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I don't seem to understand how externally small voter fraud can change the election results. Is there a chance that voters fraud can happen, absolutely yes. Als

by akshayB 10y ago

I don't seem to understand how externally small voter fraud can change the election results. Is there a chance that voters fraud can happen, absolutely yes. Also votes can go both ways its not like only democrats can commit voters fraud, republican can also do that same thing. Overall this should net each other out or even reduce the effect of fraud.

rfrank 10y ago
> Also votes can go both ways its not like only democrats can commit voters fraud, republican can also do that same thing. Overall this should net each other out or even reduce the effect of fraud. The fact both can do it says nothing about whether or not their efforts to commit voter fraud would be equal. It makes no sense to assume number of fraudulent votes from either side would offset.
- akshayB 10y ago
  You just look at the probably of all events that can happen not just one outcome. Also what we are talking about is extremely small fraction it is even hard to be considered as margin or error.
  - rfrank 10y ago
    In 2000 Florida was decided by about 600 votes. Small fractions matter in battleground states and counties.
    - akshayB 10y ago
      Winner takes it all has its own consequences and that's why irrelevant things are voters fraud is a big topic of discussion.
      - akshayB 10y ago
        Electing a new official should be about policy and not about going crazy on things like this.
  - jerf 10y ago
    "You just look at the probably of all events that can happen not just one outcome." You're probably committing the Gaussian fallacy, which is to assume that all events are always drawn from a Gaussian distribution. Drawing a series of events from a Gaussian distribution centered around zero will tend to at least stick close to zero, sure, but there's no reason to assume that fraud distribution will be Gaussian. Especially in the face of hostile and intelligent entities who know you're making that assumption and will abuse you with it. Very little math or math intuition is structured for dealing with intelligent hostile exploitation. (Game theory, of course. And a lot of math involves assuming the worst of your counterexamples, but that doesn't really come from an intelligence with goals, even if we sometimes are tempted to think otherwise.)
xname2 10y ago
In some battleground states, a few thousand votes can change the result, so even small voter fraud can make a big difference.
- akshayB 10y ago
  This is the precise problem with US election system its pointless to vote as Republican in California and as a Democrat in Texas. Winner takes it all has its own consequences and that's why irrelevant things are voters fraud is a big topic of discussion.
chroem- 10y ago
Can they both commit voter fraud? Yes. Are they both necessarily going to commit voter fraud? No. I don't agree with Trump's politics in the slightest, but if there's anything that can be gleaned from the Clinton leaks, it's that her campaign and the DNC at large is willing to play fast and loose to get her elected. There is undeniable documentation that they attempted to subvert the primary election (and succeeded), and it stands to reason that they may again attempt something else in the general election. While that doesn't mean that they'll hack into voting machines, it would be prudent to scrutinize the results.
jerf 10y ago
There isn't an a priori reason to assume all parties are going to commit offsetting amounts of fraud. Parties have differences between them (ideological, levels of control over the system, the individuals in charge at given locations, and so on) and it's not hard to imagine there would be correlations between those differences and ability and desire to commit fraud, especially considered on a per-location basis. (I'm keeping it generic here because this goes beyond US politics and is true for any democracy that has a party-like system.) Further, even if by some miracle all the fraudulent parties completely cancelled each other out, it would still have a corrosive effect on the ability of the population to trust the outcome of the voting. First of all, how exactly does one go about proving to the populace that all parties committed offsetting amounts of fraud, when all parties are obviously motivated to hide what they've done? And second, it is rational of the voting population to be concerned that even though by some miracle it cancelled this time, and by some miracle they've been satisfied about that fact, it doesn't mean that will happen next time. If fraud is permitted, it doesn't take much playing with the game theory to discover that fraud is almost inevitably cheaper and more effective than anything else, and over time, the incentives inevitably align to encourage fraud to completely crowd out real voting. And the recent chatter that corroding confidence in the voting system is bad is correct. Where that chatter goes wrong is in somehow thinking that is a primary goal, when in fact it must be built on the foundation of having a reasonably fair voting system in the first place. Having a fraudulent voting system but convincing the population it is valid is taking out debt with an catastrophic and random interest rate; it works until it without warning explosively doesn't work.

