Go read up on Benford's law. (See http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/1999/May/nigrini.htm http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/1999/May/nigrini...

Go read up on Benford's law. (See http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/1999/May/nigrini.htm http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/1999/May/nigrini.... for an example of how it was used) I'm not familiar with the digit-distribution law the article mentioned, but on its face it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. I'd prefer to see some study applying this same analysis to thousands of other elections, of course. But, prima facie, using digit distributions to detect fraud is not at all unreasonable.