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by culi 2y ago

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tptacek 2y ago
I'm not sure I understand this battle-of-experts thing happening here. The Venezuelan authorities released the vote totals. They work out to exactly 51.2% vs 44.2%. That did not happen in the real world. Could not have. We don't need the Carter Foundation to tell us these results are false. They are manifestly false.
- roenxi 2y ago
  That isn't the vote total, it is a provisional count. They're claiming "80% reported" which is already a tell that whoever is putting out the figures isn't treating them especially accurately. It is plausible that the figures are incompetence rather than malice and someone was back-calculating the number of votes from an accurate-enough percentage. Pretty unlikely though. It isn't that hard to count votes.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    Sure, but the 80% cutoff on the stat doesn't change anything here. The only way to report out these numbers is to start with the two percentages and work back to them, which would make them false! I don't think there's a way to rescue these stats. Certainly I don't think the Carter Foundation or the International NLG has anything useful to say about them.
    - culi 2y ago
      The Carter Center doesn't allege made up numbers. They alleged short voter registration deadlines, few places to register, minimal public information about voting, excessive legal requirements for citizens abroad. As well as inequality in the resources each candidate had access to: > The electoral campaign was impacted by unequal conditions among candidates. The campaign of the incumbent president was well funded and widely visible through rallies, posters, murals, and street campaigning. The abuse of administrative resources on behalf of the incumbent — including use of government vehicles, public officials campaigning while in their official capacity, and use of social programs — was observed throughout the campaign. https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.html https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.h...
      - tptacek 2y ago
        I'm sorry, but I don't know what any of this has to do with the vote counts reported here, which are mathematically guaranteed to be fictitious.
        roenxi 2y ago
        The vote count is always fictitious. The tolerances on counting a vote aren't that detailed - if someone says that a candidate got ~10 million votes and gives a figure accurate to a single vote that isn't a true number. I've had family members help count votes and I can guarantee that mistakes are made, and there is the obvious point that in a multi-million person election there is probably going to be fraud in there somewhere. So the question here isn't whether the NEC is publishing the true figure - because from its perspective it knows that it isn't, especially not a provisional vote. The question is what forms of inaccuracy are present and why. It obviously isn't adding up raw vote totals, but that still leaves two options here - fraud and appalling sloppiness (back-calculating totals from a reasonable %). I'd lean to fraud, but if the people close to the action aren't alleging anything yet then maybe it is sloppiness.
        tptacek 2y ago
        I can't see what this has to do with the analysis. Obviously, the counts themselves are subject to error, but it takes even more manipulation of vote counting to express counts that work out to round percentages, given error, not less. Meanwhile: it is definitely not the case that the norm is to simply make up the vote counts, or to back them out from percentages. You can certainly tell stories about how this publication isn't a smoking gun for the election, but they will all involve some deliberate manipulation of the numbers; for instance, you can try to rationalize a story where someone took the original vote counts, worked the percentages out, rounded them (so far so good), then discarded the original counts (uhhhhh) and synthesized new ones (triple yikes). (I'm sorry to keep hedging this way, but I have to say again: cards on the table I think Maduro is awful, but my interest in this story is in the statistical anomaly, not the politics --- this for me is like that time HN got all wound up believing Google was dragnetting searches for pressure cookers after the Marathon bombing, which flunked plausibility due to a similar statistical argument; I like a pressure cooker, sure, but my real thing there was the base rate fallacy).
  - akdev1l 2y ago
    There’s a literal website with the pictures from the raw voting records. People in this thread don’t know a lot of about the Venezuelan situation for how many opinions they seem to emit. 1. https://x.com/rusosnith/status/1818457492893884814?t=BtVOVhDMajfutRMtMrkZ2A&s=19 https://x.com/rusosnith/status/1818457492893884814?t=BtVOVhD...
