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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@deathpigeon: Voting for those candidates is futile. The American public, as a whole, does not care enough to put those issues above the economic ones.
@rmctagg: The source on that vote rigging claim is highly dubious. I would need to see far more evidence than dry statistical analysis.
edited 25th Oct '12 1:26:16 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Well, the math is right there, if anyone has the time to check it.
And I've never heard of UK Progressive before, but judging by everyone's reactions it's not exactly trustworthy. We talking the liberal version of Fox News, or what?
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.I'm sorry, but that website looks pretty biased to me, based on just a glance through the article titles on its main page. There's no way you could get a serious Republican-leaning voter to take that source seriously. Regardless of the article's actual content, it's going to have to get picked up by a more neutral player if it's going to get any real attention. Headers like 'Obama as Commander-in-Chief, Romney as Banal Bully' make it clear whose side you're on.
edited 25th Oct '12 1:46:56 PM by Karkadinn
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.Yeah that site is obviously biased and the quality of the writing and formating means I'm taking those claims with large grains of salt. Besides I'd think the NSA guy would go to major media outlets and respected investigative journalists before giving the info to some website no one has ever heard of.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Hmm... I'll have to try doing the math on Virginia figures later, but the (.xlsx) spreadsheet accompanying the article is at [1]
; the argument seems to be that if you plot trends of counting votes from small precincts to large ones, you would expect (after the initial noise of small sample sizes) the cumulative vote proportions to have a flat trend towards the final count. In other words, the first 33% of votes, second 33%, and last 33% should all have similar proportions, whereas the data from the larger precincts seems tilted towards Romney and against Paul (and weakly, Santorum).
Of course, if there is some meta reason that precincts with higher turnouts would be more likely to favor Romney (and Republicans in general if this can in fact be confirmed to be a wider trend), then it's a statistical quirk, but if there isn't any common factor to these precincts beyond "easier to hide rigged voting in a larger sample size", then it is concerning. Somebody else should look at it at least.
Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?I agree with Rational. Why didn't he go to major outlets, why a biased group instead? Even NBC/MSNBC, they're bias as heck, they'd probably run if it had a fraction of truth to it.
And about the UN wanting to check the legality of the vote in the US, I find it laughable. Compared to all the stolen elections worldwide they do nothing about...I find it's one of the things where I go "you're kidding me". And what would the UN do about it, even it if was true and the election was stolen by R-Evil Dark mizer? Bloody nothing at all. We all know the UN, even if everyone got enraged, would do absolutely nothing to stop it.
When has the UN ever did anything productive in the first place? If they can't stop the hell that is going on in Syria, can't stop the Chaotic Evil Iranian mullahs from getting the world's most destructive weapon, if they can't help save people from warlords in Africa, if they literally do not have a definition of terrorism (none, whatsoever) what in the world is the UN actually good for?
(speaking of the UN, appearently someone made a documentary about it)
edited 25th Oct '12 2:20:46 PM by Nicktendonick
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.So, the contraceptives rule in obamacare
actually wakens the safety net.
Somehow.
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryAt least the UN can hopefully officially prove if there is major fraud in the election, and even having that information out there would be helpful.
A response to the frankly ridiculous claim that the UN isn't good for anything at all would be easy to deliver, but it would also take this thread off-topic, so I'd like to suggest that you look up information on the things that the UN has done to alleviate the suffering of the poor and uneducated, or to prevent conflicts (they don't always fail,) and so on. Special attention should be paid to the agencies within the UN, such as UNESCO and the IAEA.
To name just one UN success (though it can't be entirely credited to UN-affiliated organisations,) there's an ongoing campaign to defeat several diseases, two of which (smallpox and rinderpest) have been eradicated completely. Without the UN, millions would be infected with smallpox each year, and many of them would die of it. During the 20th century, an estimated 300-500 million people in Europe died of smallpox. (I'm quoting Wikipedia here.) The earliest vaccinations began long before the UN was established, but most of the overall effort was done by the WHO, a UN agency.
edited 25th Oct '12 2:47:37 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.I'm not going to be too suspicious of the media thing yet; an at-least-seven-years-retired guy out in Arizona is likely to not have major media contacts, especially for a claim that is math-heavy rather than a single smoking gun. I hope somebody else with statistical chops considers the data.
If precincts are drawn in a manner such that larger ones are more likely to be found in the city/country/other-demographic-divide, there's some room for doubting the numbers. Distribution is something worth analyzing. If the spreadsheet numbers are false, it can be thrown out the window. If there's an elementary statistical principle (besides the biased distribution question) being broken, I can rest easier.
I really hope the charge is false, but I am disturbed that the recent character of the GOP makes it remotely plausible.
EDIT: at the least, if precinct counts are a matter of turnout, I would not be surprised for fringer candidates like Ron Paul to dominate at the small side, as their base is more likely to turn out regardless.
edited 25th Oct '12 2:53:19 PM by Tangent128
Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?I know districts are supposed to be equal population, and I imagine precincts would do that too; so larger precincts would almost certainly be found in rural or less urbanized areas. Not too hard to imagine a systematic difference in voting preferences there. Unless he addresses that in the statistics some way.
She of Short Stature & Impeccable Logic My Skating Liveblog@Taoist: I distrust addictinginfo on principle, since they've done a lot of bad and badly credited journalism, but it does link to the bill, which has the following, which I cannot quite wrap my head around:
(f) Elimination of benefits under subsection (d) shall not apply to any child conceived as a result of rape or incest if the department:(1) receives a non-notarized, signed statement from the pregnant woman stating that she was a victim of rape or incest, as the case may be, and that she reported the crime, including the identity of the offender, if known, to a law enforcement agency having the requisite jurisdiction or, in the case of incest where a pregnant minor is the victim, to the county child protective service agency and stating the name of the law enforcement agency or child protective service agency to which the report was made and the date such report was made;
edited 25th Oct '12 2:59:14 PM by Enkufka
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen FryThe fact that it starts with "Christian Taliban" does not make me trust it. The sidebar too looks very left-leaning. Has someone access to parliament records, as they have with congress?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman@Septimus: I posted the relevant section of the bill above. From what I can tell, the bill changes how TANF supplements are calculated, and proving that a rape pregnancy occurred is relevant to that. It's not in every situation as bad as "prove you were raped or we won't give you benefits," but it looks like it might have that effect in some cases.
There is also a section at the end that it need not be the victim who proves it, instead the law enforcement agency could as well.
Also, sod this douchecanoe.
Yet another CEO telling the employees that they might have a lot of trouble if Obama is re-elected.
edited 25th Oct '12 3:04:47 PM by Enkufka
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry
The first section basically says that if you receive TANF (food stamps) benefits for a family with x members, and they conceive a child, they don't get funding for an additional person. I think it's kind of messed up, but I could see some valid reasons, like trying to encourage breastfeeding, or the newborn would be covered under WIC anyways, so there's no reason to give them additional money or something. I don't know exactly what the situation is, so that's all speculation on my part.
The second part is the really messed up bit. Not only does it provide an exemption for cases of rape (which makes the first bit really sound like it's just a penalty for having a child), but it forces women to provide additional proof that she was raped and that it was reported.
"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -DrunkscriblerianThank you for the translation, the legalese was making my head spin. @_@
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

I don't know how true this is admittedly, but if it was it wouldn't surprise me
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.