# Math Increasingly Suggests Election Fraud Against Hillary Clinton **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 17, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220 "2016-11-17T02:23:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/81 "2016-11-18T15:29:34Z")
> [@OriginalGangster](#): > > The rust belt states that typically always go blue. > > It’s simply hard to believe Trump really won them. This is like saying that Obama’s victory in Indiana in 2008 must have been fraudulent because Indiana had been a reliably Republican state up to that point, dating back to 1968. At some point, these streaks get broken. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/82 "2016-11-18T15:50:55Z")
I asked this another thread, but since this thread has taken over the discussion, I’ll ask it here: how would we detect if the election results were fraudulent? We can actually go and touch and count paper ballots; how do we do a recount of electronic data? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/83 "2016-11-18T16:31:27Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I asked this another thread, but since this thread has taken over the discussion, I’ll ask it here: how would we detect if the election results were fraudulent? We can actually go and touch and count paper ballots; how do we do a recount of electronic data? I think if it’s purely electronic all they could do is examine the machines and verify they are operating properly. Many places that use electronic voting also produce a paper trail however. [Ballotpedia-Voting methods and equipment by state](https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/84 "2016-11-18T21:20:22Z")
The problem with the paper trail is that it is a last-ditch fall-back. There is a video where a guy shows that he can hack the SD card before it is put into the machine to report a count that is completely different from what the machine read. The cards go to the county clerk, where the computer tallies them up and the totals are transmitted to the elections offices. If the spread is proper: narrow enough to be convincing and wide enough to be conclusive, the machines are believed and the question is settled. Really good manipulation of the totals is all it takes: the vote is in and no one (mostly) looks back. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/85 "2016-11-18T21:55:07Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The problem with the paper trail is that it is a last-ditch fall-back. There is a video where a guy shows that he can hack the SD card before it is put into the machine to report a count that is completely different from what the machine read. The cards go to the county clerk, where the computer tallies them up and the totals are transmitted to the elections offices. If the spread is proper: narrow enough to be convincing and wide enough to be conclusive, the machines are believed and the question is settled. Really good manipulation of the totals is all it takes: the vote is in and no one (mostly) looks back. Are there no random audits of the paper trail? ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/86 "2016-11-18T21:57:44Z")
If they just threw marbles into each candidate’s jar the results would be unchallengable. Plus a boon for the marble making trade. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/87 "2016-11-18T23:16:42Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > If they just threw marbles into each candidate’s jar the results would be unchallengable. > Plus a boon for the marble making trade. The problem of course is that even in the smallest counties you’d need forty 10 gallon jars. Luckily we invented words and pencils so a paper ballot is possible. I’m pretty sure we could put together a video showing how easy it is to stuff a paper ballot box. It may even look easier than hacking an SD card if we get David Blaine or Copperfield on board with the project. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/88 "2016-11-19T19:55:29Z")
[Bill Palmer](http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-about-my-publication-daily-news-bin/24384/) is the guy behind [Daily Dust Bin](http://www.dailynewsbin.com/). They are one of those “news outlets” that cropped up with a bias, in their case on the left. I harbor no illusions that this guy is unbiased, but he makes the [following factual claims](http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/youre-not-just-imagining-it-the-hillary-clinton-vs-donald-trump-vote-totals-do-look-rigged/104/) that can be looked at: > [@](#): > > What first made me suspicious was the notably low general election voter turnout. Pundits have explained that away by pointing out that Clinton’s favorability rating was fairly low and Trump’s was even lower. But throughout the primary season, the American voters made clear that they very much wanted to turn out for or against these two candidates. And despite all the talk about favorability, these two candidates each got millions more primary votes than any of their challengers. So the notion that the 2016 election would receive two and a half million fewer votes than the 2012 election, which most Americans considered to be a far less consequential election, is odd. > [@](#): > > somewhere around two-thirds of all the votes cast in the 2016 general election in Florida were cast early. Various exit polls pointed to Hillary Clinton receiving as much as sixty to sixty-five percent of the Florida early vote, much of it from Hispanic-Americans. That meant Trump would have had to have received as much as seventy percent of the election day voting in Florida in order to have caught up and won the state. Although