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Election results

  • 1.  Election results

    Posted 01-26-2021 11:04
    
    Hi All,

    Thank you for responding, but I am little disappointed that some were unable to respond professionally. Here are some points though:

    1. This is not a discussion about conspiracy theories or politics. If you dismiss it as such, you were simply being unprofessional to the point of being silly.

    2. This statement is confused and confusing, as Republicans and Military usually dominate by mail voting (before the pandemic) and the statement ignores the fact that Trump was leading in the swing states by the time the polls closed on the West coast: " The main flaw is that you are making the erroneous assumption that a non-random order (or even a random order) of counting votes calls into question the total number of votes for a candidate.  There is simply no such connection.  It is well known that party affiliations differ between in-person voting and vote-by-mail and that vote counting is done in batches and certainly not in random order.  That doesn't change whoever got the most votes." 

    Moreover, the statement is completely false as to the trend line that is created for each candidate as the majority of precincts are reported in a county and then tabulated for a state. If Trump was leading all evening with a 52 to 48 majority, and then a group of bells so upset have trump falling behind in a 4 to 96 trend you can see that the two data sets are of different origin. And this is what happened in many locations; just the right number of votes in the right trend appeared to reverse Trump's lead. Not too many votes. Not too little votes. But just enough votes to look like his lead had been reversed. A split half test of data reliability would reveal that data in the county has been tampered with elevated to not have the same origin. Of course there were many reports of fraudulent transformations done on votes but these cannot be verified because the data is not completely available.

    3. Please share the many logic flaws that you can see. As I mentioned in my post, I welcomed all the thoughts about the fraudulent election. If you look at the difficulty flipping all those states from Trump to Biden you can see that the fraud is obvious. However, the exact method of the fraud is far more subtle. If you were a casino manager, you would throw out a person who was able to run the table like that." David Wagner:  Your "analysis" has so many logic flaws that it's hard to know where to start."

    4. This statement contains a series of myths about the election including the myth that most of the legal cases were rejected: Most cases  we're not really even considered because of lack of standing and all the events of fraud were considered to be local and not part of a pattern of overall fraud. Furthermore, the term debunked is being misused: Judges do not debunk things. Judges simply weigh the case put in front of them to the best of their ability and either grant injunction or put the case on the docket. Of course, No voting data or witnesses are actually examined until the court case and subpoenas begin. And judges do make mistakes that have to be brought to another court on appeal. And we don't exactly know the demographic make up of voters who voted in person and those who voted by mail. Hence, the statement urges us not to repeat false hoods yet the entire statement is replete with falsehoods, ironically: " <span;Most Democrats voted by mail, and many more Republicans voted on election day, as they were encouraged to unsafely do.  Many States count the election day votes first. (That makes the "90%" closer to 100%.) Therefore it was expected that Trump would have more votes counted first no matter how badly he lost.  Even if Trump had lost all 50 States and DC, he would still be expected to have done well in the same day voting. (Also, the "...<span;>hundreds of affidavits of fraudulent activities..." were repeatedly debunked in court.  Also State Secretary's of State were convinced, and others needed for certification.  Let's not keep repeating falsehoods.) "

    5. This is a very interesting point about independence and causation. It is important to note that positive correlation it is not causation, as we spend a great deal of time getting people to understand when they take statistics classes. Free will voting behaviors by millions of individuals in each state would be the definition of independence. Of course, there could be many positive or negative correlations, but the fact of the votes were cast by people who were not in communication with each other would be deemed independent action. "Multiplication occurs only when events are independent. And it is completely unreasonable to assume that political events in different states are independent of each other when states are part of a national political system. Voting patterns were positively correlated in the 2016 election, which is why pollsters who thought the chance of Trump winning tiny were gravely wrong. And they were positively correlated in the 2020 election."

    6. As you well know, the multiplication rule of probability requires an assumption of the odds of an event occurring repeatedly, so 50-50 is a necessary assumption: "Nor is there any reason to simply assume a 50-50 chance of each side winning, pulled out of thin air."

    7. This is a funny but hasty dismissal of the argument: 'Mark Twain said "Most people use statistics the way a drunkard uses a lamppost, more for support than illumination."I regret to say that this seems to be an example of such use. Unrealistic assumptions, especially ones incorrectly asserted to be mathematical laws, lead to unrealistic conclusions.'

