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Integer percentages are not indications of anything but rounding. I'm pretty sure you could find percentage rounding anywhere there are humans involved. Serious

Integer percentages are not indications of anything but rounding. I'm pretty sure you could find percentage rounding anywhere there are humans involved. Seriously; the null here is just gibberish. You can use Benford's law to detect made up counts like people did with Bernie Madoff's frauds; they're not doing that.

acqq 6y ago
> You can use Benford's law to detect made up counts like people did with Bernie Madoff's frauds Do you know more than what is claimed in this article (1) ? 1) https://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/by-one-measure-madoffs-returns-looked-legitimate https://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/by-one-measure-madof... "Paul Kedrosky ran the numbers found the distribution to be right in line with what Benford would predict for a legitimate fund"
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  Pre coffee statement; no, I got the same result: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/bernie-versus-benford/ https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/bernie-versus-...
zenexer 6y ago
But the percentages weren’t what was reported. I was caught off guard by that, too. I would recommend carefully re-reading where they explain how the integer percentages come about. Voter turnout is reported as an absolute number of voters, not a percentage of voters. Those numbers aren’t round. Conveniently, when you actually go to calculate the percentage, a lot of them come out the same. They go into more detail explaining how unlikely this is, and how it can’t really be a result of humans rounding real numbers.
consp 6y ago
Wouldn't you see more "mexican-hat" kind of structures everywhere if they were merely rounding to the nearest decimal/decade? In the >= 95% you can see them but otherwise they are absent or less pronounced. Then again I'm no expert. A quick-ish search on Benford's law and election results argues that it is problematic at best to determine fraud in election results. Though every paper I see recommends more research.
viraptor 6y ago
Apart from the other points already raised, it's worth noticing the peaks for round numbers exist almost entirely on the right side. The against votes don't have similar effects. If it was rounding, they would be properly distributed.

acqq 6y ago

> You can use Benford's law to detect made up counts like people did with Bernie Madoff's frauds Do you know more than what is claimed in this article (1) ? 1) https://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/by-one-measure-madoffs-returns-looked-legitimate https://www.businessinsider.com/2008/12/by-one-measure-madof... "Paul Kedrosky ran the numbers found the distribution to be right in line with what Benford would predict for a legitimate fund"

scottlocklin 6y ago
Pre coffee statement; no, I got the same result: https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/bernie-versus-benford/ https://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/bernie-versus-...

zenexer 6y ago

But the percentages weren’t what was reported. I was caught off guard by that, too. I would recommend carefully re-reading where they explain how the integer percentages come about. Voter turnout is reported as an absolute number of voters, not a percentage of voters. Those numbers aren’t round. Conveniently, when you actually go to calculate the percentage, a lot of them come out the same. They go into more detail explaining how unlikely this is, and how it can’t really be a result of humans rounding real numbers.

consp 6y ago

Wouldn't you see more "mexican-hat" kind of structures everywhere if they were merely rounding to the nearest decimal/decade? In the >= 95% you can see them but otherwise they are absent or less pronounced. Then again I'm no expert. A quick-ish search on Benford's law and election results argues that it is problematic at best to determine fraud in election results. Though every paper I see recommends more research.

viraptor 6y ago

Apart from the other points already raised, it's worth noticing the peaks for round numbers exist almost entirely on the right side. The against votes don't have similar effects. If it was rounding, they would be properly distributed.