beedeebeedee

We are led by the worst amongst us

> For a long time now, many people who's religious values are deeply important to them have felt disrespected and looked down upon by "the left" (yes, I'm obviously painting with a broad brush here). In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the elite left essentially said "you all are backwards and silly"

Most of the criticism that I have heard and read is not about evangelicals being "backwards and silly" but is about their hypocrisy for claiming the mantle of Jesus Christ and then saying and doing things that are antithetical to his beliefs.

Nor if you have a class of low paid (and before that unpaid) people who carried luggage for travelers. There was a lot of social change in the US after the 1960's, and travel only became democratized recently.

American bureaucracy is not broken (but is in the process of being destroyed). Claiming that it is broken is easy rhetoric for charlatans and backed up by a few cherry picked examples.

> This is a distraction from the criminality involved in many of these organizations essentially embezzling our money. This should be the top story

Please stop stating that outrageous statement- it will not make it true. Post facts. Just because there is now a witch hunt over-turning our government does not mean there is a witch (it appears as only a convenient ploy for a hostile takeover)

Yeah, I was confused about that when I tried to replicate the study for all of the counting groups ('Mail', 'Early Voting', 'Election Day'). I'd like to know more about the data to understand how to compare the others with early voting.

> 6:11 I don't find this particularly strange. I think they'd make a much stronger argument if they showed the drop-off vote for 2020. I found it strange that they only picked 2012 and 2016

It would have been nice to have 2020 there too, but they may not have had access to the data

> 10:10 Another claim of irregularity that doesn't quite support their conclusion. It seems they're indicating that both plots seem irregular, which I agree, but there thesis of fraud doesn't completely address 2020's case. They could say republican cheated in 2020 as well, but then they'd have to explain why this election went any different.

A possible explanation as to why 2020 cheating failed and 2024 did not could be that the cheating was not able to overcome how unpopular he was for his handling of Covid and other issues. For the cheating to work, it cannot be obvious and therefore must be limited. Conversely, Kamala was not as popular in 2024 as Biden was in 2020, so the cheating was successful.

Alternatively, in Trump's own words, Elon made the difference in 2024: "He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers," Trump told the crowd. "And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide." https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-elon-musk-voting-machi...

It could be that whoever was doing the cheating did not have the resources to enact it as successfully without Elon's support (Starlink, Shaotran, etc).

> 11:36 Here they're trying to support the irregularity of the data with anecdote. > 13:28 Voting against one's registered party also doesn't seem crazy to me

Right, anecdotal evidence and the irregularity of voting against your registered party are not conclusive evidence, but do add to the consensus that a more systematic analysis needs to be done.

> 15:05 If someone was rigging the election in what way? Any security model being claimed as breached needs to define what constitutes a break and how the attack could create that break in security.

That is exactly one of the next steps that should be taken. Figure out how it could have been done, now that there is evidence that points to irregularities. The possibility does not prove it happened, but it would then help go towards the further step of trying to find evidence that it did (once we know where to look and what for).

> 16:30 I don't understand why a '2014 Wisonsin Gov. Race' (the title of the graph) is applicable here. Maybe she just used it as a lead-in for the next part?

She is showing the percentage of the cumulative summation of votes. She has data for the 2014 Wisconsin race that is categorized based on the type of the voting machines. The green line and purple line are relatively flat, showing that the percentage of votes did not change significantly based on the number of cumulative votes. The red lines are suspicious because the percentage grows significantly after a few thousand votes. I'm not sure why they used a line graph instead of a scatterplot, but presumably they fit a line to the data for each machine.

> 18:37 Why is she bringing up the random distribution of inadvertent errors?

She's bringing it up to point out that it could not be caused by random errors (i.e., human errors caused by the election workers, etc), because random errors would be randomly distributed and produce roughly a flat line. The red lines aren't flat, so they are not contributing to the gain in votes.

Look at the graphs at 19:00 and 20:00 for Clark County, NV 2024 early voting. They both show increases in the percentage rate for Trump after around 300 votes for each machine. As one of the speakers says,

"If we're stuffing a bunch of tabulators at 60% for Trump, then we're going to get an asymptote at 60%," which is visible in the data for Clark County, NV in 2024

Thank you for bringing up your points, because after watching the video and with your criticism in mind, addressing them made me more confident that we need a comprehensive investigation to follow this lead. If their claim is correct, it is unlikely that we will see that investigation led by the Federal government, but citizens and states can take the lead.

Hi derangedHorse, thanks for your insight. The anomaly is that there appears to be a heavy shift in votes only in (1) early voting, and not in (2) mail-in ballots or (3) Election Day voting. Additionally, the anomaly only appears for all tabulators after 300 or more votes are cast.

Here's the image that represents the anomaly in early voting: https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/9087f51c-d3bd-4002-9943-797...

> There is no respectable statistician who would ever draw a conclusion from data. You could say 'may indicate evidence of unfair elections,' but it is impossible to deem whether something occurred or not with 100% certainty.

The originators of the analysis are claiming that this indicates manipulation. Perhaps they should have given more qualifiers in that image of their analysis, but the data is alarming and it is an up-hill battle even to get their analysis noticed (other than the press release to WCIA, only Newsweek has mentioned it). We can say 'maybe' but given the current political and media environment right now, it is likely that that qualification would have doomed their analysis from getting any coverage at all.

Here is a video from the group that discusses these issues and is worth watching because it speaks directly to your concerns and others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOQ-GxJyJN4

Edit: I haven't fully absorbed their analysis, so I've gone back and they do make those qualifications to the data ("Data Suggestive of Vote Manipulation", etc) within the PDF: https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/9087f51c-d3bd-4002-9943-797...

