8 ms·

Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud

19 points by herodotus 6y ago

TheDesolate0 6y ago
Nice try cambridge. Stand-Up Maths on Youtube already beat you to it.
- herodotus 6y ago
  Actually, Stand-Up math directly quotes from the linked article.
- petee 6y ago
  Well first, it was published "Summer 2011", right at the top, and second, why be snarky? Cambridge is clearly more reputable than some guy on YouTube...not to knock that guy, but he's still just some guy on youtube
  - kahrl 6y ago
    "some guy on Youtube" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Parker
    - petee 6y ago
      I appreciate the link but still never heard of him; like most though, I've heard of Cambridge. Publishing on youtube requires no peer review or approval,so it's literally just some guy, and in the context here it's still odd to slap down Cambridge for a youtube video
- gopalv 6y ago
  > already beat you to it. Netflix's "Connected" had an episode which was probably prescient on this topic. There was an election analyst at the end of the episode, who said that Benford's law is broken when people vote strategically against a candidate or change their vote when their preferred candidate drops out.
  - esoterica 6y ago
    > Benford's law is broken when people vote strategically against a candidate or change their vote when their preferred candidate drops out. That has nothing to do with why Benford's law doesn't work. Benford's law doesn't apply to precinct vote counts because precincts are roughly equally sized and Benford's law only applies to data that approximately follows a power law distribution and spans at least a few orders of magnitude.
- lhorie 6y ago
  For those who are interested in said video, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78
- Ninjaneered 6y ago
  Relevant video, "Why do Biden's votes not follow Benford's Law?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
autokad 6y ago
doesnt the fact that voting districts attempt to fit a certain population within them make the law not applicable?
noncoml 6y ago
World gone crazy. The only reason we are talking about fraud is because a narcissist said so, because he can’t accept he lost.
- westwing 6y ago
  Observe the media narrative slowly drift from “no evidence of fraud” to “not enough evidence of fraud” to “no evidence of enough fraud”.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The only reason we are talking about fraud is because a narcissist said so, because he can’t accept he lost. Suppose that's true. So what? We analyze the results. We apply science. It can't change the result if it wasn't supposed to. You give the devil his due. Because then given the result doesn't change, you can't be accused of covering up a fraud when it wasn't actually there. Which is what happens in the alternative.
  - noncoml 6y ago
    > Suppose that's true. So what? Casting doubts and entertaining the witch hunt is damaging the democracy by eroding the trust of people in the election system. Opening the way for a coup in the future.
    - jungletime 6y ago
      Isn't that what the Russia gate did. It casted doubts about the election results for 4 years of his presidency. And still no definitive proof after 4 years. I don't understand the double standard now. I hope he pardons Snowden and Manning on the way out, as a final act of revenge on the system. During the debates Biden pledged to wait for the vote to be certified before declaring victory. Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1miwDWst-IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1miwDWst-IQ
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Apparently discussion of Benford’s law is shadow-banning said accounts on Twitter. Can’t say I would have thought that to be possible 10 years ago. Hah.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Does sharing the article and/or sharing these comments result in that?
jungletime 6y ago
I make no claims of validity. So don't down vote me. Just reporting what is going on. An hour ago Trump Tweeted: “REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. DATA ANALYSIS FINDS 221,000 PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN. 941,000 TRUMP VOTES DELETED. STATES USING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS SWITCHED 435,000 VOTES FROM TRUMP TO BIDEN" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump? Which appears to be sourced from this: https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-voting-systems-offers-incontrovertible-proof-of-election-hack/ https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jungletime 6y ago
I just posted a link to latest Trump tweet, and got flagged. Don't understand why simply reporting something as relevant as what Trump tweeted is reason enough to get flagged. when its directly relevant to this article, and what your president tweeted is news worthy. When your president retweets that 2.7 million votes where deleted during this election by dominion software. I think thats pretty relevant to this article. Shocking as that is. I made no claims of its validity. Just simply the source.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  Nothing from that twitter account is relevant on a site dedicated to increasing knowledge, as HN is.
  - jungletime 6y ago
    If reposting Tumps (still your president) tweets is not allowed. Can I post the source behind his tweet. Its crazy to me that both "Let him present his evidence" and censoring when he does present his evidence, comes from the same side. I make no claims of validity, just relevance. https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-voting-systems-offers-incontrovertible-proof-of-election-hack/ https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-...
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Can I post the source behind his tweet. Its clearly not relevant to this piece on the applicability of Benford's law. While I personally think its inappropriate for HN for a number of reasons, others might disagree and we have community moderation tools to resolve that disagreement, and it would at least be less inappropriate submitted as an independent story, rather than a comment on this one.
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      First paragraph, second sentence: "...as we examine the work of a dedicated Trump-supporter who appears to have uncovered all of the proof necessary to dispel this myth that Joe Biden won the presidential election." This is nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing, and hiding being dispassionate "no claims" doesn't absolve you from posting obvious inflammatory garbage.
jcranmer 6y ago
The explanation is actually far simpler than the paper explains: Benford's law requires that the dataset cross multiple orders of magnitude to kick in. Precincts are generally of the same order of magnitude of size (1000s of people), which is insufficient for Benford's law to apply.
- esoterica 6y ago
  It needs to both span multiple orders of magnitude and also obey a power law or similar distribution (although almost all natural data sets that span multiple orders of magnitude do).
pmiller2 6y ago
FYI for those who aren't familiar with Duverger's law, which the paper mentions once, without much explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
xlm1717 6y ago
One, that's some nice editorializing on the paper title. Two, Walter R. Mebane, an expert on election fraud, had a response to that paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/article/comment-on-benfords-law-and-the-detection-of-election-fraud/BC29680D8B5469A54C7C9D865029FE7C https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/a... And three, Mebane also released a short paper reviewing the 2020 results: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/inapB.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/inapB.pdf tl;dr: There are very minor anomalies in some numbers but either way we have to wait till we get the final numbers in before we can do real analysis.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
s9w 6y ago
No politics, so this shouldn't be here. But man... of all the things going around, the two HN posts trying to counter the fraid claims focus on the absolute weakest of those arguments. No one takes the Benford arguments seriously. People take the weakest arguments, "debunk" them and declare everything as bs. Which it might be, but other findings are orders of magnitude more significant than this.

