US 2020 Presidential Election prediction thread

[Josquius]

Someone told Squeeze pot is legal in Colorado.

Que?

[Admiral Yi]

Someone told Squeeze pot is legal in Colorado.

Que?

Alguien dijo a Squeeze que la marijuana es legal en Colorado.

[DGuller]

Which is why Grumbler responded the way he did - If you are talking about things happening for which there is no evidence, and there are agencies whose job it is to detect that very thing, then you are in kookoo conspiracy territory.

I'm not talking about it happening.  I don't think it does happen, I think the logistics of impersonation are utterly impractical, and the benefit is in no way commensurate with the actual and potential cost. 

I'm just talking about how you can't know the unknowable, and the true rate of voter fraud is unknowable.  Anyone who treats unknowable as knowable is probably taking a shortcut in either the analysis or the conclusion.  Absence of evidence may suggest absence, but it's not evidence of absence.  That's not "kookoo conspiracy", that's a basic scientic principle. 

Sometimes you just have to live with the fact that something is most likely true, but that you'll never be able to prove it.  Negatives are notorious for that.

[Admiral Yi]

Dije.  Fuck.

[Malthus]

Which is why Grumbler responded the way he did - If you are talking about things happening for which there is no evidence, and there are agencies whose job it is to detect that very thing, then you are in kookoo conspiracy territory.

I'm not talking about it happening.  I don't think it does happen, I think the logistics of impersonation are utterly impractical, and the benefit is in no way commensurate with the actual and potential cost. 

I'm just talking about how you can't know the unknowable, and the true rate of voter fraud is unknowable.  Anyone who treats unknowable as knowable is probably taking a shortcut in either the analysis or the conclusion.  Absence of evidence may suggest absence, but it's not evidence of absence.  That's not "kookoo conspiracy", that's a basic scientic principle. 

Sometimes you just have to live with the fact that something is most likely true, but that you'll never be able to prove it.  Negatives are notorious for that.

A legal analysis is better suited to this than a scientific one. The law deals with problems like this all the time. The way it does, is by assigning a burden of proof (so the question is not whether something is absolutely true or not, a task that in many cases is impossible, but establishing in advance what the burden to prove a particular point is, and tests for how it can be met).

For example - we may say something like 'is there evidence which would suggest, on the balance of probabilities (that is, roughly, whether it is more likely true or not) that lots of voter fraud Routinely occurs?"

Absence of evidence may not prove the matter to a degree of certainly, but "certainty" may not be he best test. "Probably" may be better. A lack of evidence, it could be argued, demonstrates that widespread voter fraud "probably" (or "more probably than not") does not occur, because if it did, there would probably be at least some evidence, given that a large number of fallible people would of necessity be involved.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not talking about it happening.  I don't think it does happen, I think the logistics of impersonation are utterly impractical, and the benefit is in no way commensurate with the actual and potential cost. 

I'm just talking about how you can't know the unknowable, and the true rate of voter fraud is unknowable.  Anyone who treats unknowable as knowable is probably taking a shortcut in either the analysis or the conclusion.  Absence of evidence may suggest absence, but it's not evidence of absence.  That's not "kookoo conspiracy", that's a basic scientic principle. 

Sometimes you just have to live with the fact that something is most likely true, but that you'll never be able to prove it.  Negatives are notorious for that.

Yeah - and this is the difference between this and the risk with electronic voting for me. There is an absence of evidence from law enforcement (not just in the US but in the UK too and, I imagine, other countries) and from other relevant experts - as I say, no idea who they are. And it is as you say a fairly impractical way of attacking the electoral system - it would require a conspiracy involving many people. Incidentally this is a bit like the point I was making about being able to work out what didn't happen - normally you find the malware but the logs don't go back for enough, or aren't detailed enough to actually identify what happened so you have to go from things like any other evidence, any previous examples by x group etc.

With machine voting and the online infrastructure of elections we know that there have been multiple attacks on these systems globally - Ukraine, France, Germany spring to mind. We know that groups linked to Russia have "scanned" election boards in the US. And frankly, from my perspective, if you are an entity doing anything online or electronically chances it's only a matter of time before you get some form of cyber-attack. There's no evidence of absence because there are thousands of data breaches on a daily basis - not all state sponsored, not all sophisticated, not all that dangerous. They are incredibly common and, mostly, relatively low risk. But given the importance of trust in elections and the low cost, easy to implement solution of having a physical ballots as an audit it just seems to me like a really obvious solution to a very real risk.

[Admiral Yi]

I read a story a while back of a Mexican-American woman with a green card who was deported because she forgot that she was not able to vote in general elections and checked the box for "I am a citizen" by accident.  IIRC she was only caught because she realized she had made a mistake and contacted the voting office to try and withdraw the ballot.

The point of the story is there is no system in place to check citizenship of voters.  It's all just based on self-certification.  There's no random sampling of voters to see what percentage are permanent residents or workers who haven't gotten around to getting their documents.

That's why I'm dubious about the claims concerning the tiny number of cases of fraud.  Getting caught is an aberration.

[grumbler]

Which is why Grumbler responded the way he did - If you are talking about things happening for which there is no evidence, and there are agencies whose job it is to detect that very thing, then you are in kookoo conspiracy territory.

This is always a challenge though in trying to get a number of a crime rate for any kind of offence.  It's not "kookoo conspiracy territory" to say that not all sex assaults that happen are reported to the police - we know this to be true.  There are various means that researches will do different surveys to try and get at the "real" sex assault rate.

When you have an offence with no obvious victim it's at least conceivable that the actual rate of the offence is higher than the amount of times it's been charged.

