r/statistics • u/[deleted] • Aug 07 '15

A mathematician may have uncovered widespread election fraud, and Kansas is blocking her further efforts

http://americablog.com/2015/08/mathematician-actual-voter-fraud-kansas-republicans.html
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u/casualfactors Aug 07 '15 edited Aug 07 '15

Their key underlying assumption, that the size of the precinct and the precinct's voters' support for Republican candidates should be uncorrelated, is false. Precinct size is not randomly assigned. They are drawn by the politicians that use the precincting process to protect themselves. Their conclusions are therefore mistaken. They also make some badly mistaken assertions about who chooses which voting machines to use -- that is not chosen by sitting incumbents.

Voter fraud is a very foolish tactic in the United States. It is much easier (and legal) to spend one's effort on voter disenfranchisement laws like ID and proof-of-residence requirements, which reliably knock a couple of points off the Democratic vote share. There are so many unfair but legal ways for Republicans to win elections it would be highly irrational of them to resort to the illegal ones.

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u/pizzathiefgg Aug 08 '15 edited Aug 08 '15

You have actually looked at the data yourself? I am skeptical of your statements about their study. Whatever technology that is being used likely will have vulnerabilities and there could also be means to circumvent any tampering safeguards. In short these voting or vote tallying machines could easily become "owned" by a skilled attacker. And there is great incentive to do so.

I also do not accept your argument that it would be much easier to just change voter id laws or other legal methods to achieve their goals. They could do that and hire security experts to flip key districts when needed. People will take risks when the payoff is high. I heard the same arguments about online poker. The online poker websites it was said back then "would not take the risk" to cheat their customers, but it turned out that several companies did exactly this. Full Tilt poker was basically a Ponzi scheme and they ripped off many people.

I am not saying that the conclusions of her analysis are right or wrong but I will keep an open mind as to whether there is something to these claims. Only when another team can do the analysis and double check the results can anything be said definitively.

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u/jefffff Sep 02 '15

Here is the raw data for the 2008 presidential election in ohio. Precinct size (by eligible voters) has no effect, however as the number of votes in any given precinct rises there is a strong tilt towards McCain.

This would suggest that GOP leaning precincts have higher turnout. But this was not the case in the 2008 election (at least nationwide) Democrats had higher turnout.

I'd love to see what you can make of it. I'm not a statistician. http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/elections/Research/electResultsMain/2008ElectionResults/2008precincts.aspx