19 points by herodotus 6y ago

TheDesolate0 6y ago

Nice try cambridge. Stand-Up Maths on Youtube already beat you to it.

herodotus 6y ago
Actually, Stand-Up math directly quotes from the linked article.
petee 6y ago
Well first, it was published "Summer 2011", right at the top, and second, why be snarky? Cambridge is clearly more reputable than some guy on YouTube...not to knock that guy, but he's still just some guy on youtube
- kahrl 6y ago
  "some guy on Youtube" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Parker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Parker
  - petee 6y ago
    I appreciate the link but still never heard of him; like most though, I've heard of Cambridge. Publishing on youtube requires no peer review or approval,so it's literally just some guy, and in the context here it's still odd to slap down Cambridge for a youtube video
gopalv 6y ago
> already beat you to it. Netflix's "Connected" had an episode which was probably prescient on this topic. There was an election analyst at the end of the episode, who said that Benford's law is broken when people vote strategically against a candidate or change their vote when their preferred candidate drops out.
- esoterica 6y ago
  > Benford's law is broken when people vote strategically against a candidate or change their vote when their preferred candidate drops out. That has nothing to do with why Benford's law doesn't work. Benford's law doesn't apply to precinct vote counts because precincts are roughly equally sized and Benford's law only applies to data that approximately follows a power law distribution and spans at least a few orders of magnitude.
lhorie 6y ago
For those who are interested in said video, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78
Ninjaneered 6y ago
Relevant video, "Why do Biden's votes not follow Benford's Law?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

autokad 6y ago

doesnt the fact that voting districts attempt to fit a certain population within them make the law not applicable?

noncoml 6y ago

World gone crazy. The only reason we are talking about fraud is because a narcissist said so, because he can’t accept he lost.