    8. Just to be clear about what is being compared... We are not comparing presidential elections; we are comparing the candidate going in the lead in several states with most of the polls having been closed for several hours and then watch that lead being exactly reversed. I watched the election results all night on CNN, and remarked to myself this has got to be fraud: how can Trump's lead those states be exactly reversed. The problem is remarkably similar to trying to flip an fair independent coin and get ten tails: " If you will forgive a follow-up email, a good way to evalute a statistical model is to compare it to empirical data and see how well the model fits. The relevant empirical data would be every historical presidential election ranked by imbalance in number of states won. I couldn't find that data in a quick Web search. But Wikipedia has a table of the 59 presidential elections ranked by imbalance in electoral votes, and I believe this will be a sufficiently close proxy to show the qualitative properties.

    Joe Biden's 306 to 232 electoral vote victory ranked 46 of the 59 (where 1 is the most even and 59 the most lopsided), putting it in the top 22% of most lopsided Presidential elections. Above average, yes, but based on the empirical distribution far from highly improbable. Incidentally Trump's 538 to 304 victory over Hilary Clinton ranked 47, one notch more imbalanced.

    In general, the empirical distribution is radically different from what a binomial model with 50% probability would predict. Only 2 of the 59 elections - both George Washington's - were even. And most importantly, imbalances that the model epuld predict as highly improbable are common in the empirical distribution. This is strong evidence that something is wrong with the model.

    Statisticians are empiricists, not pure mathematicians, driven by data, not solely by assumptions and mathematical laws. Any useful model ought to fit past events in the class, at least reasonably. This one doesn't.

    The use of proxy data means this is not a definitive result. Perhap the correct data table, presidential elections ranked by number of states won, is qualitatively radically different from the proxy data table, presidential elections by number of electoral votes won. But I doubt it."

    Again, thank you for all your responses and I'm doubly appreciative for the intelligent responses... ;)

    Best wishes,

    Dave

    Dr. David A. Wagner, MBA, CADC-II, NCAC-I, ICADC, S.A.P., D.B.A., Ph.D.
    Faculty, Trident University International
    Faculty, World English Institute
    Faculty & Mission Team, Vietnam Bible Institute
    Bible Translation Ambassador, Wycliffe Associates
    Fellow, Academy of Marketing Science
    Member, National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
    Member, American Statistics Association
    Principal Data Scientist & Investigator,
    http://www.SEMStatistics.com



  • 2.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-26-2021 20:08
    It has nothing to do with early or late voting (although, one could see the early reporting as results from "interim analyses" that should not be given the same level of credence as the "final study results," which would be a more interesting thread to follow, IMHO). 
    The basic flaw is that you are making is that "states flipping" are independent events.
    Imagine an election with a Republican incumbent and Democratic challenger) and where Idaho - or Wyoming - flipped (A "gimme" Republican stronghold of a state). That event would indicate that a latent variable (linked to trust or faith in the incumbent administration to do a good job in the next four years) that would also likely impact "flippage" of other Republican states. No fraud, just an unobserved effect which could show that the events are not independent. - note, the same logic could be implemented with states like New York or California for an incumbent Democrat. Should those states "flip" in an election, I would then bet money on the battleground states all going back to red - and, as a decent statistician, I rarely, if ever, make bets.



    ------------------------------
    Mary Kwasny
    Professor
    Northwestern University
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-27-2021 08:29
    I just wanted to address one issue, the legal cases. While the majority were decided on issues like standing, there was a decision on the merits in each of the 4 contested states.

    Even more fundamentally, when Trump lawyers got before judges, they dropped fraud claims. Giuliani was most notorious for doing this, but others did as well. Decisions made on the merits generally involved disputes of state law, such as whether decisions to relax deadlines, add dropboxes, and similar types of things were legal. As the judge in the Wisconsin case noted, the state legislature itself set up the Wisconsin Election Commission and empowered it to issue guidance and interpret state election law, so federal courts are not free to say that its guidance and interpretations are inconsistent with the legislative scheme.

    The obvious reason why Giuliani (and others) dropped or did not bring fraud claims before courts even as they claimed "massive fraud" in press conferences is that they knew that making false claims to a judge could get them punished but believed the First Amendment enabled them to lie to the public with impunity.

