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

probablydance.com

271–280 of 467 posts

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

#271
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.

[deleted]

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

#272
Ok, so let's look what Merkel did what would never be possible in the US according to that post (and by the authors opinion proves that the US is so much more on the right than Germany):

> In the 2008 financial crisis (and now again) the government paid part of workers’ wages to save jobs (Kurzarbeit)

Trump went even further and sent checks directly to every taxpayer.

> She stopped mandatory military service

US got rid of the draft in 1973 under Nixon

> Germany is getting out of nuclear power by 2022 > Germany is getting out of coal power by 2038

Neither is the business of the federal government in the US but instead of the states themselves, on top of that this is done in Germany by importing exactly that power from other European neighbours, an option the US does not have.

> She ran a balanced budget

That is considered as on the right in the US

> Legalized gay marriage

The US had that first nationwide, and individual states had it much earlier. On top of that, Merkel voted against that law in the German parliament (Bundestag)

> Accepted a large number of refugees from war-torn Syria

Since Syria is closer to Europe than to the US this is not surprising, the US accepts asylum from middle and south America instead.

> Cut taxes (Solidaritätszuschlag) for the working class and middle class, while keeping them in place for the upper class

Sounds like the tax reform of 2017

> If you did one of these things in the US, you would be considered a progressive leftist. Doing all of them would make you a radical. In Germany she is still considered center-right.

-> While this is a nice visualization, the author had no idea about US politics and how it contrasts to German politics

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

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then make it free of charge and offer a version for illegalized people to carry.

I'm not American, so this comment confuses me. Why would illegal immigrants be allowed to vote or carry an official government-issued ID?

It comes up when there’s services illegal immigrants will use anyway and you want it to be done properly. For example, you want illegal immigrants to still have a valid driver’s license and insurance as the alternative isn’t “no illegal immigrants” but instead just a generally a society that functions less well (and in the case of driving more costly and less safe).

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

#274
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a golden opportunity for the left to implement a policy which historically the left has been advocating for and the right been blocking. National Identification. No more social security numbers, no knowledge about a name or a street. Practically every other country in the world has national identification and uses them as the building block for holding elections, social security, health care, licenses, drugs…

> Practically every other country in the world has national identification

That surprised me (I don't have an ID card here in Australia, nor did I in the UK), so I looked it up :

"A number of countries do not have national identity cards. These include Andorra, Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Denmark, India, Japan, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Samoa, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. Other identity documents such as passports or driver's licenses are then used as identity documents when needed. However, governments of Kiribati, Norway, Samoa and Uzbekistan are planning to introduce new national identity cards in the near future. Some of these, e.g. Denmark, have more simple official identity cards, which do not match the security and level of acceptance of a national identity card, used by people without driver's licenses.

A number of countries have voluntary identity card schemes. These include Austria, Belize, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Saint Lucia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_document#National_pol...

p.s. I don't have a passport, driver's licence, mobile phone, or credit cards but still manage OK for ID :-)

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

#275
post #94

Here’s someone who did analysis of 2020 NYT time-series data, and is trying to make a case that the currently-contested states show odd patterns. Note that this would be circumstantial evidence at best , but still a little fishy when compared with the timeline: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1325592112428163072.html I made a GitHub repo of this analysis ported to Python3, with a quickstart and a matplotlib script…

Here's a reuters article that fact checks the weird voter spikes: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-biden-vote-spi...

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, we do detect a small number of voter fraud cases. People have gone to prison for it. But your premise is also broken. You assume we should see regular attempts at voter fraud, given our enormous sample size. But voter fraud, on the "retail" level, is heavily penalized and extremely unlikely to impact outcomes. There are all sorts of crimes that could occur, but don't, because there's no point.

> First, we do detect a small number of voter fraud cases. People have gone to prison for it. Fair enough, though now I'm wondering why I keep hearing "no shred of evidence of voter fraud" from so many people. > But voter fraud, on the "retail" level, is heavily penalized and extremely unlikely to impact outcomes. There are currently four states (AZ, GA, PA, WI) with less than 1% margin between the candidates. Georgi…

Trump also barely won MI, WI, and PA last time. No was nitpicking vote result curves at that time.. I'm sure they were equally as strange.

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

#277
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…

I’m not a statistician or political scientist, but my intuition would say that it is probably easy to defeat any given statistical analysis of voting data, but would be difficult to defeat two or more simultaneously. In cryptographic terms, it might be possible to find a collision in MD5 or SHA1, but finding a collision in both for the same target payload would be significantly more difficult. This is actually a very…

- 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 dollars and control of the most powerful military in the world how do you know that a singular exploit wouldn't allow you to forge the election.

- Given that the functioning or non functioning would rely on crypto instead of things people understand like counting marks on paper how would you ever expect regular people to trust it?

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

#278
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a golden opportunity for the left to implement a policy which historically the left has been advocating for and the right been blocking. National Identification. No more social security numbers, no knowledge about a name or a street. Practically every other country in the world has national identification and uses them as the building block for holding elections, social security, health care, licenses, drugs…

> Practically every other country in the world has national identification That surprised me (I don't have an ID card here in Australia, nor did I in the UK), so I looked it up : "A number of countries do not have national identity cards. These include Andorra, Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Denmark, India, Japan, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Samoa, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, the Uni…

I did notice that on wikipedia but statement like "voluntary identity card schemes. These include ... Sweden" and it lost the sight of the forest for the trees.

If you can't go to the doctor, can't buy products in stores that have an 18+ requirement, can't vote, can't drive, can't travel, can't buy a train or buss ticket, can't get social security unless you fight with bureaucracy for several years and still likely loose, can't have an bank account, can't buy a card at a swim/gym, well, home much of a voluntary scheme is that? I guess there is voluntary, and then there is voluntary. In a similar way its voluntary to have an bank account but you can't pay rent, get social security money, get paid (by most companies), buy products in what seems to be the majority of stores, or travel by buss/train/plane unless you got a bank account. It is voluntary in terms that you will not end up in jail if you don't have it, but living without is made extremely difficult.

It is interesting that in UK, the requirement for ID card during elections depend on where you live. Northern Ireland must have it, while England, Wales or Scotland do not require it.

Going back to the Scandinavian countries, Norway which do not have an national identity cards do still require a photo ID when voting. Instead of a national id card they use their passport, driver license or banking ID, in which case one of those serve the purpose of authentication.

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

#279

Always keep in mind that however distorted the electoral college is, that distortion is tremendously magnified by the cap on the size of the US house of Representatives and the fact that the Constitution specifies a lower bound for district population but no upper bound.

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.

This is a terrible terrible idea. To understand how large the 10 least populous states have a population put together of about 9 million people. The 10 most populous states have about 179 million.

What you are suggesting is that we weigh small state voter as equal to 20 large state voter. That isn't an "equal say" its tyranny. To put it in perspective you are suggesting that say Wyoming and Vermont whose population amounts to a million people out to be able to out vote Californias 40 million.

This is in fact such a terrible idea that were in implemented it would be in and of itself so terrible that it would sufficient reason for the dissolution of the entire union as rich populous states rebelled and left. You would do less damage to the union by picking a state with a map and a dart board and nuking it.

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

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be less democratic (small d) than the current system. Do you have some reason that Wyoming should actually have an equal say with New York or Texas or Florida or California?

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.
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