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2.3M voted in a poll, 59% from Belorussian phone numbers. That's 1.36 M or 17% of the eligible voter pool. 51% of these are for the secondary candidate. This d

2.3M voted in a poll, 59% from Belorussian phone numbers. That's 1.36 M or 17% of the eligible voter pool. 51% of these are for the secondary candidate. This doesn't reconcile with the official numbers regardless of how you massage them.

jariel 6y ago
It's good people have a way to communicate beyond the reach of the authorities ... ... but doesn't really matter how big the poll sample was if the sample was not representative - the results don't have a lot of meaning. And it's pretty fair to say it was not representative. In fact, you don't even need remotely that size of a sample if the sample is representative. Polling is not about sample size, it's about the quality of the sample.
- kolinko 6y ago
  Even in the worst case scenario, where each and every opposition voter took part in the poll, and literally everyone else voted for Lukashenko, this still prpves that the true result was at least 17% for opposition, which is more than the official results claim.
  - jariel 6y ago
    Teenagers don't have phones? Did all the eligible voters who phone-polled actually vote? Did they poll the way they actually voted? Some people don't have two phones? Can we trust that telegram doesn't have a flaw in the means by which it is measured? (i.e. register again with the same SIM, or something like that?) It's nice that there is a phone number as validation, but this doesn't 'prove' anything. Edit: I should add, apparently people are registering photos of their votes, which don't jibe with the tally, which is probably a much better indication of problems with voting [1] [1] https://belarus2020.org/ https://belarus2020.org/
    - pixelbash 6y ago
      I can't tell if you are arguing that the original vote was less likely to be skewed than this one, or just that this one doesn't pass the highest bar that could be set for it.
      - jariel 6y ago
        I'm arguing it's an 'online poll' and subject to all sorts of possible issues. It's probably a decent indication of what seems to be some otherwise obvious fraud at the polls, it's just not 'proof' of anything really.
    - dtech 6y ago
      With these numbers, there would need to be significant effort to fraud the Telegram poll. For no real benefit other than maybe propaganda. Whom exactly benefits from that? It would have to be a nation-state, and they weren't exactly doing much about the situation before the "election". What is more likely: that the existing dictator and his supporters made defrauded the election to keep power or that some unknown entity defrauded an Telegram poll for not much gain. Unless Telegram poll's system was completely broken, but you'd expect other large polls to already have revealed that.
      - jariel 6y ago
        "For no real benefit other than maybe propaganda." Propaganda and narrative is the whole name of the game here. It's Telegram poll, there are any number of ways it could be messed up, including very easily someone sympathetic at Telegram (though I doubt this), it has no material credibility. It's a data point, not 'proof'.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- elsjaako 6y ago
  According to the official numbers, of the 7.8 million eligible voters, 40% voted, and 7% of those voted for Tikhanovskaya. That's 218400 people. According to the telegram poll, 1.184 million people voted for Tikhanovskaya. That's over 5x as many as according to the official numbers. The sample size doesn't matter here, were talking absolute number. It seems pretty unlikely 5x more people (absolute number, not fraction) voted for her in a poll than in the real elections. (I have not checked the source for the numbers, I've just assumed the above poster used the right ones)
  - jariel 6y ago
    Your numbers don't match Wikipedia [1] which indicates that there was 85% turnout, Tikhanovskaya got 10% ~600K votes. But maybe I missed something. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_election#Turnout_and_results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_e...
    - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
      The turnout was high indeed. As for the rest of the Wikipedia article, it is woefully incorrect. I will add up-to-date information to the "Voice" section and I hope others will fix factual errors in the Death section and other parts of that article. Bear in mind that Wikipedia's policy is use "official" sources when in doubt. According to Wikipedia, Assange is a criminal. Snowden is a traitor.
      - jariel 6y ago
        "Bear in mind that Wikipedia's policy is use "official" sources when in doubt. According to Wikipedia, Assange is a criminal. Snowden is a traitor." Not really. They use credible sources as far as they can find them, their numbers on Belarus look like what the international press is reporting. Wikipedia doesn't 'think' that Assange or Snowden are anything. They have long articles detailing their history, and possibly what some others might think.
  - throw38474 6y ago
d0mine 6y ago
Sample size is not everything "Literary Digest poll was also one of the largest and most expensive polls ever conducted, with a sample size of around 2.4 million people" The large size by itself does not guarantee correctness https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.html https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.h...
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > The large size by itself does not guarantee correctness That's true for "reasonable" poll sizes. As your poll size increases past a certain point, it does begin to guarantee correctness. An election is a poll with the size of all eligible voters.
  - dstick 6y ago
    Yeah I think Telegram, like Whatsapp, is adopted broadly enough not to bias too heavily in one direction. Definitely not 90%, and especially not if that “bias” matches the word on the street.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Telegram? 5% of the world uses Telegram. And I bet the 50+ age demographic is heavily underrepresented in that subset. Significant sample bias shows up in US polling using mediums that are exponentially more widespread. Nonetheless, I don't doubt the validity of these particular results, because I think we have enough corroborating evidence. We don't have to justify the rigorousness of a Telegram poll to come to that same conclusion.
      - tripzilch 6y ago
        People in different parts of the world differ HUGELY in what instant-messaging communications platform they use. For instance people in the US still use text-messaging to a significant percentage. That's hard for me to believe as well. It's no use looking at Telegram's world usage, that's for sure.
StreamBright 6y ago
Same story when people predicted Hillary’s chances 99.9% based of Twitter polls. Your sample selection gives misleading predictions too easily.
- _dark_matter_ 6y ago
  That is not what the OP is saying. They are indicating _not_ that the oppo party would win, but that the party in power is clearly lying about the results. If they are lying, then that calls for a new election.

jariel 6y ago

It's good people have a way to communicate beyond the reach of the authorities ... ... but doesn't really matter how big the poll sample was if the sample was not representative - the results don't have a lot of meaning. And it's pretty fair to say it was not representative. In fact, you don't even need remotely that size of a sample if the sample is representative. Polling is not about sample size, it's about the quality of the sample.

kolinko 6y ago
Even in the worst case scenario, where each and every opposition voter took part in the poll, and literally everyone else voted for Lukashenko, this still prpves that the true result was at least 17% for opposition, which is more than the official results claim.
- jariel 6y ago
  Teenagers don't have phones? Did all the eligible voters who phone-polled actually vote? Did they poll the way they actually voted? Some people don't have two phones? Can we trust that telegram doesn't have a flaw in the means by which it is measured? (i.e. register again with the same SIM, or something like that?) It's nice that there is a phone number as validation, but this doesn't 'prove' anything. Edit: I should add, apparently people are registering photos of their votes, which don't jibe with the tally, which is probably a much better indication of problems with voting [1] [1] https://belarus2020.org/ https://belarus2020.org/
  - pixelbash 6y ago
    I can't tell if you are arguing that the original vote was less likely to be skewed than this one, or just that this one doesn't pass the highest bar that could be set for it.
    - jariel 6y ago
      I'm arguing it's an 'online poll' and subject to all sorts of possible issues. It's probably a decent indication of what seems to be some otherwise obvious fraud at the polls, it's just not 'proof' of anything really.
  - dtech 6y ago
    With these numbers, there would need to be significant effort to fraud the Telegram poll. For no real benefit other than maybe propaganda. Whom exactly benefits from that? It would have to be a nation-state, and they weren't exactly doing much about the situation before the "election". What is more likely: that the existing dictator and his supporters made defrauded the election to keep power or that some unknown entity defrauded an Telegram poll for not much gain. Unless Telegram poll's system was completely broken, but you'd expect other large polls to already have revealed that.
    - jariel 6y ago
      "For no real benefit other than maybe propaganda." Propaganda and narrative is the whole name of the game here. It's Telegram poll, there are any number of ways it could be messed up, including very easily someone sympathetic at Telegram (though I doubt this), it has no material credibility. It's a data point, not 'proof'.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
elsjaako 6y ago
According to the official numbers, of the 7.8 million eligible voters, 40% voted, and 7% of those voted for Tikhanovskaya. That's 218400 people. According to the telegram poll, 1.184 million people voted for Tikhanovskaya. That's over 5x as many as according to the official numbers. The sample size doesn't matter here, were talking absolute number. It seems pretty unlikely 5x more people (absolute number, not fraction) voted for her in a poll than in the real elections. (I have not checked the source for the numbers, I've just assumed the above poster used the right ones)
- jariel 6y ago
  Your numbers don't match Wikipedia [1] which indicates that there was 85% turnout, Tikhanovskaya got 10% ~600K votes. But maybe I missed something. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_election#Turnout_and_results https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_presidential_e...
  - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    The turnout was high indeed. As for the rest of the Wikipedia article, it is woefully incorrect. I will add up-to-date information to the "Voice" section and I hope others will fix factual errors in the Death section and other parts of that article. Bear in mind that Wikipedia's policy is use "official" sources when in doubt. According to Wikipedia, Assange is a criminal. Snowden is a traitor.
    - jariel 6y ago
      "Bear in mind that Wikipedia's policy is use "official" sources when in doubt. According to Wikipedia, Assange is a criminal. Snowden is a traitor." Not really. They use credible sources as far as they can find them, their numbers on Belarus look like what the international press is reporting. Wikipedia doesn't 'think' that Assange or Snowden are anything. They have long articles detailing their history, and possibly what some others might think.
- throw38474 6y ago

d0mine 6y ago

Sample size is not everything "Literary Digest poll was also one of the largest and most expensive polls ever conducted, with a sample size of around 2.4 million people" The large size by itself does not guarantee correctness https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.html https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/wk4/lecture/case1.h...

nordsieck 6y ago
> The large size by itself does not guarantee correctness That's true for "reasonable" poll sizes. As your poll size increases past a certain point, it does begin to guarantee correctness. An election is a poll with the size of all eligible voters.
- dstick 6y ago
  Yeah I think Telegram, like Whatsapp, is adopted broadly enough not to bias too heavily in one direction. Definitely not 90%, and especially not if that “bias” matches the word on the street.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Telegram? 5% of the world uses Telegram. And I bet the 50+ age demographic is heavily underrepresented in that subset. Significant sample bias shows up in US polling using mediums that are exponentially more widespread. Nonetheless, I don't doubt the validity of these particular results, because I think we have enough corroborating evidence. We don't have to justify the rigorousness of a Telegram poll to come to that same conclusion.
    - tripzilch 6y ago
      People in different parts of the world differ HUGELY in what instant-messaging communications platform they use. For instance people in the US still use text-messaging to a significant percentage. That's hard for me to believe as well. It's no use looking at Telegram's world usage, that's for sure.

StreamBright 6y ago

Same story when people predicted Hillary’s chances 99.9% based of Twitter polls. Your sample selection gives misleading predictions too easily.

_dark_matter_ 6y ago
That is not what the OP is saying. They are indicating _not_ that the oppo party would win, but that the party in power is clearly lying about the results. If they are lying, then that calls for a new election.