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Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
131–140 of 536 posts
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#132Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but isn't every vote total extremely unlikely if you make it precise to the exact number of votes? Like the chances of getting n+1, n+2... votes is roughly the same probability. For example the probability of getting [1,2,3,4,5,6] as the winning numbers in the lottery is the same as any random set of numbers.
The other commenters point at the explanation but don't explain it rigorously IMO. Here's how I'd say it. 60% is a nice, round percentage. In an honest election, this is just as likely to be reported as any nearby percentage, like 59.7% or 60.3%. As you mention, any particular percentage is equally (and extremely) unlikely. SUppose this you estimate the chance of this occurring, given an honest election, is 1/1000. 6…
Yeah, they just forgot to report 59.869280705993% instead of 60%. They would have got away with it too, if it weren't for those cunning statisticians. They just forgot to come up with a random, credible number. Happens to the best of us I guess.
To think they could have got away with it if only they hadn't forgotten.
That´s what you get when you defer the dirty work to interns on their first day, I guess. Which you always rely on to stay in power. Wouldn't want to rely on competent advisers who would have reminded you to come up with a non-round number with 8 or 9 decimals.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maduro is also saying that the mass protests he's facing are the product of Chilean-trained operatives acting against him, he says many things.
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Chilean intelligence being the black hand behind the protestors rising up against a stolen election is pretty far fetched, South American countries haven't meddled to that level in one another since the XIX century, which was more of a diplomatic free for all in much of the world, so you also saw secret treaties, sponsored coups, puppet Governments, and all that.
Maduro had promised to let international observers in, but began withdrawing the invitations a few months ahead of the elections, and the Carter Foundation was one of two to be allowed a restricted "technical" observation.
The US would benefit from international observers these days, frankly, casting doubts over its electoral system has been used to ill effect to its political stability by bad actors.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#134Aren't percentages typically rounded? I don't see any US results where it's reported that X candidate got 51.31112341% of the vote even if that's correct. More likely they would announce 51.31% or maybe even just 51.3%. In fact, just looked up these results by CNN: https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president So Biden is reported as receiving 51.3% of the votes which is reported as exactly 81,284,666 votes. Th…
It seems you only skimmed the article. The concern is not rounded percentage points. The concern is that the total votes happen to be the closest integers possible to come up with exactly those single-decimal percentages. Indicating that the total votes were derived from the percentages, not from an actual tally of votes. It's HIGHLY improbable that out of 10,058,774 votes, the distribution between Maduro, Gonzalez,…
Ah, got it. I had indeed misread/misunderstood the article.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Given Lula's past dedication to (sic) Chavezism Brazil has quasi-presidential system, but it's Chamber of Deputies has the actual power. In the 2000s, Lula's PT was the largest party (usually around 20-25% of the total seats) and could as such strongarm smaller leftist parties into a governing coalition with an absolute majority. Lula won the presidential election in 2022, but his party PT was the 3rd largest, and…
> As someone who worked in the space, stop. It's a waste of time as you're not in a position to make changes We need people in the top 25% of the clued range to speak up. Otherwise the loud morons in the bottom 25% are at risk of being taken seriously by the middle 50%. Arguments don't need to be peer-review-quality every time someone speaks.
People in the top 25% are not wasting their time posting comments to Reddit et al.
People who _think_ they are in the top 25%, sure.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maduro is also saying that the mass protests he's facing are the product of Chilean-trained operatives acting against him, he says many things.
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> Gee I wonder why he might be paranoid about foreign operatives trying to violently oust him
Because he’s an unpopular dictator who knows fairly well for having seen it in the recent past that you can go very quickly from getting 99% of the vote in an election to dead in a ditch? In his position you’re either paranoid or dead. This does not make him a better person.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#137To play the devil's advocate: It's possible that the person making the announcement was only given the rounded percentages and the total number of votes, and then "created" the number of votes per candidate to fit to the format of the announcement. That would be sloppy, but not malicious.
That would mean that the group that released the percentage, and thus calculated it, was a different group than the one that released the raw numbers. That doesn't seem likely since they seem to be coming from the same gov't body.
This is an official election release, not some PR post on their website.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#138[flagged]
To be fair, the opposition leader was basically handpicked and funded by the US
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#139This should remind us that "One Person, One Vote" can all too easily slip into "One Person, One Vote, One Time." For Venezuela that one time was in ~1998.
Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election
#140[flagged]
I'm not sure I understand your comment. Maduro/Chavez were Soviet/Russia backed, and have since not only wrecked the country, but have now seized permanent dictatorial power.