That is very true, but not related to my point, which was that DG is using as evidence the testimony of someone who doesn't at all claim what DG says he claims.  Testimony that, in fact, directly states the opposite of what DG is trying to use it to support.

I "responded the way [I ] did" because I can read and DG either couldn't or wouldn't.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
   - Mark Twain

[Sheilbh]

Well that's why I'm wondering about experts - there must have been political scientists who've looked into this, done some random sampling etc.

For what it's worth our system sounds pretty similar. I'm not sure if you'd be on the electoral roll at that election day if you weren't able to vote (e.g. EU citizens, Irish citizens and some Commonwealth citizens all have different voting rights for different elections) so why you go and give your name to get a ballot I don't know if you'd get one if you weren't eligible to vote. But there's no ID requirement, you don't even need to bring your polling card.

[Duque de Bragança]

Dije.  Fuck.

Actually dijo is correct. Dije is first person. Others might prefer "ha dicho" since it's not that far back in time.

[Admiral Yi]

Actually dijo is correct. Dije is first person. Others might prefer "ha dicho" since it's not that far back in time.

Fuck.

[grumbler]

Well that's why I'm wondering about experts - there must have been political scientists who've looked into this, done some random sampling etc.

For what it's worth our system sounds pretty similar. I'm not sure if you'd be on the electoral roll at that election day if you weren't able to vote (e.g. EU citizens, Irish citizens and some Commonwealth citizens all have different voting rights for different elections) so why you go and give your name to get a ballot I don't know if you'd get one if you weren't eligible to vote. But there's no ID requirement, you don't even need to bring your polling card.

Sure, experts have looked at the issue, but there's no evidence that there's an issue.  Before Virginia had a voter ID requirement, I'd go in, give the election workers my full name, address, social security number (they can't ask for this any more, but they used to be able to) and, if all that matched, I'd get a ballot and vote.  If anything didn't match, I'd get a provisional ballot (though that never actually happened) which would only count of no one else with that combination of name and SSN was used to vote anywhere else, and if my signature on the provisional ballot matched the signature on file for my driver's license or other records.

it's possible that in-person voter fraud is occurring and not being detected, but its scarcely seems possible that it is occurring on a scale large enough to impact elections and no one knows about it.

Fraud with the collusion of election officials is more likely, but less likely with mail-in ballots and their tracking systems than with in-person voting.  And that type of collusion isn't prevented by voter ID laws, since the election officials are the ones who would be checking the IDs.

A favorite Republican conspiracy theory is that JFK lost the 1960 election but that the Chicago Democratic machine gave Kennedy enough to the dead vote to tip the scales in Cook Country, and this Illinois, and thus the US.  The only fly in that delightful ointment is that Nixon would have still lost had he carried Illinois.

[DGuller]

Which is why Grumbler responded the way he did - If you are talking about things happening for which there is no evidence, and there are agencies whose job it is to detect that very thing, then you are in kookoo conspiracy territory.

This is always a challenge though in trying to get a number of a crime rate for any kind of offence.  It's not "kookoo conspiracy territory" to say that not all sex assaults that happen are reported to the police - we know this to be true.  There are various means that researches will do different surveys to try and get at the "real" sex assault rate.

When you have an offence with no obvious victim it's at least conceivable that the actual rate of the offence is higher than the amount of times it's been charged.

That is very true, but not related to my point, which was that DG is using as evidence the testimony of someone who doesn't at all claim what DG says he claims.  Testimony that, in fact, directly states the opposite of what DG is trying to use it to support.

I "responded the way [I ] did" because I can read and DG either couldn't or wouldn't.

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
   - Mark Twain

I already addressed that point.  It's very conceivable that not every act of voter fraud will be followed by an allegation, hence some acts of voter fraud will remain unknowable even if you count allegations as opposed to convictions.  In the passage that you quoted, the figure of 31 allegations is presented as an overestimate of the true rate of fraud.  It makes a claim that no every allegation of fraud is an actual case of fraud, but it is completely silent on the possibility than not every case of fraud results in an allegation of fraud.  Not only did I read the paragraph you quoted before I linked to the article, but I also comprehended and critically analyzed it.

[viper37]

None that have to let him in.

But they could.

With the exception of the two I just mentioned, they would all involve considerably more effort.

Yeah, I know.  Emigrating and moving is a pain in the ass, to say the least.

But if push comes to shove, don't hesitate to look elsewhere in the anglo-sphere.

[grumbler]

I already addressed that point.  It's very conceivable that not every act of voter fraud will be followed by an allegation, hence some acts of voter fraud will remain unknowable even if you count allegations as opposed to convictions.  In the passage that you quoted, the figure of 31 allegations is presented as an overestimate of the true rate of fraud.  It makes a claim that no every allegation of fraud is an actual case of fraud, but it is completely silent on the possibility than not every case of fraud results in an allegation of fraud.  Not only did I read the paragraph you quoted before I linked to the article, but I also comprehended and critically analyzed it.

Since the person you are using as an example of someone who thinks that "the number of convictions for voter fraud is... the number of cases of voter fraud" and he says no such thing, your critical analysis proves to be neither critical nor analysis.

He argues that the number of cases of alleged fraud "in any way that an ID law could fix" is probably less than the number of cases of voter fraud in any way that an ID law could fix."  He does not at all make the claim, contrary to your assertions, that "the number of convictions for voter fraud is... the number of cases of voter fraud."  Critical analysis would say that his statement is useless to your assertion that there are actually people making this claim, which is the assertion that I challenged and you still have not provided any evidence for.

That there could be a number of cases of fraud that were never detected is such a truism that I would be surprised to find any competent authority denying it to be true.