- nine_k 2y ago
  I would say that the obvious rigging of the vote is a desired effect. Ditto for the obviously outlandish accusations of meddling by the Chilean secret service. I think the message being sent now is: "I can rig the elections, you see it, and you can't do anything about it. I win because I say so." And his supporters see it and are happy that their leader is not a wimp. Sr. Maduro's friend, Mr. Putin, has been sending the same message last few election cycles, when he's been running for president in umpteen time, despite any limits set by Constitution, etc.
  - EGreg 2y ago
    [flagged]
- foobarqux 2y ago
  If you read the addendum to the article they provide a perfectly plausible explanation: namely that (only) rounded percentages were provided to an intermediary and from there they back-calculated the counts. Given that the US has claimed vote rigging in the past in Venezuela without evidence contrary to the determination of international observers (and has and is trying to overthrow the government to install a US-backed one) claims of vote rigging should be viewed with an enormous amount of skepticism.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    They reported vote counts for both candidates that were fictitious. I don't understand how anybody can rationalize that. I'm no fan of Maduro but I care about the politics of the region a lot less than I do about the mathematics of the situation. It's alarming to see people try to back-rationalize how these numbers could have been legitimate because, for instance (elsewhere on this thread), "it would have been easy for them just make realistic numbers". Whatever else happened, these numbers are fictitious. If you want to come up with scenarios where the numbers don't matter, that's fine, you do you, I won't get in your way. But you can't rescue the numbers themselves.
    - foobarqux 2y ago
      As I and others (including in the original article) have explained it is a plausible result to create legitimately. Given the context that unsubstantiated vote-rigging allegations have occurred in the past (and the dire consequences of destabilizing a government based on false claims) extreme skepticism is warranted.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        You can tell a story about a process that publishes these numbers in good faith, but not a story in which the vote counts reported are anything other than fictitious. It is not, in fact, an ordinary sequence of events to take true counts, work out their percentages, round them, discard the original counts, and work back new counts from the rounded percentages. Those new counts are a lie, no matter what the process was. The rest of this, I don't care.
- culi 2y ago
  These aren't the vote totals. This is "80%" of the votes. No one has posted a link to the official statement. Votes are still being counted and we won't have the vote totals for a while
  - tptacek 2y ago
    What difference does it make if they're 80% of the votes, or even 30% of the votes? 3.5MM votes is still too many for there to be any realistic possibility of seeing these round percentages in the vote counts.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    You're literally building a voting simulator. There's no way you don't see that getting round percentages reported for "80%" of the votes is just as improbable as getting round percentages reported for 100% of the votes.
    - culi 2y ago
      My point is it's obvious these numbers are lazily communicated. The official report never included a total votes number. It seems highly likely that somewhere along the way someone worked backwards from the percentages to work out that final number My point was that obviously "80%" isn't an exact number. So therefore we probably shouldn't trust that any of the other numbers are meant to be read that way
      - tptacek 2y ago
        You keep saying that they didn't include a total votes number. That's false, as was pointed out to you across the thread.
stateofinquiry 2y ago
I'd never heard of the National Lawyer's Guild. According to Wikipedia: "The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States." "Activists" not generally compatible with "impartial". Some coverage of the situation I found very helpful is available here: https://www.readtangle.com/venezuela-elections-explained-maduro/ https://www.readtangle.com/venezuela-elections-explained-mad.... (Edit: Fixed link)
- culi 2y ago