    How quickly people and media companies are issuing retractions the minute Dominion Voting Systems started suing them is also illustrative on this point.

    Here is Wikipedia's summary of the litigation and table of cases. Cases which reached a ruling on the merits included Boyer v. Ducey in Arizona (plaintiffs lack standing but, assuming standing, their evidence is unreliable), Bognet v. Bookvar in Pennsylvania, and Feehan v. Wisconsin Election Commission in Wisconsin. In Wood v. Raffensburger, in Georgia, the court also found the fraud claims had no merit in adfition to finding Lin Wood lacked standing.


    ------------------------------
    Jonathan Siegel
    Director Clinical Statistics
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-27-2021 08:35
    The basic argument the Wagner makes is virtually identical to the arguments made by "experts: hired by Rudolph Giuliani, Lin Wood and Sydney Powell, as well by Paxton the AG of Texas.

    The outcome of these arguments, which were reviewed in 64 cases filed to invalidate the Biden win in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.  Except for one case where the counting of absentee ballots was cut off based upon receipt a few days later in Pennsylvania, none of these cases succeeded.  Biden was certified the winner of 306 electoral votes by states controlled by the GOP and the Dems.  

    To continue to propound these debunked notions on a message board among professional statisticians is actually horrifying.

    Shame on whoever started this thread, I think it was Wagner.

    ------------------------------
    Andrew Beveridge
    Emeritus Professor of Sociology/ President, Social Explorer
    Queens and Grad Center CUNY and Social Explorer, Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-28-2021 22:29
    Thank you Professor Beveridge for your cogent statement on this issue, I couldn't agree more. It does a disservice to the profession and the science of Statistics, to propose a statistical interpretation to an issue that is fundamentally not a statistical problem. Let's please shut the book on this discussion. As mentioned earlier by a perceptive writer, Trump lost, Biden won, get over it.

    ------------------------------
    Stan Altan
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-29-2021 06:53
    Hi Stan,

    Thank you for participating in the discussion. 

    You said: "
    It does a disservice to the profession and the science of Statistics, to propose a statistical interpretation to an issue that is fundamentally not a statistical problem."

    No, it does not do a disservice to the Science of Statistics to try to answer a question. Those who knew the answers expressed them politely. Those who didn't know the answers became hysterical and tried to turn this into a political discussion. I can tell you from some of the private emails that I received during this discussion that other ASA members had questions similar to mine... 

    One thing that could be improved is to stop saying that the courts debunked this thing or that thing: it is simply not true. Courts don't debunk anything; they simply rule on the evidence and arguments that are presented to them, if any. In fact, to keep perpetuating the myth that we can't discuss anything because a court has ruled on it is pure fiction. A person who says this is mistaken.

    Best wishes,

    Dave

    Dr. David A. Wagner, MBA, CADC-II, NCAC-I, ICADC, S.A.P., D.B.A., Ph.D.
    Faculty, Trident University International
    Faculty, World English Institute
    Faculty & Mission Team, Vietnam Bible Institute
    Bible Translation Ambassador, Wycliffe Associates
    Fellow, Academy of Marketing Science
    Member, National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
    Member, American Statistics Association
    Principal Data Scientist & Investigator,
    http://www.SEMStatistics.com






  • 7.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-29-2021 07:31
    Just to be clear.  Wagner's claims are very reminiscent of the claims made by an "expert" in the Paxton (Texas AG) suit, which was joined by something like 140 GOP legislatures.   Those claims were heavily debunked in this forum.  Like many conspiracy related theories along comes Wagner to make similar claims.  He like Giuliani, Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, the ex-President, made this claim repeatedly outside a forum such as a court, which under and adversarial situation can review such claims.  All such claims have been rejected by all the courts that looked directly at the merits, as well as election officials in a variety of states, from both political parties.  

    This issue is done and done.  I am only sorry to see it being resuscitated in this forum, even though it died here a few weeks ago.

    Andy

    ------------------------------
    Andrew Beveridge
    Professor of Sociology/ President, Social Explorer
    Queens and Grad Center CUNY and Social Explorer, Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-29-2021 19:39
    Promoting an untenable political agenda with a deeply flawed statistical calculation is a disservice to the profession, but more than that to the country, at a time when the forces of divisiveness are pervading all aspects of our society? Is this your example of putting America first?  