"The pattern above shows an inexplicable spike in vote distribution that is statistically unlikely based on typical human voting behavior."

And while discussing alternate causes ("Deep Red" Areas) "While such a deviation in the data could potentially still emerge, this does not explain why the pattern is limited to Early Voting, as in that scenario it would be reasonable to expect the same deviation to appear in Election Day results. Instead, Election Day results indicate a normal, expected variation."

Another commenter posted a colab notebook and created a histogram that shows the "Russian tail". Please at least copy and paste it, and show where they have gone wrong with their statistical analysis, instead of making uncited and subjective judgments.

Another commenter has posted a colab notebook. You've been dismissive in every post, but based on your own value judgments and not based on statistical analysis. At least copy and paste their colab notebook (and read the original analysis) before dismissing.

"He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers. Those vote-counting computers," Trump told the crowd. "And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide."

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-elon-musk-voting-machi...

Regardless of the ETA's analysis, or the DOGE employees ballot software, that comment by Trump on its own raises the suspicion that this should be investigated and not immediately flagged, downvoted and dismissed

Thank you! I've run the notebook and reproduced the histograms of the early votes. I'm grateful for you sharing your work. For the other commenters who have dismissed the analysis without providing details, I would recommend that you reproduce this notebook and dig in.

For others who don't know what the "Russian tail" is, here is the link within the PDF: https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-election-manipulation-russia...

You are missing most of their analysis. The surprising anomaly (the so called "Russian Tail") appears in early votes but not the Election Day votes or mail-in ballots. There analysis is worth reading again to catch what you missed. Another commenter has posted their colab notebook, so you can dig in if you want to see the details

Trying to repress discussion is the opposite of soberly analyzing divisive topics, so you are attempting to prove your point. There are many people who disagree with you (including me) and would encourage you to dig in and practice curiosity and open discussion

Can you share your analysis of the data? Other commenters have included details. I think we all would be interested in more than vague value judgments that you took a look, didn't like it and therefore tried to flag to repress discussion of it

All of your criticisms are unrelated to understanding the analysis (or software). Let's read it, work through it and discuss it, rather than dismissing it for all the wrong reasons. Flagging this submission is anti-curious. Instead of not engaging if you're not interested in doing the work, you're trying to suppress other people from doing the work. It may turn out that none of it is convincing, but we don't know that right now and what has already been presented is surprising and worth investigating.

The position of the Democratic party shouldn't change the analysis. If there is evidence it should be analyzed on its own merits.

> Extraordinary claims like this need a lot more substantiation to be news

That's the point of having this discussion (and not flagging, ridiculing and suppressing it). It will take some time and attention to scrutinize both the analysis and the software.

I strongly disagree. It should be examined (their analysis, the artifacts they discovered, and whether or not they are similar to the artifacts that could be created from software similar to the repo that was shared below). It's worth asking this community to examine and discuss it. This is clearly related to the professional interests of this community, and this community is uniquely suited to bring insight to it.

Here's the website for the analysis: https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv

That is better to scrutinize than the press release.

Newsweek article that provides more context for the Election Truth Alliance's analysis as well as other claims (and statements by Trump alluding to it)

https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-rigged-donald-trump-e...

There was no evidence found of fraud during the 2020 election despite being contested and audited. This is evidence that is being discovered now, because the election was not contested by the losing candidate in 2024 and was not audited.

How far of a step would it be to produce this type of manipulation? https://www.wcia.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/7...

This is of concern to the community given the apparent overlap with the technical expertise of a DOGE employee, Ethan Shaotran, and his prior work for a Musk sponsored hackathon where he created software that could spoof ballot tabulation.

https://github.com/DevrathIyer/ballotproof/tree/master

Apparently, Shaotran removed his name from the repo and is now listed as a private user, but it can be found in the archive of the devpost page linked from the repo: https://devpost.com/software/ballotproof-vision

https://web.archive.org/web/20250204131222/https://devpost.c...

Info from: https://bsky.app/profile/cartwright776.bsky.social/post/3lhr...

Could this be used to spoof the results, and are there artifacts that could be discovered to directly link it or rule it out?

Here is an image from the Election Truth Alliance analysis that shows a possible artifact: https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/9087f51c-d3bd-4002-9943-797...

PDF of their analysis: https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv

My two favorite Americans are Louis Armstrong and George Washington. Glad to see this on Hacker News!

> Do you let people self-identify, and there are many rapes caused by this,

Citation needed. That sounds deeply dubious (as frankly the rest of your argument)

All this malice over bathroom use? How about we make bathrooms single stall and end this stupid hate

> I have no stake here

I don't want to sound flippant, but if you have no familiarity with a system and what it does, then you won't be able to make any useful judgments about it. This new administration has made it clear that they do not know the function of these agencies but have decided to destroy their structures. As a concerned bystander who has some knowledge and stake in them continuing to function, it is deeply painful to witness

I live far away from DC, but my friends in two different federal agencies (stationed outside of DC) are partly bemused and partly shocked at how unprofessional the emails and new directives they are receiving from this new administration are. All of their colleagues are expressing the same sentiment (and my friends usually do not fraternize after work with their colleagues, but they have all been doing that after work just to cope with what is going on). Your contrarian-ness about the 'hysteria' is misplaced. Professional and dedicated federal workers are deeply concerned.

Agreed- in fact, I think for the ones I know, it is a performance enhancer. For me, if I have an incredibly boring job to do, smoking weed enables me to keep going many many hours beyond what I could do without it. As I've gotten older, I've gotten used to boredom, so it's not necessary anymore, but still makes it much more fun