  > I'd never heard of the National Lawyer's Guild This is surprising! I certainly have. Have you heard of the Carter Center? I hadn't till now. > "Activists" not generally compatible with "impartial". Hmmm I don't think I agree with this logic. Or, imo, if you took it seriously, you'd have to excuse the Carter Center just as well. Regardless, I don't see how your link supports this statement. It just seems to be an AI summary of a bunch of different articles?
  - wil421 2y ago
    How can you be creating a voting app and never heard of the Carter Center? They’ve observed elections in 40 counties since 1989.[1] they’ve even been critical of US elections. [1]https://www.cartercenter.org/peace/democracy/observed.html https://www.cartercenter.org/peace/democracy/observed.html
sobellian 2y ago
Given the transparently fake vote totals, perhaps we can update our priors on the impartiality of this guild.
riku_iki 2y ago
> The National Lawyers Guild was also an observer they sent 5 observers only per https://truthout.org/articles/maduro-wins-reelection-for-third-presidential-term-in-venezuela/ https://truthout.org/articles/maduro-wins-reelection-for-thi...
bandyaboot 2y ago
This is a strangely belligerent statement from an organization tasked with being impartial observers. I don’t know what to make of it, but it seems very odd. edit: The use of the term “opposition” seems like a bit of a tell.
avsteele 2y ago
The National Lawyers Guild twitter profile reads: "Human rights over property interests since 1937. Fighting for liberation, organizing in solidarity with radical movement leaders." https://x.com/NLGnews https://x.com/NLGnews They are certainly not impartial.
- grumple 2y ago
  They are impartial if you consider relentlessly pushing radical communist agendas and disregarding information that hurts your political allies to be impartial. More uncomfortable facts: Maduro has killed tens of thousands of political dissidents nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country under his regime [0]. And exit polls overwhelmingly favored the opposition [1]. 0. https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/venezuela/#:~:text=More%20than%207.7%20million%20Venezuelans,(as%20of%20April%202024) https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/venezuela/#:~:text=Mo.... 1. https://www.edisonresearch.com/edison-research-conducts-exit-poll-in-venezuela/ https://www.edisonresearch.com/edison-research-conducts-exit...
  - berdario 2y ago
    Exit polls favored Maduro at 54% of the votes: https://x.com/Hinterlaces/status/1817599369471799639 https://x.com/Hinterlaces/status/1817599369471799639 The exit poll that you referred to, is by EdisonResearch EdisonResearch is based in New Jersey, and doesn't have any prior experience with exit polls in Venezuela: https://web.archive.org/web/20180528045149/https://www.edisonresearch.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180528045149/https://www.ediso... I've also seen claims that they get funding from USAID, though I haven't been able to confirm them The fact that 8 million Venezuelans fled the country is of course sad, but the context is that the country has also been crippled by billion of dollars in sanctions. The UK alone "froze" 1 billion $ in Venezuelan's gold reserves. The "Beyond Sanctions" section of this article goes into details: https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/07/30/venezuelans-re-elect-president-maduro-despite-u-s-organized-coup-attempt/ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/07/30/venezuelans-re-e...
    - rafaelm 2y ago
eirikbakke 2y ago
The numerical problem does not hinge on the reputability of any particular observer organization, though. You can just verify it on a calculator yourself! Similarly, the call for local vote tallies is not unreasonable. Venezuelan law dictates they should have been made available by the government, and they were not. Though a lot of people took cell phone photos of the voting machine printouts locally; see e.g. the thread at https://x.com/DavidRomro/status/1817782928279007350 https://x.com/DavidRomro/status/1817782928279007350 .
sunshowers 2y ago
So much the worse for the National Lawyers Guild then! The numbers are undeniably fake.
ekianjo 2y ago
If you want to claim to be impartial, you need to make a case that you are not biased. The NLG is far from that.
deleted 2y ago
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jpcfl 2y ago
Anyone who calls this election fair is not impartial. The scale of the fraud is enormous and undeniable. Tell me, how many Venezuelans abroad were able to vote? How many were kept out of the country because the borders were closed? How many were threatened or intimidated into voting for Maduro? How many votes were cast using false ID? How many were confused by the ballot which had 13 options to vote for Maduro? How many polling stations were closed at the last minute?