democrats tend to do somewhat better in early voting and republicans tend to do somewhat better on election day, it’s virtually impossible for Trump to have come back and won Florida after it was already basically in the bag for Clinton before election day even arrived. > [@](#): > > there were four swing states in which Hillary Clinton was definitively favored to win, but she ended up losing: Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvnia, and Michigan. In the final tallies she lost each of them by right around one percent of the vote. That’s not how numbers work. If Trump had won those four states legitimately due to pockets of voters that pollsters didn’t know about, we would have seen a more random dispersion of the results. Trump might have won one of those states by four percent, won another of them by two percent, lost another one percent, and so on. > > It is statistically suspicious that in every state where Donald Trump pulled off an upset, he won it by right around one percent, just what he needed to win it, no more and no less. Results don’t naturally play out that way. > [@](#): > > historically speaking, going back through the eighty years in which presidential polling has been conducted, it’s virtually impossible for the polling averages to have been this thoroughly wrong. In fact the last time they got a Presidential general election wrong outside the margin of error was in 1948 – and polling was unsophisticated crap back then. The article concludes: > [@](#): > > In order to believe that the official vote tallies are legitimate, you have to accept that all of the above legitimately happened: African-Americans in the south went from turning out in droves for Hillary Clinton in the primary to not caring if she won the general election. Donald Trump got perhaps seventy percent of the same-day voting in Florida. The polling averages were wrong for the first time in modern history. Trump beat his poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to fall below them. Clinton fell below her poll numbers despite having spent the primary season tending to beat them. In every state where Trump pulled off a shocking upset victory, he just happened to do it with one percent of the vote. And in an election that everyone cared particularly deeply about, no one really turned out to vote at all. I can accept any one of the above things happening as an isolated fluke. I cannot accept all the above happening. And so for once in my evidence-driven career, I’m left to believe that the conspiracy theorists are right: the vote tallies are rigged. So there’s a few legitimate claims that can be discussed. I cannot stand conspiracy theorists, they are scum who hurt people by accusing them of being “in on it.” But the thing is that it is easy for the rational to debunk the woo-peddlers factually. Yes you can’t get them to change their minds, but since I am not one of them, that’s not my goal. I want to know for myself. So let’s discuss these allegations… Are they facts? Exaggerations? Completely fabricated? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/89 "2016-11-19T20:17:25Z")
I am firmly of the belief that conspiracy theories should not be taken seriously until or unless they have an alternative explanation of their own. Merely saying, “Oooh, this looks fishy!” doesn’t mean anything. They need to tell us \*how \*it was rigged, who \*was \*rigging it, and how the rigging mechanism worked. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/90 "2016-11-19T20:22:56Z")
The argument used by Palmer sounds exactly like the 9/11 Truthers who try to lay out everything in as extensive and rambling a format to make something plausible sound far-fetched and implausible: _1. “You have to believe that not one, two, three, but FOUR planes were hijacked!” 2. “You have to believe that 19 hijackers managed to smuggle weapons past airport security.” 3. “You have to believe that 19 hijackers received flight training in the USA without incurring suspicion.” 4. “You have to believe that no Air National Guard jets were scrambled in time to shoot them down, or that the chain of command couldn’t get its act together quickly enough.” 5. “You have to believe that the FBI and CIA and 14 other intelligence agencies couldn’t foil this plot.” For ALL of these things to happen simultaneously? It’s a conspiracy, I tell you._ ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/91 "2016-11-19T20:29:09Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I am firmly of the belief that conspiracy theories should not be taken seriously until or unless they have an alternative explanation of their own. Merely saying, “Oooh, this looks fishy!” doesn’t mean anything. They need to tell us \*how \*it was rigged, who \*was \*rigging it, and how the rigging mechanism worked. I agree with this, and I’d love a Nate Silver (remember him?) article about if there is any way one could actually tell if an election was rigged from the data. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/92 "2016-11-19T20:30:05Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > So let’s discuss these allegations… Are they facts? Exaggerations? Completely fabricated? Palmer ignores two factors: The Shy Trump voter theory, and also that people’s behavior or preferences may change from primary season to Election Day. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/93 "2016-11-19T20:48:44Z")
