Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The Sanders movement, even though I disagreed with his platform, was true grassroots democracy: Common people getting organized and trying to make a change.

I don't care if I get down voted into oblivion for saying this next part: When looking at the spread between the types of polls, there is a massive difference between the voting elite and the people's will. I don't advocate against the electoral college, but what was supposed to be system that prevented buyouts has proven to be completely forsale by the Clintons. I didn't see massive pro-Clinton rallies. We had quicker investigations into Samsung VS Apple for inconsequential things. No one has been held accountable and no explanations have been given for massive breaches of protocol other than its a plot by the Repuglicans.

I'm tired of everything from the Clinton family. My state KS has a good chance to throw electoral votes at Gary Johnson. Please California if you are listening, don't reward this family for their actions.

I think a major mistake many Sanders supporters are doing is not distinguishing between Clinton being an awful candidate (which she is) and Clinton still winning (which she is). There may be a lot of explanations - from Sanders being even more awful candidate (socialist as an US president? Come on!) to Sanders failing tactically and strategically. One explanation however that does not follow from any Clinton deficiencies is fraud. It also does not follow from polls - polls are increasingly getting worse at predicting elections, especially when they're close. That happened many times recently, and pollsters being wrong means pretty much nothing now except for maybe we need better pollsters.

I think increasingly, polls are proving fallible. I'm not sure people are willing to admit, even pseudonymously, what they really think and vote in the sanctity of the voting booth, for fear that they will be ostracized for not doing what they're supposed to do.

The main reason is probably the abandonment of landlines and phone books, and the adoption of caller id before it. It used to be easy to survey a representative sample of the population, and now it's impossible.

Possibly for polls during the campaign's, but exit polls, where people interview random samplings of people leaving the place where they cast their votes, have historically been very close to the actual vote results. In some areas of the US, the exit polls are spot-on. In other places, the numbers are off by a significant margin.

Some people try to explain it away by saying people vote for one candidate but are ashamed to admit it to a person asking them who they voted for, but wouldn't that tendency show up statistically across all precincts rather than in specific ones?

There is also an alarming number of times this occurs specifically in precincts with electronic voting machines.

  ashamed to admit it

Eh, no need for shame, it could just be that one candidate appeals more to busy (or privacy-minded) voters who decline to be polled.

I generally avoid people with clipboards who are approaching people on the street, and I can believe that's something that correlates with opinions on other things.

It's not exactly "ashamed" I think, more like cautious. I mean, I've read multiple reports of people being beaten bloody on a candidate rally, so people would just prefer to stay out of trouble - even if they are proud of their choice, why they would risk talking about it publicly to random stranger? I mean, the pollster probably won't beat them up, but what if some crazy person overhears it and follows them and makes trouble? Nobody needs that. Sad, but such intolerance is part of the culture in US, many people just don't get "I disagree with you, but I respect your right to have your own opinion".

If you really think that Clinton didn't get the votes she got fairly, you're living in a bubble. Sanders supporters have this problem of forgetting that women and minorities exist.

(I can't stand the Clintons, but I don't think they cheated)

I am an outsider (European) looking in but closely following the US presidential primaries this year, so I don't have a horse in the race. There are a number of levels at which there has been clear unfairness or cheating (depending on your perspective) in the DNC primaries. Here are some of the simpler ones:

- The recent release of hacked documents from the DNC show that the primaries were not set up to be a fair competition from the start. - The rules are specifically set up in a number of states (New York is a prime example) to disenfranchise any new Democratic Party members from being able to vote. - Thousands of registered voters were removed from the voters roll. There is even a case where a lifelong Democrat running for a congressional seat on a Democratic ticket was removed. - Media coverage made it appear that Clinton was in the lead before any voting even took place. That coverage has been shown to have been orchestrated (at least at the start) by the DNC. - Funds raised in the DNC's name were disproportionately funnelled to the Clinton campaign. - Voting stations were closed down in huge numbers in some states and territories (Puerto Rico and California being prime a examples)

NY was pretty ridiculous.

It's going to look pretty ridiculous if the DNC is ever audited, or has someone more credible than Guccifer2.0 hack and release their documents.

If you look at the demographics of the people who voted for sanders you'll find its representative of the overall population.

I.e. 50% of sanders' voters were women. You'll get similar proportional percentages of minorities.

Simpson's paradox creates the perception that sanders' voters are composed of mostly white males. It's untrue.

Rallies aren't a very good indicator of popular support. Having 4 million or so more votes is.

See also: Howard Dean, 2004

The electoral college plays no role in the primary nominating process.

I'm with you buddy

Reply on news.ycombinator.com