Looking for Voter Fraud (In Old Elections) with Data Visualization • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by ttmb » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #329

MagnumOpus wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

People are being willfully obtuse when they say the kind of fraud being alleged isn't possible. A certain political party spent that last six months forcing rule changes on swing states vis a vis mail in voting that you can't compare this year's election to any that came before. Most of the fraud allegations (at least the ones where the numbers would be large enough to make a significant difference) revolve around th…

> these unsolicited mail in ballots and the extended deadlines which we've never had before in this country.

Many states added new procedures like these to this election, but I don't believe any state added procedures that weren't already used in one or more other states.

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

#362

Post by ttmb » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

gitrog wrote: post #349

jcadam wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are being willfully obtuse when they say the kind of fraud being alleged isn't possible. A certain political party spent that last six months forcing rule changes on swing states vis a vis mail in voting that you can't compare this year's election to any that came before. Most of the fraud allegations (at least the ones where the numbers would be large enough to make a significant difference) revolve around th…

> And please, kicking out GOP poll watchers (and only GOP poll watchers) and blocking their ability to observe Could you please provide a source for this?

I believe there was one where GOP poll watchers were barred from entry - because there were already GOP poll watchers in the room and the room was at capacity.

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

#363

Post by defertoreptar » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

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…

> then they would simply perform the fraud 'properly' such that the given technique(s) don't show evidence

Unless the fraud is decentralized, for example when some scattered districts fudge their numbers but can't necessarily coordinate with one another (and especially not with those districts that aren't fraudulent). In that case, the anomalies would still show up.

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

#364

Post by moduspol » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #360

moduspol wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philadelphia received over 350k mail-in ballots [1]. Biden's current winning margin for the whole state is under 46k [2]. Wayne county (Michigan) received over 430k [3]. He's won Michigan by 148k [2]. In Wisconsin, the margin is just 20k [4], with the most populous county representing 459k votes. In Georgia--same kind of thing. Normally I agree with the dismissive "it's so decentralized, you couldn't do it." But it's…

So you're arguing that absentee ballot by mail is the problem? None of the states in question did automatic mail in voting. Each voter had to apply for absentee. And given the politicization of the pandemic, Trump made it a virtue signal to vote day-of in person. So of course the absentee vote was heavily D, and it came in from heavily D areas to start. I voted absentee and honestly it felt more secure than any in pe…

> So you're arguing that absentee ballot by mail is the problem?

No. It's just one factor.

For the rest, respectfully, you'll have to actually read my comments. Your responses haven't yet taken into account anything in my comments. It's like you saw the word "mail-in" and just typed out a response.

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

#365

Post by lki876 » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #355

lki876 wrote: post #289

> The first conclusion has to be that I found no evidence of fraud in any of these elections. Given that people have been convicted of fraud and invalid votes are found, we have learned that either (1) this technique does not find evidence of fraud even when it happens or (2) the fraud that happens is marginal. (2) seems likely, but given the small margins in some swing states, even a relatively small numbers of frau…

What constitutes a small margin? Even in Georgia the margin is just over 10,000 votes. Fraudulently casting that many votes undetected would be a non-trivial task.

> What constitutes a small margin?

I'm sure that within the context of the discussion and the number of votes cast, you can come up with a meaningful number.

> Fraudulently casting that many votes undetected would be a non-trivial task.

Non-trivial is a low barrier.

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

#366

Post by nanny » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

gameman144 wrote: post #98

nanny wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should their voices be amplified while mine (in a rural part of NJ) is muffled? Why should the same persons vote be five times more powerful in Wyoming compared to if they lived in California? Why should we disenfranchise the millions of Trump voters in New York and millions of Biden voters in Texas? What about all the cities in red states and the rural areas in dense ones? I don't see a single good reason for th…

I think this is a better argument for proportional allocation of electoral votes per state instead of winner-take-all (a la Nebraska), rather than arguing against the electoral college itself. If you feel Trump voters' voices are muffled in NY or Biden voters' voices are muffled in Texas, I agree wholeheartedly and would be strongly in favor of proportional allotment of electors at the state level. The electoral coll…

Proportional allocation of the electoral college is just a slightly less accurate popular vote. If we're gonna do that, might as well just do pop vote.

You don't hear the same argument against the senate as often because it's practically impossible to get rid of it. But many people are still against it (myself included).

>why shouldn't they allocate all federal funds to themselves and deprive other states entirely?

That's a funny argument, because red states currently receive a lot more federal funding than what they pay in taxes, and blue states pay more taxes than what they get back in return. Plus, blue states actually want to give red states even more money, when you consider that blue states support more federal funding for healthcare and other programs.

