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This is fascinating. I'm tempted to argue the improbably-round numbers might be due to lazily counting/sampling the ballots rather than actual malicious fraud.

This is fascinating. I'm tempted to argue the improbably-round numbers might be due to lazily counting/sampling the ballots rather than actual malicious fraud... but I guess sloppily running the election still constitutes fraud in some sense.

rcthompson 10y ago
Or sloppy/lazy counting because they already know the predetermined outcome.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  Improbable. Sharing a pre-determined result with Joe Random Votecounters * number of voting stations = near certainty of someone leaking that, and a field day for the media. So, while theoretically possible, realistically summed up by "three men can hold a secret, if one of them is dead." (And specifically here, if I were a conspirator going for a predetermined result, I would want a somewhat close result, yes - but not an almost-tie as seen here. Something like 55:45 or somesuch, not a "every single vote matters" scenario, where a few thousand votes could swing the outcome)
  - rcthompson 10y ago
    I think it would be more of an "open secret" pattern: e.g. no one explicitly orders people to make sure the ruling party always wins, but everyone knows someone who knows someone who was punished for reporting the actual count instead of a rigged count.
    - Piskvorrr 10y ago
      What you are describing is not an "open secret," that's a "conspiracy theory."
- darkerside 10y ago
  This is likely true and does not indicate fraud. The majority of precincts overwhelmingly favor one candidate, as do many states.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    Elections are not counted by precinct, however. E.g., in a presidential election, many states are won or lost as a block. If one candidate only gets ten votes in this precinct, so we just throw them out, and she loses by five votes over the whole state, that certainly is fraud.
wallacoloo 10y ago
The paper did mention (IIRC) that the ballot counts themselves didn't appear to have any tendency to align with "round" numbers (1250, 1300, etc) which they likely would have if someone was lazily counting the ballots. It was only the calculated percentages (#votes for winner over #votes overall) that had the trend.
- amooeba 10y ago
  (One of the authors here.) Actually the ballot counts do have some tendency to align with round numbers. We did not discuss this in the paper because we felt that this "anomaly" can easily be contested, precisely as @jcalvinowens argued up the thread (it is written in our discussion section too). So what we say instead is that the round percentages anomaly persists even if we exclude all ballot stations with round ballot counts, i.e. it cannot be explained as a by-product of round counts. There are other problems associated with round ballot counts. Here is a funny one: a sizable number of polling stations reported round number of counted ballots, coinciding exactly with the total number of ballots received by the polling station prior to the election day (this information is available too). As if so many people came to vote that every single ballot was used up, turnout being close to 100%. There is little doubt that it was all made up out of thin air.

rcthompson 10y ago

Or sloppy/lazy counting because they already know the predetermined outcome.

Piskvorrr 10y ago
Improbable. Sharing a pre-determined result with Joe Random Votecounters * number of voting stations = near certainty of someone leaking that, and a field day for the media. So, while theoretically possible, realistically summed up by "three men can hold a secret, if one of them is dead." (And specifically here, if I were a conspirator going for a predetermined result, I would want a somewhat close result, yes - but not an almost-tie as seen here. Something like 55:45 or somesuch, not a "every single vote matters" scenario, where a few thousand votes could swing the outcome)
- rcthompson 10y ago
  I think it would be more of an "open secret" pattern: e.g. no one explicitly orders people to make sure the ruling party always wins, but everyone knows someone who knows someone who was punished for reporting the actual count instead of a rigged count.
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    What you are describing is not an "open secret," that's a "conspiracy theory."
darkerside 10y ago
This is likely true and does not indicate fraud. The majority of precincts overwhelmingly favor one candidate, as do many states.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  Elections are not counted by precinct, however. E.g., in a presidential election, many states are won or lost as a block. If one candidate only gets ten votes in this precinct, so we just throw them out, and she loses by five votes over the whole state, that certainly is fraud.

wallacoloo 10y ago

The paper did mention (IIRC) that the ballot counts themselves didn't appear to have any tendency to align with "round" numbers (1250, 1300, etc) which they likely would have if someone was lazily counting the ballots. It was only the calculated percentages (#votes for winner over #votes overall) that had the trend.

amooeba 10y ago
(One of the authors here.) Actually the ballot counts do have some tendency to align with round numbers. We did not discuss this in the paper because we felt that this "anomaly" can easily be contested, precisely as @jcalvinowens argued up the thread (it is written in our discussion section too). So what we say instead is that the round percentages anomaly persists even if we exclude all ballot stations with round ballot counts, i.e. it cannot be explained as a by-product of round counts. There are other problems associated with round ballot counts. Here is a funny one: a sizable number of polling stations reported round number of counted ballots, coinciding exactly with the total number of ballots received by the polling station prior to the election day (this information is available too). As if so many people came to vote that every single ballot was used up, turnout being close to 100%. There is little doubt that it was all made up out of thin air.