    \\

    ------------------------------
    Stan Altan
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 13:34
    Stan said, "
    Promoting an untenable political agenda with a deeply flawed statistical calculation is a disservice to the profession, but more than that to the country, at a time when the forces of divisiveness are pervading all aspects of our society? Is this your example of putting America first?"

    Poppycock.

    Best wishes,

    Dave

    Dr. David A. Wagner, MBA, CADC-II, NCAC-I, ICADC, S.A.P., D.B.A., Ph.D.
    Faculty, Trident University International
    Faculty, World English Institute
    Faculty & Mission Team, Vietnam Bible Institute
    Bible Translation Ambassador, Wycliffe Associates
    Fellow, Academy of Marketing Science
    Member, National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
    Member, American Statistics Association
    Principal Data Scientist & Investigator,
    http://www.SEMStatistics.com






  • 10.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 15:03
    So you admit you are really not serious about your nonsense but you only pushing it to support your political point of you.  Thanks for the clarification.






  • 11.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-27-2021 12:07
    Okay, let's try to look at the problem dispassionately and see what we can learn.

    You are effectively trying to apply the binomial distribution to the number of states that flipped. There are (at least) three insurmountable problems here.

    First, the events are not independent. A surge of late votes for Biden in Arizona would increase the chances that he would see a surge of late votes in Nevada as well. You reject that argument, but it is one that we use all the time in statistics. Any hierarchical model will make an assumption of dependence. In fact, if you had hierarchical data and didn't account for the dependence, your analysis would not survive peer-review.

    Second, the probability is not the same for each state. The probability depends on how many votes were still uncounted and where the uncounted votes were. In Georgia, for example, a large number of uncounted votes came from heavily Democratic areas around Atlanta. So the probability of Georgia flipping is going to be higher than some other states.

    Third, there are more than ten states in play here. Florida, for example, was left out of your equation. Trump had an early lead in Florida and he ended up winning Florida. I may not have counted accurately, but it looks like Trump ended up winning 25 states. If he had an early lead in those 25 states as well, then what you have is not a binomial with X=10 and n=10. It's a binomial with X=10 and n=35.

    If there was fraud in the election, you couldn't prove it with the statistical model you propose. It is far too simplistic and the assumptions you make are untenable.



    ------------------------------
    Stephen Simon, blog.pmean.com
    Independent Statistical Consultant
    P. Mean Consulting
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-28-2021 08:11

    I'd like to say a little bit more about your point 5.

    You dispute my point about the existence of positive correlation in voting patterns across states in presidential elections by making two arguments:

    1. "Voters have free will, and free will is the definition of independence."
    2. Voters didn't communicate with each other, rendering their decisions independent.

    Let me give two answers here.

    First, the presence or absence of correlation is an empirical matter based on data, not a matter to be argued by logical arguments. If correlation is present in the data, arguments that it logically shouldn't be there don't work. Unless something is wrong with the data, we have to conclude something is wrong with the logic. This represents a big difference between statistics and mathematics. While statistics uses math heavily, and all statistical models involve assumptions, nonetheless statistics is primarily a scientific discipline with an empirical focus, deriving conclusions from observation and data, rather than logical deductions from axioms and assumptions. We are primarily scientists, not mathematicians. We have to go where the data leads. 

    Second, I doubt your assertion that voters don't communicate. The candidates and various national media made extensive efforts to communicate to voters across the country, and did so in similar ways. It would not be suprising if voters across states responded in similar ways. 

    And finally, while nothing I've said so far is in any way incompatible with free will, the issue is subject to considerable philosophical and scientific disute, and social scientists have found that in at least some areas, people appear to behave in ways suggesting their motivations are more complex, in matters from being unable to follow diets despite really wanting to being subject to manipulation by advertisers, addiction and addictive behavior, and much more. For this reason, I don't think a method involving taking a position on a disputed matter and then inferring that correllation doesn't exist from ones position could be called scientific, especially when it goes agaimst the data. This is particularly an issue where positions have been affected by ideological, philosophical, and religious commitments. 


