# Statistician in Kansas Tracking Down Electoral Fraud **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 6, 2015, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950 "2015-04-06T09:08:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/21 "2015-04-07T13:40:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The government was **very** interested during the W Admin. [Several U.S. Attorneys were fired for not looking hard enough for it.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy) All the e-mails about that disappeared, unfortunately. Tragic mishap. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/22 "2015-04-07T13:48:30Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The government was **very** interested during the W Admin. [Several U.S. Attorneys were fired for not looking hard enough for it.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy) But, for all of that, they failed to find the kind of election fraud they were looking for (ineligible voters voting, etc.). This thread is about a different kind, the kind that takes an insider to pull off, like ballot-box stuffing. The federal government is capable of investigating this kind of thing. I suspect that those actually in the government don’t mind some cheating. They probably see it as just another part of the game, like lying about your opponent and making promises you won’t keep. Actually doing real investigations would upset some apple carts for minimal gain. Plus I suspect this kind of thing only actually influences elections at the local level and in some primaries. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/23 "2015-04-07T15:44:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What I want to know, as always, is why those who successfully find voter fraud are always private actors. Why is the government so uninterested in this topic? THe government insists there is no fraud, but private groups always find it pretty quickly when they are looking for it. This woman has not found fraud. Nobody has found fraud. Your question presupposes voter fraud. People have suspected insider electronic vote fixing, but haven’t proved it. People have suspected people voting as someone else, or multiple times, but haven’t proved it. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/24 "2015-04-07T16:10:55Z")
> [@bup](#): > > This woman has not found fraud. > > Nobody has found fraud. > > Your question presupposes voter fraud. > > People have suspected insider electronic vote fixing, but haven’t proved it. People have suspected people voting as someone else, or multiple times, but haven’t proved it. Voter fraud is not the issue here, this is electoral fraud. And you’re right, no fraud has been discovered. But what HAS been discovered is a statistical anomaly that consistently favors Republicans against Democrats and which also favors mainstream Republicans against tea party Republicans in elections everywhere they’ve looked in the US. The cause COULD be electoral fraud, or it could be something else. Carlson is just looking to eliminate (or prove) the electoral fraud angle. Then she can go on to something else. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/25 "2015-04-07T17:01:00Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Voter fraud is not the issue here, this is electoral fraud. And you’re right, no fraud has been discovered. But what HAS been discovered is a statistical anomaly that consistently favors Republicans against Democrats and which also favors mainstream Republicans against tea party Republicans in elections everywhere they’ve looked in the US. The cause COULD be electoral fraud, or it could be something else. Carlson is just looking to eliminate (or prove) the electoral fraud angle. Then she can go on to something else. True enough; however, she claims it happens countrywide, across multiple elections. Unless she can demonstrate how the fraud is consistent across states with several different voting methods (some paper ballots, some electronic (with different pieces of software, some mail-in), I don’t see how she’s going to support any conclusion other than Republicans tend to congregate in bigger precincts. Imagine how large the conspiracy would have to be if she claims the same bias has been executed (in different ways) in every state. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/26 "2015-04-07T17:12:00Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Unless she can demonstrate how the fraud is consistent across states with several different voting methods (some paper ballots, some electronic (with different pieces of software, some mail-in), I don’t see how she’s going to support any conclusion other than Republicans tend to congregate in bigger precincts. She certainly appears open to alternate explanations. > [@](#): > > The pattern could be voter fraud or a demographic trend that has not been picked up by extensive polling, she said. > > “I do not know why this trend is there, but I know that the pattern is there and one way to establish that it is or is not election fraud is to go and do a physical audit of paper records of voting machines,” she said. BTW – for some reason [BlackBoxVoting.org](http://blackboxvoting.org/) has not been updated since 2014 and [BlackBoxVoting.com](http://blackboxvoting.org/) has not been updated since 2010 – have people been losing interest? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/27 "2015-04-07T17:14:15Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I don’t see how she’s going to support any conclusion other than Republicans tend to congregate in bigger precincts. That seems counter-intuitive to me. It seems to me that Democratic precincts would have more voters, since Democrats do much better in urban areas. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/28 "2015-04-07T17:26:27Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Presumably precinct boundaries are set by any number of state and local officials, though. More importantly, in most states elections are administered by county-level elected officials over whom even the secretaries of state have little authority. This “hyperfederalized” system is very definitely a problem for democracy (see [_The Voting Wars_](http://www.amazon.com/The-Voting-Wars-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300198248), by Richard Hasen), but it would also pose a problem for anyone trying to game the system nationwide or statewide. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/29 "2015-04-07T18:19:17Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > That seems counter-intuitive to me. It seems to me that Democratic precincts would have more voters, since Democrats do much better in urban areas. I agree. I also love to read anything about voter suppression, and would welcome any proof that, for instance, Ohio in 2004 was hacked. I’m willing to be paranoid and meet in shadowy rooms to bring down the man. But I just don’t see how _this trend_ could be accomplished by evil machinations - nationwide in every precinct \> 500 people. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/30 "2015-04-07T20:27:38Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > that consistently favors Republicans against Democrats and which also favors mainstream Republicans against tea party Republicans. I don’t know that we can conclude this from the data. Without a base line it could just as easily conclude that it is an anomaly which favors Democrats and Tea Partyists in small districts. My money is on some factor other than voter fraud accounting for this. For example it may be that super PAC money is spent more, in the big rather than small districts. Chances are its going to be really hard to tease out, I wish her luck. Actually the thing I find most interesting looking at her [data](http://bethclarkson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Ohio-2012-Presidential-Results-4-1-15.jpg)is the U shaped variance. I would expect the low sized precincts to be more variable since they are based on smaller sample size, but the large districts are also highly variable which is surprising. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950/31 "2015-04-07T20:27:57Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > I don’t know. I doubt it. IIRC there are just one or two players in the voting machine manufacturing game: Diebold and Election Systems & Software. [You remember Diebold, don’t you?](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/03/diebolds-political-machine) Diebold is no longer in the voting machine business. They sold it off to ES & S several years ago. They’ve gone back to concentrating on their core business, which is ATMs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/statistician-in-kansas-tracking-down-electoral-fraud/716950.md?page=1)