened, verified (some states check signatures, but I think all make sure the it's not a double vote, etc...), cured, and then the ballot is ran through a flattener then vote counter. I saw a story that this took longer in PA, because many of the votes had been sitting folded up for almost a month by the time they were opened.

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

#319

Post by lol2143651 »

maxerickson wrote: post #71
dionian wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The michigan case was dismissed because the counting had completed, and thus the case was without object. Not because it was without merit.

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

#320

Post by lol2143651 »

aw1621107 wrote: post #191
mistermann wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Michigan case was dismissed by the judge ------------------------------------ Thor Hearne, an attorney for the Trump campaign, said he wanted an order directing Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to require "meaningful access" for campaign poll watchers to the counting of state ballots, plus access to videotaped surveillance of ballot drop boxes installed around the state after Oct. 1. Michigan Court of Claims Judge…

> The president’s campaign argued that his supporters weren’t being allowed to monitor the tallying of mail-in ballots, but U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond instead argued the two sides to come to an agreement. Just a note on this; (part of?) the reason Judge Diamond asked the two sides to come to an agreement is because the plaintiffs admitted they already had observers in the room [0]: > During the hearing, a lawye…

And if you continue the colloquy you'll see the problem is the observers in the room were not allowed within several tens of feet of the ballots being counted, this making observation impossible.

Hence why the judge ruled to allow observers closer.

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