and_dont_blink t1_iztj6pj wrote on December 11, 2022 at 7:13 PM

Reply to comment by Awkward-Media-3550 in Recount flips Mass. House election to Democrat by 1 vote by TurretLauncher

>Have you actually measured how much of a statistical anomaly? Highly divisive elections draw people into two groups effectively

I think you mean calculated, but that depends on each race -- the higher the vote count the less likely it is. e.g., an election between 20,500 people being decided by one vote is much less likely than an election between 20 or 200. Hence why it never really happens throughout our election history as counts go higher as shown in the link.

>If anyone was interfering in American elections, it would require covertly corrupting thousands of independent low level election workers

We don't know the why of what's behind this, but you're starting with an unproven assumption about how many people it would involve especially in a closer election.

Things like software aside, take for example this recent very weird case in CT which involved a republican town clerk handing over ballots that had been kicked back for being filled in improperly. That person then forged the votes and signatures then turned them into be counted normally. There's still an ongoing FBI probe so a lot of people didn't have to testify as to what was really going on.

itsgreater9000 t1_izu4xj4 wrote on December 11, 2022 at 9:33 PM

> I think you mean calculated, but that depends on each race -- the higher the vote count the less likely it is. e.g., an election between 20,500 people being decided by one vote is much less likely than an election between 20 or 200.

This is true, but I think the probability increases are not as stark as we see a higher partisan split among a population of voters. For example, sure, there's a 1% probability that you get a vote total like 51-49, but take into account that the town is evenly split and that there's only really 20 votes that can go one way or the other, and now the probability is now at 5%. I'm not trying to say there isn't electoral fuckery, but I think considering the sample size is so small it's hard to draw conclusions at this point in time. (yes, the sample size of elections is not in and of itself small, but given how elections work these days the actual sample size i think is quite small to draw any specific conclusions from it)