    See Nate Ailver's discussion of positive correlation between states in past Presidential elections here:

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-why-our-model-is-more-bullish-than-others-on-trump/



    ------------------------------
    Jonathan Siegel
    Director Clinical Statistics
    Bayer U.S. Pharmaceuticals
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-28-2021 09:40
    Dear All:

    Once again, I really am horrified that this discussion continues.  Though not representative it exemplifies why polarized notions become so popular on Facebook, etc.  

    Once again this notion was and has been debunked by the courts and by anyone who thinks about this at all.

    Continuing to engage Wagner, the one responsible for spewing this statistically nonsensical idea, reminds of an old adage I learned from a very famous history professor.  To wit:

    ONE CANNOT CLEAR MUDDY WATER BY STIRRING IT.


    Andy Beveridge

    ------------------------------
    Andrew Beveridge
    Professor of Sociology/ President, Social Explorer
    Queens and Grad Center CUNY and Social Explorer, Inc
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-28-2021 11:50
    Hi Andy,

    Five quick thoughts: 1. You're trying to use the ad hominem fallacy by pushing unknown me to the center of this discussion to discredit a perfectly credible discussion of the statistical issues that have divided the nation; 2. You are repeating a myth about courts: Courts do not debunk. Judges think about having sex or what they're having for lunch. Scientists debunk. Scientists also think about having sex and what they're having for lunch, but they think about what the data looks like, too; 3. If you discount the chain of custody (which many of the lawsuits do) at the registrar of voters in each county you would say that the data is obviously fake. What I mean is if a graduate student brought you this voting data you would say it's fake (or something horribly wrong happened during data collection ) because it wouldn't survive even a split half test for data reliability (in my opinion), meaning that the data does not have the same origin. Data of human origin does not feature trends that completely reverse themselves on the same question; It means you have a bad question. 4. I'm surprised that so many professors don't understand the concept of dependence: a spurious correlation (association) does not indicate dependence, in the absence of time order of x before y, no other explanation, an identified causal mechanism, and a total context for the effect. If the voting behavior between states is not independent then there's been tampering with the votes. You can't have it both ways. Dependence means tampering. Tampering would mean there's an identifiable causal mechanism. Undergraduate students seem to understand this analogy: after World War II the birth rate in the United States skyrocketed at the same time that many roads were repaired and built in Europe. The number of babies and the number of roads were positively correlated, so were the American babies building roads in Europe or were the roads in Europe making American babies? Or were the number of roads being built in Europe dependent upon the number of babies being born in America? ;) 5. Someone mentioned error rate and P value and these are valid concerns. Boom. Someone also mentioned bayesian statistical analysis: another very valid point.

    Best wishes,

    Dave

    Dr. David A. Wagner, MBA, CADC-II, NCAC-I, ICADC, S.A.P., D.B.A., Ph.D.
    Faculty, Trident University International
    Faculty, World English Institute
    Faculty & Mission Team, Vietnam Bible Institute
    Bible Translation Ambassador, Wycliffe Associates
    Fellow, Academy of Marketing Science
    Member, National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists
    Member, American Statistics Association
    Principal Data Scientist & Investigator,
    http://www.SEMStatistics.com






  • 15.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-28-2021 12:54

    It appears that you are arguing that data have to be causally dependent in order for the "multiplication rule" to not work, that is, unless they are causally dependent probabilities get multiplied. (You appear to be argument there are only two possibilities, causally dependent or independent.) If this were true then the presence of positive correlation would indeed be insufficenf to refute inddependence.

    But it ain't so. As a matter of basic statistics 101, maybe 201 at some schools, positively correlated data will have a higher chance of outlier events occurring than the multiplication rule would predict. The multiplication rule doesn't work for correlated data. In the formula

    P(A and B) = P(A)*P(B|A)

    P(B|A) will not be equal to P(B) if the events are correlated. 

    It doesn't matter whether the data are causally dependent or not. The existence of correlation alone is enough to ensure that the rules for independent data don't apply. 

    If you have access to a statistical package with a random number generator that enables you to generate correlated binomial data, I would urge you to try it and see for yourself.


    Hope this clears the matter up. This will be my last post on the subject. 

    Note: My company name mistakenly appeared in a couple of my recent posts. All posts in this series and all my posts represent my opinion alone and not that of my company or anyone else.



