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Computer scientists urge Clinton campaign to challenge election results
- abritinthebay 10y agoI'm all for it, given the widespread reported issues, but I'd love to see their data and work. Some big names tho.
- cplanas 10y agoNate Silver commented (debunked, I would say) this issue on Twitter. It seems that the "abnormality" detected or does not make sense (Pennsylvania, Michigan) or disappears when controlling for race and educations levels (Wisconsin). https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801220813890277376 https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/801220813890277376
- kordless 10y ago> debunked, I would say That's actually NOT for you to say. Rationalizing why it's not without doing the analysis yourself doesn't buy you that right, even if you read it somewhere and it sounds good.
- kbenson 10y agoI think "I would say" is meant as a stand-in for "in my opinion", which is entirely within their right. It's easy to say you have to go a level deeper to get the truth, but at some level you have to accept the legitimacy of a source. If you don't trust Nate Silver, you can run the analysis yourself. You then have to choose whether to trust the source of the data. If you don't trust that, and you have the ability to to go the pre-aggregated data, you can go to that. Do you trust the people reporting that? At some point,it's not feasible to follow the chain of custody all the way back, so you have to make a call as to what level you are willing to go back before trusting the source. If someone trusts the integrity and competency of Nate Silver, then they should be able to apply some level of assurance to his results based on that. If you don't trust Nate Silver's results because you doubt his integrity or competency, or even if you think it's just too important to trust to a single person, then speak to that, not to some simplistic and often impossible to satisfy ideal of determining everything yourself from pure sources.
- throwaway5752 10y agoOn the other side of Nate Silver, you have J. Alex Halderman and Ron Rivest. I respect Nate Silver, but I think everyone can speak to the need to not trust a single person in this case.
- kbenson 10y agoWhich would have been an entirely acceptable and valid reply to the original comment, while also providing some additional information (who is disagreeing) in context. :)
- lets-tryagain 10y agoReputation really isn't relevant here...the election is over, Clinton already delivered a concession without raising criticism herself...the bar here is incredibly high and their evidence seems mostly hypothetical. To satisfy the criticism suggested, you would have to re-run the election...it's just not happening
- tnecniv 10y agoWhat does he use to make those reports?
- trosi 10y agoIt looks like Stata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stata
- Terribledactyl 10y agoEdit: nope, definitely Stata. Also a tool he's mentioned using. In the past he mentioned using excel with various addons, and these printouts look very, grid like.
- thaw13579 10y agoI don't think Nate's twitter post and associated language are the right way to have a conversation as serious as this one. The people making the claims are not just slinging "BS" to be "debunked", they are experts who have credibility to lose by making claims without evidence, and I think it's worth hearing more from them before writing them off.
- gerty 10y agoJudging by this Twitter feed and Stata output, it looks that we are looking at a classic case of "correlation does not imply causality". Clinton shift might be correlated with paper vs. electronic ballot but it looks like districts that opted for electronic ballot have different population groups compared to the ones with paper ballot. Once you control for that, e.g. race and college degree, paper/electronic ballot correlation disappears. To be fair, data sample is rather small so small effects might be difficult to pick up.
- dillondoyle 10y agoAgreed. Many reports claim that e voting machines are in mostly poor voting locations, which could basically explain the 'discrepancy': http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-machines-idUSKCN11Q0EU http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-machines-idUS... But controlling for everything is almost impossible to be perfect: designated location vs county wide, income, race, education, Trump/Clinton modeled support. You'd have to pull actual voting returns by individual for those voting locations and states, and then have a good vote file. Then you can start to control for those variables and I would bet almost everything I have that doing so would reduce any irregularity these scholars are using as an argument that the election was somehow hacked.
- supernintendo 10y agoWhy is electronic voting accepted? Proprietary software means the election results can never truly be trusted. Richard Stallman has written about this [1]. [1] https://stallman.org/evoting.html https://stallman.org/evoting.html
- kordless 10y agoPrimarily education and making people understand all software currently has vulnerabilities.
- ajdlinux 10y agoIt's not just proprietary software that's problematic - until we have practical solutions for end-to-end verifiable voting, you can't guarantee that the software and hardware that has been audited and certified isn't being tampered with.
- pdkl95 10y agoAndrew Appel (CS Prof. at Princeton) also gave a very good talk earlier this year about the problems of electronic voting systems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abQCqIbBBeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abQCqIbBBeM edit: Also, Ron Rivest was recently on Numberphile, where he talked about using homomorphic encryption to enable end-to-end verifiable voting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRTvoZ3Rho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRTvoZ3Rho
- vidarh 10y agoVoting is explicitly designed not to be end to end verifiable, because if the voter can verify that their vote was recorded correctly, so can someone who wants to buy it or coerce the voter. We instead take extensive precautions with paper votes to physically protect the integrity of ballot boxes and the counting process explicitly to avoid having to have a system where votes can be verified, because there's been plenty of experience with what can happen if they can be. The problem with most electronic voting is that it throws away this verification of integrity of the voting record.