westwing 6y ago
Observe the media narrative slowly drift from “no evidence of fraud” to “not enough evidence of fraud” to “no evidence of enough fraud”.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> The only reason we are talking about fraud is because a narcissist said so, because he can’t accept he lost. Suppose that's true. So what? We analyze the results. We apply science. It can't change the result if it wasn't supposed to. You give the devil his due. Because then given the result doesn't change, you can't be accused of covering up a fraud when it wasn't actually there. Which is what happens in the alternative.
- noncoml 6y ago
  > Suppose that's true. So what? Casting doubts and entertaining the witch hunt is damaging the democracy by eroding the trust of people in the election system. Opening the way for a coup in the future.
  - jungletime 6y ago
    Isn't that what the Russia gate did. It casted doubts about the election results for 4 years of his presidency. And still no definitive proof after 4 years. I don't understand the double standard now. I hope he pardons Snowden and Manning on the way out, as a final act of revenge on the system. During the debates Biden pledged to wait for the vote to be certified before declaring victory. Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1miwDWst-IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1miwDWst-IQ
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Apparently discussion of Benford’s law is shadow-banning said accounts on Twitter. Can’t say I would have thought that to be possible 10 years ago. Hah.

thinkingemote 6y ago
Does sharing the article and/or sharing these comments result in that?

jungletime 6y ago

I make no claims of validity. So don't down vote me. Just reporting what is going on. An hour ago Trump Tweeted: “REPORT: DOMINION DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. DATA ANALYSIS FINDS 221,000 PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN. 941,000 TRUMP VOTES DELETED. STATES USING DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS SWITCHED 435,000 VOTES FROM TRUMP TO BIDEN" https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump? Which appears to be sourced from this: https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-voting-systems-offers-incontrovertible-proof-of-election-hack/ https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jungletime 6y ago

I just posted a link to latest Trump tweet, and got flagged. Don't understand why simply reporting something as relevant as what Trump tweeted is reason enough to get flagged. when its directly relevant to this article, and what your president tweeted is news worthy. When your president retweets that 2.7 million votes where deleted during this election by dominion software. I think thats pretty relevant to this article. Shocking as that is. I made no claims of its validity. Just simply the source.

pwinnski 6y ago
Nothing from that twitter account is relevant on a site dedicated to increasing knowledge, as HN is.
- jungletime 6y ago
  If reposting Tumps (still your president) tweets is not allowed. Can I post the source behind his tweet. Its crazy to me that both "Let him present his evidence" and censoring when he does present his evidence, comes from the same side. I make no claims of validity, just relevance. https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-voting-systems-offers-incontrovertible-proof-of-election-hack/ https://noqreport.com/2020/11/11/data-deep-dive-on-dominion-...
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Can I post the source behind his tweet. Its clearly not relevant to this piece on the applicability of Benford's law. While I personally think its inappropriate for HN for a number of reasons, others might disagree and we have community moderation tools to resolve that disagreement, and it would at least be less inappropriate submitted as an independent story, rather than a comment on this one.
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    First paragraph, second sentence: "...as we examine the work of a dedicated Trump-supporter who appears to have uncovered all of the proof necessary to dispel this myth that Joe Biden won the presidential election." This is nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing, and hiding being dispassionate "no claims" doesn't absolve you from posting obvious inflammatory garbage.

jcranmer 6y ago

The explanation is actually far simpler than the paper explains: Benford's law requires that the dataset cross multiple orders of magnitude to kick in. Precincts are generally of the same order of magnitude of size (1000s of people), which is insufficient for Benford's law to apply.

esoterica 6y ago
It needs to both span multiple orders of magnitude and also obey a power law or similar distribution (although almost all natural data sets that span multiple orders of magnitude do).

pmiller2 6y ago

FYI for those who aren't familiar with Duverger's law, which the paper mentions once, without much explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

xlm1717 6y ago

One, that's some nice editorializing on the paper title. Two, Walter R. Mebane, an expert on election fraud, had a response to that paper: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/article/comment-on-benfords-law-and-the-detection-of-election-fraud/BC29680D8B5469A54C7C9D865029FE7C https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-analysis/a... And three, Mebane also released a short paper reviewing the 2020 results: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/inapB.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/inapB.pdf tl;dr: There are very minor anomalies in some numbers but either way we have to wait till we get the final numbers in before we can do real analysis.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

s9w 6y ago

No politics, so this shouldn't be here. But man... of all the things going around, the two HN posts trying to counter the fraid claims focus on the absolute weakest of those arguments. No one takes the Benford arguments seriously. People take the weakest arguments, "debunk" them and declare everything as bs. Which it might be, but other findings are orders of magnitude more significant than this.