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Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#441

Post by twright0 »

timthorn wrote: post #293
tomp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favourite part of my math education, solutions were always nice. Compute the eigenvalues of a random-looking (but still integers) 4x4 matrix? Oh, it's sqrt(2), I probably didn't make an error in the calculation. Then came the advanced physics / mechanics exam. It threw a wrench into our beautiful system. The results were just about anything, incredibly ugly, like the real world :yuck: :vomit:

> Oh, it's sqrt(2), I probably didn't make an error in the calculation You remind me of my university maths exam. In all the past papers, the eigenvalues came out to be round numbers. But in the real paper I sat, no matter how many times I tried to find my mistake, they didn't. I wasted hours of the exam on that. It was the professor's final year before his retirement.

The year that I took AP Physics, every single piece of study material and practice test exercised only really simple math - small numbers, everything cleanly worked out into integers, etc etc. I did almost everything in my head or with quick notes on paper. This pattern was so consistent I almost didn't bring my calculator into the actual exam because I hadn't needed it all year, and grabbed it only at the last second "just in case".

Turns out that was not a design goal of the real exam and basically nothing worked out to neat, small integer solutions - I probably would have hard failed without the calculator. I'm still sort of confused why prep materials and the real exam diverged so much.

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#443

Post by ithkuil »

dinobones wrote: post #277
sien wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's remarkable that they don't do this. The sheer incompetence of the Maduro government and other governments that rig election results is surprising.

So there are 2 things that may not make this no longer so surprising. 1) The Maduro government is more like a large gang that is holding a population hostage, than a government. All major businesses/imports/exports are owned by people connected to the Maduro regime. They are extorting remissions out of the population because they're the only ones who can import products. The government is so incompetent, it no longer…

Why didn't they outsource the election count rigging to Russian or Chinese?

Because they didn't know they would need help?

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#444

Post by anvuong »

gmaster1440 wrote: post #69
dinobones wrote: post #22

Here's this re-explained with a simpler example. Imagine you have 1,000 votes. You want to show that your political party got 60% of the vote, so, you claim: My party: 600 votes Opposition: 300 votes Other: 100 votes Presto, we got a good breakdown. The people will buy it.... It makes sense that 600 is exactly 60% of 1,000, because this was an artificial example. But in the real world, we don't get 1,000 votes. We ge…

If I'm in charge of forging a presidential election, how difficult is it for me to use realistic, "ugly" numbers to sell it more effectively?

You just need to run some Monte Carlo sims where the priors are your desired rates, then use this results to alter the real numbers. It's as random as it gets.

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#445

Post by weberer »

manoweb wrote: post #230
oceanplexian wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it might be quite ironic but if people want to vote in a dictatorship, don’t they have the right to under a true democracy?

Pure democracies will ALWAYS vote themselves into dictatorships. That is why Constitutional Republics that use representation are more long-term stable.

Switzerland has been a pure democracy since the 1800's and they're still not a dictatorship.

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#446

Post by kgwgk »

culi wrote: post #367
tptacek wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The percentages reported don't matter. These are the same absolute vote numbers; the percentage they work out to is what matters. This seems to be tripping a lot of people up.

It certainly does! Watch the video. No total number is ever reported This means that "total votes" number was worked backwards by a third party. It's not even the CNE's fuckup

> This means that "total votes" number was worked backwards by a third party.

Any school child can "work backwards" that if the vote counts are X for Maduro, Y for Gonzalez and Z for others the total number of votes cast for any of the candidates is X+Y+Z.

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#447

Post by ithkuil »

happyopossum wrote: post #108
SoftTalker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Yes, but the comparison is not to "any random set of numbers" it's "all other random sets of numbers" The candidate got 52.200000% of the vote instead of any other percentage, not another specific percentage.

> The candidate got 52.200000% of the vote instead of any other percentage, not another specific percentage No, he got 51.1999971%. It’s right there in the second table of the article

Some other comment in this discussion claims that if you nudged the total count integer +-1 you'll never hit 52.20000000% exactly hinting at the possibility that they choose 52.2% exactly, then computed the total counts which would be a non-integer and then just rounded that.

Once re-computing the percentage from that number you end up with the slightly less round-looking 51.1999971%.

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#448

Post by goodcanadian »

twright0 wrote: post #441
timthorn wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, it's sqrt(2), I probably didn't make an error in the calculation You remind me of my university maths exam. In all the past papers, the eigenvalues came out to be round numbers. But in the real paper I sat, no matter how many times I tried to find my mistake, they didn't. I wasted hours of the exam on that. It was the professor's final year before his retirement.

The year that I took AP Physics, every single piece of study material and practice test exercised only really simple math - small numbers, everything cleanly worked out into integers, etc etc. I did almost everything in my head or with quick notes on paper. This pattern was so consistent I almost didn't bring my calculator into the actual exam because I hadn't needed it all year, and grabbed it only at the last secon…

I had a university exam where my calculator literally didn't work. I put a note on the paper to that effect and worked out as far as I could by hand without actually giving any of the final answers. Given the test was about knowledge and not the precise answers, I don't think it harmed me any (my grade was over 80%).

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#449

Post by prmoustache »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #288

It's clear Maduro is running a near dictatorship and will do anything to keep power. The country is doing absolutely horribly, all due to mismanagement. Even with proof of fraud, he will pull whatever is needed to avoid stepping down at this point, as is the case with all autocrats.

When a country start building statues in every major city of the current running government leader, you are already past _near dictatorship_. This is full cult of personality and dictatorship bullshit.

EDIT: I saw images of venezuelans destroying statues all over the country but my partner who has been following better told me they were statues of Hugo Chavez, not Nicolás Maduro.

Re: Suspicious data pattern in recent Venezuelan election

#450

Post by noirscape »

ithkuil wrote: post #443
dinobones wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are 2 things that may not make this no longer so surprising. 1) The Maduro government is more like a large gang that is holding a population hostage, than a government. All major businesses/imports/exports are owned by people connected to the Maduro regime. They are extorting remissions out of the population because they're the only ones who can import products. The government is so incompetent, it no longer…

Why didn't they outsource the election count rigging to Russian or Chinese? Because they didn't know they would need help?

Because the Russians (don't know about China) also don't try to hide it.

Not hiding your election fraud isn't always a sign of incompetence; it's also a show of power over the people these dictatorships are oppressing. In Russia, the election is blatantly forged[0]. The goal here isn't just to validate the dictatorship it's to dare you to speak up against it so the nice men with guns can knock on your door and tell you to knock it off, whether that's nicely or less nicely.

[0]: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/10/11/russian-...

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