- krige 10y agoFunny how the perception on possiblity of fraud changed after the election when the "wrong" side won.
- tunesmith 10y agoFunny how the losing side also rapidly looked at evidence and statistical studies (Nate Cohn, Nate Silver) and then others that were initially concerned rapidly updated their views (Paul Krugman) - ... sorry were you trying to draw an equivalence?
- peteretep 10y agoI wonder if there's any difference between "the lizard people are trying to throw the election because George Soros" and "there are some things that don't make sense that bear further investigation".
- po 10y agoFunny how Trump has a strategy of accusing people of doing the very thing he's busy doing. Think about all the places he does it. It's a great tactic. I'll also add: - I heard plenty of people in the Clinton camp who were concerned about a hacked vote before the election. - There's more than one way a vote could be unfair. Historically, there has been very little of the kind that Republicans talk so much about (people voting twice, dead people voting, illegals voting, etc…). If there was a significant amount of it, I actually think most democrats would acknowledge it. - Verifying the integrity of a massively important vote should be done regardless of which side wins. It doesn't have to be expensive to do it right. See also: https://www.verifiedvoting.org https://www.verifiedvoting.org http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/11/18/election-audit-paper-machines-column/93803752/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/11/18/election-au... Edited to add: The main reason I would want an auditable vote system, and a verification afterward if we didn't have that, even if I were in the Clinton camp is to help shut up all the people who would complain about her victory being illegitimate. If you can shut that kind of talk down, then the whole country can move on knowing their choice was their choice.
- erelde 10y agoRelated to the last paragraph, and in advance excuse me for my lack of knowledge about US history, has the electoral college ever voted for another candidate?
- lucozade 10y agoNo. Faithless electors nearly overturned a VP once, Richard Johnson, but the vote was tied and the Senate confirmed him anyway.
- erelde 10y agoSilly me, it's litterally in the introduction paragraph of the wikipedia page about "faithless electors", I just lacked the knowledge of those keywords.
- internaut 10y agoI don't think so but there was an 1824 edge case with John Quincy Adams. He won neither the electoral college or popular vote but the Senate later decided to put him in office anyway. No word on what his rival thought about it! Today I think there might be a fuss. Also these are the fellows who didn't get the popular vote but got enough electoral college votes. 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes 1888, Benjamin Harrison 2000, George W. Bush 2016, Donald J. Trump
- sparky_z 10y ago> No word on what his rival thought about it! Not sure if you're joking, but of course we do know. His rival, Andrew Jackson, was livid. He accused Adams (with some justification, but nothing proven) of striking a "corrupt bargain" with the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay. (It was actually the House that decided, not the Senate). Jackson alledged that Clay secured Adams the presidency in exchange for being appointed Secretary of State. Riding the wave of outrage, Jackson formed his own party (which eventualy evolved into the modern Democratic Party) and handily defeated Adams four years later.
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- joatmon-snoo 10y agoIs there anything floating out there beyond the article in New York[1] and everyone reiterating it? The stuff over at Election Law Blog[2] seems to be worth quoting here: > Without public evidence on the record to examine it is hard to really evaluate this claim other than by looking at the credibility of the people involved. Halderman is very credible, and if he says there are anomalies that deserve investigation, they should be investigated. But the fact that this group has gone to Elias and Podesta, and so far the campaign has said nothing since learning of it last Thursday, should give you pause. Time has just about run out. Claiming a hacked or rigged election is about as explosive a claim as one could make—-especially coming after Trump made unsupported allegations of vote rigging throughout the election. If there’s a realistic chance of anything here that could be proven to affect the election outcome, you have to trust Clinton’s legal team to advance it (or have advanced it already). [1] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/activists-urge-hillary-clinton-to-challenge-election-results.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/activists-urge-... [2] http://electionlawblog.org/?p=89454 http://electionlawblog.org/?p=89454
- gopalv 10y ago> the campaign has said nothing since learning of it last Thursday, should give you pause That's not surprising at all - anything less than an outright win fails to give Hillary anything positive & that ship has sailed. If the real goal is effective governance for 4 years and not just "winning the race", then they might weigh the possible outcomes differently from an activist. And there would be pressure from the current Whitehouse to just "move on, folks", which is unsurprising.
- emcrazyone 10y agoWell there is this and the retaliation over the email server she had running coupled with the fact she was caught lying in front of a Senate hearing on Benghazzi. I would say she did something smart for a change. I.e. facts vs. some wild claims... And with all the BS with past Florida elections coupled with Trump's claims of a rigged election, my bet is the ballot casting and voting machines are more protected now a days than days past.
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- crucialfelix 10y agoIf the result was changed and Clinton became president elect there would be civil war. The US would never have a peaceful election ever again.