by akshayB 10y ago

rfrank 10y ago

> Also votes can go both ways its not like only democrats can commit voters fraud, republican can also do that same thing. Overall this should net each other out or even reduce the effect of fraud. The fact both can do it says nothing about whether or not their efforts to commit voter fraud would be equal. It makes no sense to assume number of fraudulent votes from either side would offset.

akshayB 10y ago
You just look at the probably of all events that can happen not just one outcome. Also what we are talking about is extremely small fraction it is even hard to be considered as margin or error.
- rfrank 10y ago
  In 2000 Florida was decided by about 600 votes. Small fractions matter in battleground states and counties.
  - akshayB 10y ago
    Winner takes it all has its own consequences and that's why irrelevant things are voters fraud is a big topic of discussion.
    - akshayB 10y ago
      Electing a new official should be about policy and not about going crazy on things like this.
- jerf 10y ago
  "You just look at the probably of all events that can happen not just one outcome." You're probably committing the Gaussian fallacy, which is to assume that all events are always drawn from a Gaussian distribution. Drawing a series of events from a Gaussian distribution centered around zero will tend to at least stick close to zero, sure, but there's no reason to assume that fraud distribution will be Gaussian. Especially in the face of hostile and intelligent entities who know you're making that assumption and will abuse you with it. Very little math or math intuition is structured for dealing with intelligent hostile exploitation. (Game theory, of course. And a lot of math involves assuming the worst of your counterexamples, but that doesn't really come from an intelligence with goals, even if we sometimes are tempted to think otherwise.)

xname2 10y ago

In some battleground states, a few thousand votes can change the result, so even small voter fraud can make a big difference.

akshayB 10y ago
This is the precise problem with US election system its pointless to vote as Republican in California and as a Democrat in Texas. Winner takes it all has its own consequences and that's why irrelevant things are voters fraud is a big topic of discussion.

chroem- 10y ago

Can they both commit voter fraud? Yes. Are they both necessarily going to commit voter fraud? No. I don't agree with Trump's politics in the slightest, but if there's anything that can be gleaned from the Clinton leaks, it's that her campaign and the DNC at large is willing to play fast and loose to get her elected. There is undeniable documentation that they attempted to subvert the primary election (and succeeded), and it stands to reason that they may again attempt something else in the general election. While that doesn't mean that they'll hack into voting machines, it would be prudent to scrutinize the results.

jerf 10y ago

There isn't an a priori reason to assume all parties are going to commit offsetting amounts of fraud. Parties have differences between them (ideological, levels of control over the system, the individuals in charge at given locations, and so on) and it's not hard to imagine there would be correlations between those differences and ability and desire to commit fraud, especially considered on a per-location basis. (I'm keeping it generic here because this goes beyond US politics and is true for any democracy that has a party-like system.) Further, even if by some miracle all the fraudulent parties completely cancelled each other out, it would still have a corrosive effect on the ability of the population to trust the outcome of the voting. First of all, how exactly does one go about proving to the populace that all parties committed offsetting amounts of fraud, when all parties are obviously motivated to hide what they've done? And second, it is rational of the voting population to be concerned that even though by some miracle it cancelled this time, and by some miracle they've been satisfied about that fact, it doesn't mean that will happen next time. If fraud is permitted, it doesn't take much playing with the game theory to discover that fraud is almost inevitably cheaper and more effective than anything else, and over time, the incentives inevitably align to encourage fraud to completely crowd out real voting. And the recent chatter that corroding confidence in the voting system is bad is correct. Where that chatter goes wrong is in somehow thinking that is a primary goal, when in fact it must be built on the foundation of having a reasonably fair voting system in the first place. Having a fraudulent voting system but convincing the population it is valid is taking out debt with an catastrophic and random interest rate; it works until it without warning explosively doesn't work.