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This is brilliant. I wonder how the authors got the initial motivation to do the study -- seems like quite a bit of work to find a very specific statistical ano

This is brilliant. I wonder how the authors got the initial motivation to do the study -- seems like quite a bit of work to find a very specific statistical anomaly; doubt they went into it blindly not really knowing there was something to find...

int_19h 10y ago
In 2014, there was a lot of attention drawn in Russia and Ukraine to votes in Crimea and Donbass (the "independence referendums", and elections of local leaders). The latter two votes, in particular, had nice exact percentages, which drew attention of people familiar with statistics almost immediately, and were heavily discussed in LJ.
- amooeba 10y ago
  The study that is being discussed here was essentially done in the end of 2011 and early 2012, mostly triggered by the results of the 2011 legislative election (heavily discussed in LJ as well; in fact, this study itself was mostly developed in LJ). The election results in Crimea and Donbass do contain some funny patterns and are most likely largely made up, but no information is available on the polling station level so there is little to analyze statistically.
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Good to know, thanks! Regarding this: >> no information is available on the polling station level so there is little to analyze statistically. What they did was look at the percentages and exact vote counts for each choice, and noticed that they match down to one vote (i.e. if you take the percentage, multiply by total population, and round, you'll get the vote count). For example, in referendum in Lugansk, the official stats are as follows: 1,349,360 valid bulletins 1,298,084 (96.2%) voted yes Normally, the percentage is a number with a lot of digits after the decimal point, which is then rounded for presentation purposes. But here, if you take 96.2% and multiply it by 1,349,360, you get 1,298,084.32. In other words, it's actually accurate to 4 digits after decimal point, three of which happen to be zeroes (96.2000%). Of course, it could be just a very unlikely (< 1/1000) coincidence that the number of "yes" votes just happened to fit exactly into three digits of precision. But a more reasonable explanation is that someone started with the percentage that they wanted to get, and then computed the requisite number of bulletins from that. Said explanation becomes even more reasonable when you take the reported numbers for turnout, and realize that the same relation holds there. Specifically: 1,807,739 eligible voters 1,359,419 voted (75.2%) 1,807,739 х 75.2% = 1,359,419.73 Oh look, another perfect percentage (75.2000%).

int_19h 10y ago

In 2014, there was a lot of attention drawn in Russia and Ukraine to votes in Crimea and Donbass (the "independence referendums", and elections of local leaders). The latter two votes, in particular, had nice exact percentages, which drew attention of people familiar with statistics almost immediately, and were heavily discussed in LJ.

amooeba 10y ago
The study that is being discussed here was essentially done in the end of 2011 and early 2012, mostly triggered by the results of the 2011 legislative election (heavily discussed in LJ as well; in fact, this study itself was mostly developed in LJ). The election results in Crimea and Donbass do contain some funny patterns and are most likely largely made up, but no information is available on the polling station level so there is little to analyze statistically.
- int_19h 10y ago
  Good to know, thanks! Regarding this: >> no information is available on the polling station level so there is little to analyze statistically. What they did was look at the percentages and exact vote counts for each choice, and noticed that they match down to one vote (i.e. if you take the percentage, multiply by total population, and round, you'll get the vote count). For example, in referendum in Lugansk, the official stats are as follows: 1,349,360 valid bulletins 1,298,084 (96.2%) voted yes Normally, the percentage is a number with a lot of digits after the decimal point, which is then rounded for presentation purposes. But here, if you take 96.2% and multiply it by 1,349,360, you get 1,298,084.32. In other words, it's actually accurate to 4 digits after decimal point, three of which happen to be zeroes (96.2000%). Of course, it could be just a very unlikely (< 1/1000) coincidence that the number of "yes" votes just happened to fit exactly into three digits of precision. But a more reasonable explanation is that someone started with the percentage that they wanted to get, and then computed the requisite number of bulletins from that. Said explanation becomes even more reasonable when you take the reported numbers for turnout, and realize that the same relation holds there. Specifically: 1,807,739 eligible voters 1,359,419 voted (75.2%) 1,807,739 х 75.2% = 1,359,419.73 Oh look, another perfect percentage (75.2000%).