- throwaway5752 10y agoIf Clinton won the popular vote by 2,000,000+ votes and the election was tipped because of election machines being hacked in a handful of states, it's safe to say the same would be true if the result was not changed.
- baytrailcat 10y agoThere would be some credence to the hacking claim if it was shown that the anomaly was concentrated in just three states. But what we have is overwhelming evidence of Trump over-performing a certain demographics in a much wider region [1], including the traditionally democratic-leaning north-east. Specific examples: though Clinton won Minnesota and New Hampshire, the margin was very thin. Though she was expected to lose Ohio and Iowa, the loss margin was way bigger than expected. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/how-trump-pushed-the-election-map-to-the-right.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/elections/h...
- zamalek 10y ago> The US would never have a peaceful election ever again. These elections were anything but peaceful, going by the harassment of Trump supporters that I keep seeing on Reddit.
- ryan-allen 10y agoOf or by?
- OscarCunningham 10y agoThe are 320 million people in the US. Therefore there were many instances of violence against supporters of any candidate by supporters of any other candidate. But statistically the was almost no political violence of any kind.
- EGreg 10y agoI wish voting in some districts would move to apps and a blockchain. Australia is already using Ranked Voting and now this is taking shape: https://cointelegraph.com/news/australia-to-make-blockchain-voting-app-a-global-democratic-movement https://cointelegraph.com/news/australia-to-make-blockchain-...
- ecdavis 10y agoThat article is using the word "Australia" to mean "a small political party in Australia." The party in question did not gain any seats in the recent Federal election. Given the AEC's reticence to adopt electronic voting[0] I suspect it will be a long time before they consider using blockchain technology, if they ever do. [0] http://www.aec.gov.au/voting/report.htm http://www.aec.gov.au/voting/report.htm
- EGreg 10y agoI didn't want to say Australia is using this app, I said it's using ranked voting.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tezza 10y agoA challenge to the results could discover Hillary Clinton lost the total popular vote as well, or see Trump's margin increase.
- regularfry 10y agoAnd that would be a worthwhile thing to know.
- tezza 10y agoIm not an american, but I would predict a lot of turmoil caused by the challenge
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- meira 10y agoCNN? MSM is the real deal when it comes to fake news. Tip from a brazillian: this would break your country.
- ousta 10y ago"The computer scientists believe they have found evidence that vote totals in the three states could have been manipulated or hacked" then few lines later: "Their group told Podesta and Elias that while they had not found any evidence of hacking, the pattern needs to be looked at by an independent review." Great journalism, great scientific findings they probably used the same ML algorithm that predicted Clinton would get 80%
- duncan_bayne 10y agoI guess that's an improvement on rioting. Hopefully folks are finding the tantrums from the Left enlightening, as we're getting to see their emotional reaction to having their power lust denied. Sadly, it's been denied by electing Trump :( Win some, lose some, I guess.
- pipio21 10y agoohh, the Irony. From the guys that accused Trump of not accepting the result of elections(because they considered done in Hillary's favor), turns out they don't want to accept it either. Of course electronic voting machines could be hacked, but it is way easier to hack it when you know the source code, like the NSA knows, and the company that makes it is American, than Russia. So I bet the hack will be in Hillary's favor instead of otherwise.
- makomk 10y agoIncredibly ironic. Before the election, there were fears in the press that Trump would refuse to accept the Pennsylvania results and it'd be impossible to prove that the results were accurate: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pennsylvania-voting-paperless-20161020-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pennsylvania-votin... (Because of course, the idea that the vote could be hacked was seen as a Trump conspiracy theory back then.) One way of rationalizing this, courtesy of Joss Whedon, is that this was all a sneaky trick by Trump to get Democrats to debunk the possibility of vote hacking so that he and Russia could get away with doing it: https://twitter.com/joss/status/801205749955194880 https://twitter.com/joss/status/801205749955194880
- mark_l_watson 10y agoI have been a Democrat my whole life. In my opinion rehashing the vote would be very bad for our country. Something that disturbs me greatly is the reaction of the media to the election. My wife had MSNBC on for an hour last night. There was one Trump supporter on briefly and they were constantly interrupted. Otherwise it was all editorializing against Trump. We have lost a free and impartial news media, and that bodes ill for our country.
- thatfrenchguy 10y agoThe media literally did Trump though, because they were looking for profit (because he did make them a ton of money). I don't think you can ever call them free.
- ainiriand 10y agoDemocrats would do a better favor to the country in the next 4 years focusing in the problems that caused this (internal, bad politics, corruption) and let Trump do its job as President.
- Gravityloss 10y agoSeen on hacker news 3 days ago, and the blog post was written on november 14 already. Don't know who originally got the idea? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993153
- Upvoter33 10y agoIt's funny: the article says some CS folks think the election might have been hacked. Then it says well there is no evidence of hacking, but some stats indicate something may be off. In my worldview, when you want to base an article and conclusion on statistics, you should probably talk to some statisticians, not computer security experts.