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by culi 2y ago

[flagged]

I'm not sure I understand this battle-of-experts thing happening here. The Venezuelan authorities released the vote totals. They work out to exactly 51.2% vs 44.2%. That did not happen in the real world. Could not have. We don't need the Carter Foundation to tell us these results are false. They are manifestly false.

roenxi 2y ago
That isn't the vote total, it is a provisional count. They're claiming "80% reported" which is already a tell that whoever is putting out the figures isn't treating them especially accurately. It is plausible that the figures are incompetence rather than malice and someone was back-calculating the number of votes from an accurate-enough percentage. Pretty unlikely though. It isn't that hard to count votes.
- tptacek 2y ago
  Sure, but the 80% cutoff on the stat doesn't change anything here. The only way to report out these numbers is to start with the two percentages and work back to them, which would make them false! I don't think there's a way to rescue these stats. Certainly I don't think the Carter Foundation or the International NLG has anything useful to say about them.
  - culi 2y ago
    The Carter Center doesn't allege made up numbers. They alleged short voter registration deadlines, few places to register, minimal public information about voting, excessive legal requirements for citizens abroad. As well as inequality in the resources each candidate had access to: > The electoral campaign was impacted by unequal conditions among candidates. The campaign of the incumbent president was well funded and widely visible through rallies, posters, murals, and street campaigning. The abuse of administrative resources on behalf of the incumbent — including use of government vehicles, public officials campaigning while in their official capacity, and use of social programs — was observed throughout the campaign. https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.html https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.h...
    - tptacek 2y ago
      I'm sorry, but I don't know what any of this has to do with the vote counts reported here, which are mathematically guaranteed to be fictitious.
      - roenxi 2y ago
        The vote count is always fictitious. The tolerances on counting a vote aren't that detailed - if someone says that a candidate got ~10 million votes and gives a figure accurate to a single vote that isn't a true number. I've had family members help count votes and I can guarantee that mistakes are made, and there is the obvious point that in a multi-million person election there is probably going to be fraud in there somewhere. So the question here isn't whether the NEC is publishing the true figure - because from its perspective it knows that it isn't, especially not a provisional vote. The question is what forms of inaccuracy are present and why. It obviously isn't adding up raw vote totals, but that still leaves two options here - fraud and appalling sloppiness (back-calculating totals from a reasonable %). I'd lean to fraud, but if the people close to the action aren't alleging anything yet then maybe it is sloppiness.
        tptacek 2y ago
        I can't see what this has to do with the analysis. Obviously, the counts themselves are subject to error, but it takes even more manipulation of vote counting to express counts that work out to round percentages, given error, not less. Meanwhile: it is definitely not the case that the norm is to simply make up the vote counts, or to back them out from percentages. You can certainly tell stories about how this publication isn't a smoking gun for the election, but they will all involve some deliberate manipulation of the numbers; for instance, you can try to rationalize a story where someone took the original vote counts, worked the percentages out, rounded them (so far so good), then discarded the original counts (uhhhhh) and synthesized new ones (triple yikes). (I'm sorry to keep hedging this way, but I have to say again: cards on the table I think Maduro is awful, but my interest in this story is in the statistical anomaly, not the politics --- this for me is like that time HN got all wound up believing Google was dragnetting searches for pressure cookers after the Marathon bombing, which flunked plausibility due to a similar statistical argument; I like a pressure cooker, sure, but my real thing there was the base rate fallacy).
- akdev1l 2y ago
  There’s a literal website with the pictures from the raw voting records. People in this thread don’t know a lot of about the Venezuelan situation for how many opinions they seem to emit. 1. https://x.com/rusosnith/status/1818457492893884814?t=BtVOVhDMajfutRMtMrkZ2A&s=19 https://x.com/rusosnith/status/1818457492893884814?t=BtVOVhD...
nine_k 2y ago
I would say that the obvious rigging of the vote is a desired effect. Ditto for the obviously outlandish accusations of meddling by the Chilean secret service. I think the message being sent now is: "I can rig the elections, you see it, and you can't do anything about it. I win because I say so." And his supporters see it and are happy that their leader is not a wimp. Sr. Maduro's friend, Mr. Putin, has been sending the same message last few election cycles, when he's been running for president in umpteen time, despite any limits set by Constitution, etc.
- EGreg 2y ago
  [flagged]
foobarqux 2y ago
If you read the addendum to the article they provide a perfectly plausible explanation: namely that (only) rounded percentages were provided to an intermediary and from there they back-calculated the counts. Given that the US has claimed vote rigging in the past in Venezuela without evidence contrary to the determination of international observers (and has and is trying to overthrow the government to install a US-backed one) claims of vote rigging should be viewed with an enormous amount of skepticism.
- tptacek 2y ago
  They reported vote counts for both candidates that were fictitious. I don't understand how anybody can rationalize that. I'm no fan of Maduro but I care about the politics of the region a lot less than I do about the mathematics of the situation. It's alarming to see people try to back-rationalize how these numbers could have been legitimate because, for instance (elsewhere on this thread), "it would have been easy for them just make realistic numbers". Whatever else happened, these numbers are fictitious. If you want to come up with scenarios where the numbers don't matter, that's fine, you do you, I won't get in your way. But you can't rescue the numbers themselves.
  - foobarqux 2y ago
    As I and others (including in the original article) have explained it is a plausible result to create legitimately. Given the context that unsubstantiated vote-rigging allegations have occurred in the past (and the dire consequences of destabilizing a government based on false claims) extreme skepticism is warranted.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      You can tell a story about a process that publishes these numbers in good faith, but not a story in which the vote counts reported are anything other than fictitious. It is not, in fact, an ordinary sequence of events to take true counts, work out their percentages, round them, discard the original counts, and work back new counts from the rounded percentages. Those new counts are a lie, no matter what the process was. The rest of this, I don't care.
culi 2y ago
These aren't the vote totals. This is "80%" of the votes. No one has posted a link to the official statement. Votes are still being counted and we won't have the vote totals for a while
- tptacek 2y ago
  What difference does it make if they're 80% of the votes, or even 30% of the votes? 3.5MM votes is still too many for there to be any realistic possibility of seeing these round percentages in the vote counts.
- lolinder 2y ago
  You're literally building a voting simulator. There's no way you don't see that getting round percentages reported for "80%" of the votes is just as improbable as getting round percentages reported for 100% of the votes.
  - culi 2y ago
    My point is it's obvious these numbers are lazily communicated. The official report never included a total votes number. It seems highly likely that somewhere along the way someone worked backwards from the percentages to work out that final number My point was that obviously "80%" isn't an exact number. So therefore we probably shouldn't trust that any of the other numbers are meant to be read that way
    - tptacek 2y ago
      You keep saying that they didn't include a total votes number. That's false, as was pointed out to you across the thread.