Everyone is always concerned with protecting the smaller, less dense states, but really it's those states that have disproportionately more power. California contributes so much to red states, and what do they get in return? A bunch of senators and presidents who do nothing about climate change, thereby letting California burn even more. California is the one that needs more protection here, not the states whose farmers are getting six figure checks as bail-outs because the president they elected doesn't understand how trade wars work.

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

#367

Post by save_ferris » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #171

save_ferris wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aspe…

Just because it's distributed or handled individually by each state doesn't necessarily mean it can't be compromised or interfered with. If anything, I would argue that because it's distributed and handled by individual smaller units, each individual one is susceptible to interference within its own area. On a side note: There is a reason why people recommend "don't roll your own encryption". Some things such as secu…

I'm not saying that state-run election systems can't be interfered with, there's just no way for a single actor to compromise all systems simultaneously from a single point, legislatively or otherwise. Of course those systems can and should be hardened, but arguing that it should be done in a standard way completely ignores the reality of the political system that we're in. That's like going to your boss and suggesting to completely rewrite your company codebase in X language because it's more secure. Theoretically, it's not a bad idea, but the reality is that it doesn't work that way.

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

#368

Post by athriren » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

jonfw wrote: post #351

Schiendelman wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really really difficult to do either of those things, especially in vote by mail. In Washington, for instance, I can see who is registered, who voted in a given election, and match that to the vote totals.

There's only a handful of states that actually matter in an election. Do we have these numbers for Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania?

turnout is always so it is theoretically trivial, once you know how many votes you needed to have won that you did not, to add a number of fake votes N to the number of real votes P such that N+P however, this is actually not that easy to do en masse scale because of how discretely elections are conducted. people in the US generally vote by precinct (determined at the local level by the county board of elections) which is about the size of a census tract, which is a relatively small area. it is basically impossible to know ahead of time which specific precincts you need to flip in order to change the result in a credible way. injecting the ballots into the process would require a level of sophistication that interacting with the county election officials or volunteer election administrators would lead you to believe is not possible.

the actual way to do election fraud would be to just report vote totals that have no basis in fact. which, sure, i guess is also possible. but then, while Democrats control the urban centers so may have more registered eligible voters who do not vote to be able to fake vote totals within their cities, Republicans control the vast majority of counties in the country. so at scale, effective use of this strategy would just result in everyone reporting 100% turnout every year...which clearly doesn’t happen.

the fact that any arms race here would rapidly devolve into a situation neither side can accurately predict means that election fraud at scale not only does not occur, but also that is is actually not preferable. it is way easier to play in other margins (make it harder for people to register, kick people off voter rolls, etc).

source: worked on campaigns in another life.

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

#369

Post by tastyfreeze » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

blackboxlogic wrote: post #309

tastyfreeze wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that is how it should be. Each state has different interests. By having electoral votes based on population we are not avoiding the problem of population centers directing the country. How is electing a president different than votes for a constitutional amendment? Each state gets one vote there.

You've rediscovered the ancient art of drawing lines on a map to make some people more powerful than other people. Usually preferred by the 'some people'. Always followed immediate after by attempts to justify why cheating is good.

A popular vote opens the possibility of candidates essentially gerrymandering their campaign to look like their in group. Similar to how swing states are more heavily campaigned now. Both give small areas an overwhelming amount of power in selecting an executive.

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

#370

Post by rhinoceraptor » Mon, Nov 09, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #282

btilly wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, as media reassure us, today voting fraud simply cannot happen: you'd need a whole conspiracy of dozens of people, a real, as one could call it, machine. This I find impossible to believe. How hard is it to intercept mail-in ballots, sign them, then mail them in? Who knows that you did so? I personally find it very implausible that in both elections that Trump was in he produced results about 3% better th…

That's not the type of problem that usually happens with postal voting. Intercepting votes like that on a large scale would be indeed hard. But what people do get caught doing quite regularly and not just in the USA are things like: 1. Going door to door and giving people blank ballots, pressuring people to fill them in, right in front of them. As a 'helpful service'. 2. Dominant members of the families taking the ba…

> he has been strongly encouraging his supporters to vote in person

He also attempted to sabotage the USPS, and cast doubts on mail-in ballots as a whole, with the obvious intent of suppressing opposition voters, and/or having reason to question the election after the fact.

The only party with anything to gain from suppressing voters are the Republicans. Look at the map of states that didn't ratify the 24th amendment. They've repeatedly made false claims of voter fraud, and engaged in voter intimidation and voter suppression.

And just this election, the Republicans put up fraudulent, illegal mail-in ballot drop boxes.