He makes a reasonable case. But we could never prove it to the sticking point, they got the lawyers, guns, and money, and not the slightest hesitation to use them all. Another sticking point: if they could rig it that good, how come they didn’t rig it all the way? By last count, Hillary won the popular vote by a million and a half. If they could fuck us, what would stop them from fucking us _harder_? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/94 "2016-11-19T21:02:36Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > [Bill Palmer](http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-about-my-publication-daily-news-bin/24384/) is the guy behind [Daily Dust Bin](http://www.dailynewsbin.com/). They are one of those “news outlets” that cropped up with a bias, in their case on the left. I harbor no illusions that this guy is unbiased, but he makes the [following factual claims](http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/youre-not-just-imagining-it-the-hillary-clinton-vs-donald-trump-vote-totals-do-look-rigged/104/) that can be looked at: Where are we exactly on voter turnout? Three days ago they were still counting, no? > [@](#): > > Stories are still circulating a week after the election that turnout fell sharply from 2012. That’s almost certainly not true. The confusion is the result of news outlets trying to pin down voter turnout figures quickly in a system that doesn’t count millions of votes until weeks after the election. > > Approximately 58.1 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in last week’s presidential election, according to the latest estimates from Michael McDonald, associate professor at the University of Florida, who gathers data at the U.S. Elections Project. That’s down only slightly from 2012, when turnout was 58.6 percent, and well above 2000’s rate of 54.2 percent. [538-No, Voter Turnout Wasn’t Way Down From 2012](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-voter-turnout-wasnt-way-down-from-2012/) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/95 "2016-11-19T22:16:22Z")
Fraud may have happened, but the result doesn’t prove fraud - it’s well within the American margin of stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/96 "2016-11-21T21:35:20Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > If they could fuck us, what would stop them from fucking us _harder_? Humility ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/97 "2016-11-21T22:01:07Z")
> [@](#): > > … But throughout the primary season, the American voters made clear that they very much wanted to turn out for or against these two candidates. And despite all the talk about favorability, these two candidates each got millions more primary votes than any of their challengers. So the notion that the 2016 election would receive two and a half million fewer votes than the 2012 election, which most Americans considered to be a far less consequential election, is odd. I don’t exactly see the correlation. Was voter turnout for the '16 primaries greater than in '08? And even if it was, remember John McCain wrapped up the GOP nomination fairly early, which probably stifled turnout in later primaries. > [@](#): > > And in an election that everyone cared particularly deeply about, no one really turned out to vote at all. It’s noted above that turnout was lower than in '12, but not dramatically. Did this guy follow the election campaigns? Yeah, a lot of us _cared_, but we also acknowledged that both candidates suck. Hard to ramp up turnout for crappy candidates. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/98 "2016-11-21T22:09:09Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > [Bill Palmer](http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/setting-the-record-straight-about-my-publication-daily-news-bin/24384/) is the guy behind [Daily Dust Bin](http://www.dailynewsbin.com/). They are one of those “news outlets” that cropped up with a bias, in their case on the left. I harbor no illusions that this guy is unbiased, but he makes the [following factual claims](http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/youre-not-just-imagining-it-the-hillary-clinton-vs-donald-trump-vote-totals-do-look-rigged/104/) that can be looked at: > > > [@](#): > > > > there were four swing states in which Hillary Clinton was definitively favored to win, but she ended up losing: Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvnia, and Michigan. Problem is, she was favored to win those states based on someone’s gut feeling. The last poll I looked at (early November), her ratings were Wisconsin: +4% (10% unstated) = 4% uncertainty Pennsylvania: +4% (5% unstated) = 1% uncertainty Florida: +4% (3% unstated) = 1% certainty Michigan: +1% (7% unstated) = 6% uncertainty Subtract a traditional 3%MoE from those numbers and you get none of those states being legitimately favored to go blue, except that you might have _a feeling_ that they _ought to_. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/99 "2016-11-22T01:06:32Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Fraud may have happened, but the result doesn’t prove fraud - it’s well within the American margin of stupidity. Fantastic turn of phrase! Seriously – no snark intended. Did you come up with it yourself? (Just curious…not implying malicious intent or anything.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220/100 "2016-11-22T02:12:31Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Fantastic turn of phrase! Seriously – no snark intended. Did you come up with it yourself? (Just curious…not implying malicious intent or anything.) I don’t think I’d heard it before, but a google search finds a usage back in 2006 by a [blogger, using it about Bush43’s election.](http://dragoncityjournal.com/posts/vol-30-1-the-margin-of-stupidity/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/math-increasingly-suggests-election-fraud-against-hillary-clinton/772220.md?page=6)