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Comments (31)
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t3h_rival 39 points ago +39 / -0

538 is a joke

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deleted 16 points ago +16 / -0
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TedCruz2024 7 points ago +7 / -0

I saw Nate Silver on the street just after the 2016 election and shouted at him "How'd your polls go!?" He just looked at over at me nervously and turned away.

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benfordslaw 2 points ago +2 / -0

TOP KEK

did he lose a hair

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deleted 10 points ago +10 / -0
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VinceOnAPlane 5 points ago +5 / -0

He's been demoted to Nate Rusty Tin Can.

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Lapstrake 14 points ago +14 / -0

You have to be careful to apply Benford's law only to datasets where it applies. If all of your numbers are in a similar range, your results will be meaningless.

I don't think we need Benford's law to allege fraud, and if you get it wrong it will hurt us more than it helps.

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Rightisright 2 points ago +2 / -0

Not if you use the second digit. The distribution of numbers is different for the second digit, starting with 0 as the most frequent number.

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PatrickSebast 2 points ago +2 / -0

Second digit is amateur hour and less reliable. High IQ math-ers switch out of base 10 number sets.

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Rightisright 5 points ago +5 / -0

All I know is I read two Cambridge papers; one arguing that Benford's law is not a good tool to look for election fraud and another suggesting the first was wrong and that it is. They both used the second digit. Also, I have seen financial fraud cases where the second digit is used. I ran both Biden's first and 2nd for the 327 Milwaukee districts and they are both out of wack. Both distributions congregate to the "middle numbers". I am definitely not an expert though, more like a stats hobbyist with most of my work around daily fantasy sports. I also don't think any of this is a smoking gun, it is just another layer.

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PatrickSebast 1 point ago +1 / -0

Second digit is supposed to congregate to median of 4.8 -something I believe. So middle numbers sound right.

BL using first digit needs a good amount of data without any natural skew to it. Voting precinct data could be naturally skewed because in a district with 90k voters it isn't likely that either candidate has a vote total starting with 1 in that precinct. Considering all the variables impacting the data the only decent way to determine if it is fair to apply to a data set is use comparable historic data sets. So vote patterns for other democratic candidates in the past years would be a good check (but no guarantee of fraud not being involved there).

Also important to note that BL could easily miss fraud. The example of Dominion adding .6% to Biden and removing .6% from Trump in certain precincts likely wouldn't have a major impact on the analysis. In fact that .6% example is hard to detect using all of the standard election tools. The P05 analysis (checks how common 0 and 5 occur at the end of percentage and it should be equally distributed at 20% of the time) is the closest.

Really the whole thing is a mess and the real data sets are in many cases not available yet (and distributed across county websites in many cases when they are available) so drawing conclusions or even doing good analysis is tough.

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Rightisright 1 point ago +1 / -0

The second digits reduce from 12% to 8.5% in Benfords. They do not congregate at the middle.

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PatrickSebast 1 point ago +1 / -0

You are probably be right about that. I haven't looked that deeply I just know that standard 2BL test rates deviation from a median rather than evaluating a distribution. Not in Polysci so I'm just glancing over the calculations they use.

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the_pragmaticist 1 point ago +1 / -0

That would make sense. Does the law hold true if we drop down to base four? Probably with a weaker confidence interval?

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PatrickSebast 1 point ago +1 / -0

It's about framing. Use the population of cities in the US with 100k being a lower threshold. Base 4 and Base 5 work perfectly. Base 6 is terrible because the large number of cities with populations close to the lower 100k threshold happen to start with a 2 in base six. Arbitrary limits that seem natural in base 10 were chosen so it works in base 10 and other data sets that like the frame. Base 6 doesn't like the frame.

So if you want to see good results then you need to look at the overall range of the data and where most of the "action" is occurring.

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IncredibleMrE1 12 points ago +12 / -0

Oh, how the turn tables LMFAOOOOOOO

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MI_MAGA 8 points ago +8 / -0

"Nate Silver carries a big statistical stick"

What an ABSOLUTE CUCK

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G0vnah 7 points ago +7 / -0

"Only the priests can interpret God's word. You are forbidden from reading it yourself."

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deleted 4 points ago +4 / -0
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NeverNotTrump 4 points ago +4 / -0

Mebane on the current application of Benford's Law to 2020 data: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/inapB.pdf

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ChickenFried 3 points ago +3 / -0

I use Benford's law graph to illustrate 538's credibility drop.

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trump2036 3 points ago +3 / -0

check wikipedia - they edited it when this broke to specifically say that it can't be used for elections.

liberal hactivists

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you_can_do_it 3 points ago +4 / -1

Sometimes with stuff like this I wonder if those being blackmailed stealthily drop hints throughout the years.

3
Carlun404 3 points ago +3 / -0

Dumb question, but how do we know some of these 'experts' aren't prisoners? Should we assume the Left isn't above such tactics such as using hostages to get them to cooperate?

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winningX3 2 points ago +2 / -0

Benford's Law doesn't mathematically compute when a democrat is gaining votes...it's one of the rules...DUHHH

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lofac28 2 points ago +2 / -0

Good man, we need a PSA to always archive before posting important stuff.

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Submariner 2 points ago +2 / -0

This guy's shitty algos can't even get basketball right. Why the fuck would anyone take him seriously with politics? This cuck also has the shittiest haircut on the planet right now.

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deleted 1 point ago +1 / -0
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turdinthepunch 2 points ago +2 / -0

lol

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DaayTerkErJerbs 1 point ago +1 / -0

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha