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> 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 ou

by 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.)

by rfrank 10y ago

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.)