stateofinquiry 2y ago

I'd never heard of the National Lawyer's Guild. According to Wikipedia: "The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States." "Activists" not generally compatible with "impartial". Some coverage of the situation I found very helpful is available here: https://www.readtangle.com/venezuela-elections-explained-maduro/ https://www.readtangle.com/venezuela-elections-explained-mad.... (Edit: Fixed link)

culi 2y ago
> I'd never heard of the National Lawyer's Guild This is surprising! I certainly have. Have you heard of the Carter Center? I hadn't till now. > "Activists" not generally compatible with "impartial". Hmmm I don't think I agree with this logic. Or, imo, if you took it seriously, you'd have to excuse the Carter Center just as well. Regardless, I don't see how your link supports this statement. It just seems to be an AI summary of a bunch of different articles?
- wil421 2y ago
  How can you be creating a voting app and never heard of the Carter Center? They’ve observed elections in 40 counties since 1989.[1] they’ve even been critical of US elections. [1]https://www.cartercenter.org/peace/democracy/observed.html https://www.cartercenter.org/peace/democracy/observed.html

sobellian 2y ago

Given the transparently fake vote totals, perhaps we can update our priors on the impartiality of this guild.

riku_iki 2y ago

> The National Lawyers Guild was also an observer they sent 5 observers only per https://truthout.org/articles/maduro-wins-reelection-for-third-presidential-term-in-venezuela/ https://truthout.org/articles/maduro-wins-reelection-for-thi...

bandyaboot 2y ago

This is a strangely belligerent statement from an organization tasked with being impartial observers. I don’t know what to make of it, but it seems very odd. edit: The use of the term “opposition” seems like a bit of a tell.

avsteele 2y ago

The National Lawyers Guild twitter profile reads: "Human rights over property interests since 1937. Fighting for liberation, organizing in solidarity with radical movement leaders." https://x.com/NLGnews https://x.com/NLGnews They are certainly not impartial.

grumple 2y ago
They are impartial if you consider relentlessly pushing radical communist agendas and disregarding information that hurts your political allies to be impartial. More uncomfortable facts: Maduro has killed tens of thousands of political dissidents nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country under his regime [0]. And exit polls overwhelmingly favored the opposition [1]. 0. https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/venezuela/#:~:text=More%20than%207.7%20million%20Venezuelans,(as%20of%20April%202024) https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/venezuela/#:~:text=Mo.... 1. https://www.edisonresearch.com/edison-research-conducts-exit-poll-in-venezuela/ https://www.edisonresearch.com/edison-research-conducts-exit...
- berdario 2y ago
  Exit polls favored Maduro at 54% of the votes: https://x.com/Hinterlaces/status/1817599369471799639 https://x.com/Hinterlaces/status/1817599369471799639 The exit poll that you referred to, is by EdisonResearch EdisonResearch is based in New Jersey, and doesn't have any prior experience with exit polls in Venezuela: https://web.archive.org/web/20180528045149/https://www.edisonresearch.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180528045149/https://www.ediso... I've also seen claims that they get funding from USAID, though I haven't been able to confirm them The fact that 8 million Venezuelans fled the country is of course sad, but the context is that the country has also been crippled by billion of dollars in sanctions. The UK alone "froze" 1 billion $ in Venezuelan's gold reserves. The "Beyond Sanctions" section of this article goes into details: https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/07/30/venezuelans-re-elect-president-maduro-despite-u-s-organized-coup-attempt/ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/07/30/venezuelans-re-e...
  - rafaelm 2y ago

eirikbakke 2y ago

The numerical problem does not hinge on the reputability of any particular observer organization, though. You can just verify it on a calculator yourself! Similarly, the call for local vote tallies is not unreasonable. Venezuelan law dictates they should have been made available by the government, and they were not. Though a lot of people took cell phone photos of the voting machine printouts locally; see e.g. the thread at https://x.com/DavidRomro/status/1817782928279007350 https://x.com/DavidRomro/status/1817782928279007350 .

sunshowers 2y ago

So much the worse for the National Lawyers Guild then! The numbers are undeniably fake.

ekianjo 2y ago

If you want to claim to be impartial, you need to make a case that you are not biased. The NLG is far from that.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jpcfl 2y ago

Anyone who calls this election fair is not impartial. The scale of the fraud is enormous and undeniable. Tell me, how many Venezuelans abroad were able to vote? How many were kept out of the country because the borders were closed? How many were threatened or intimidated into voting for Maduro? How many votes were cast using false ID? How many were confused by the ballot which had 13 options to vote for Maduro? How many polling stations were closed at the last minute?