    ------------------------------
    Jonathan Siegel
    Director Clinical Statistics
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-29-2021 08:31
    Dependence means tampering.

    Correlation does not prove a causal connection between the two correlated phenomena, as you point out with the baby boom analogy.
    However, I would like to point out that data 'dependence' is a technical term which does not imply causality.  The behavior of multiple variables can be 'dependent' (i.e., show some sort of correlation) without there being an identifiable, causal connection between them...as you point out with the baby boom analogy.

    With all due respect, events can be dependent for other reasons aside from tampering.


    ------------------------------
    Elizabeth Kupfer
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-29-2021 12:09
    Robert--
    Your statement that courts do not debunk findings from experts, shows that you likely have never testified in court, and had your opinion accepted or not accepted by a judge.  Go look at some of the rulings in the 64 cases around the election returns, and you will see lots of debunking.  

     But the analysis presented by the "expert" in the Texas AG case was ripped to shreds on this very bulletin board.  I guess you missed that.

    I hate to see statisticians behaving like Sidney Powell, Guiliani and Lin Wood (who now must submit a psychiatrist's evaluation or he will lose his law license).

    Repeating over and over what has already been dismissed and yes debunked makes no sense.

    Andy

    Andy






  • 18.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 20:23
    If the voting behavior between states is not independent then there's been tampering with the votes...Dependence means tampering.

    David you are in error for the reasons Elizabeth Kupfer and others have articulated. Trump influenced his partisans with his repeated denunciations of mail-in ballots. (Trump's stream of falsehoods about electoral fraud occurring to his detriment also influenced his partisans to see mundane events as sinister acts, leading to death threats.) Here is an article that discusses the "blue shift" that you erroneously claim as evidence of fraud:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/01/why-itll-be-normal-if-results-shift-in-the-days-after-the-election

    Also, the following excerpt from Sidney Resnick's excellent book A Probability Path is instructive:

    Independence is a basic property of events and random variables in a probability model. Its intuitive appeal stems from the easily envisioned property that the occurrence or non-occurrence of an event has no effect on our estimate of the probability that an independent event will or will not occur. Despite the intuitive appeal, it is important to recognize that independence is a technical concept with a technical definition which must be checked with respect to a specific probability model. There are examples of dependent events which intuition insists must be independent, and examples of events which intuition insists cannot be independent but still satisfy the definition. One really must check the technical definition to be sure.


    ------------------------------
    Robert O'Brien
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 21:14
    Here's another decision, from Wisconsin.


    A very important thing to remember is that most of these cases didn't actually allege any fraud, they just claimed that election officials improperly interpreted or waived state law and permitted more liberal deadlines, witness requirements, verification procedures, and similar details for absentee ballots than state law permitted. 

    For example, in the Pennsylvania case that Rudolph Giuliani argued, the fraud claims that had originally been in the suit told the judge in his Pennsylvania case that "this is not a fraud case." And yet he continued to claim that massive fraud had occurred in press conferences. This happened in lots of other suits as well.

    One very simple explanation for the discrepancy between the actual contents of the lawsuits and the claims being made in media is Giuliani and others knew that if they made claims in court without any credible evidence to support them, judges could sanction or discipline them. But they believed making unfounded claims to the public was protected by the First Amendment and they could do so with impunity. Similarly, they simply claim in their press conferences and on Twitter that the judges threw out their fraud claims on technicalities even when they never actually made any, and even when the judges actually decided the claims they did make on the metits.

    Thete were cases where plaintiffs did claim fraud. A typical example is this one from Michigan, where Judge Kenny found there simply wasn't any evidence supporting them. The plaintiffs had provided affidavits from various election observers claiming improprieties in tabulating the results. Judge Kenny looked at the affidavits and found that the observers simply didn't understand how the election tabulation process worked. He found that the various things the affiants claimed were suspicious or fraudulant were in fact normal parts of the normal process, which the affiants simply mIsunderstood. If the observers had bothered to go to the observer training the elections board had set up prior to the tabulation walking observers through the process, they would have seen this.


    The quality of the evidence in other cases was similar. Often plaintiffs, having held press conferences claiming irregularities and fraud affecting tens of thousands of votes, presented evidence that actually challenged only a handful.

    It's certainly understandable that people would pay attention to the press conferences and not the court filings. Indeed that appears to have been the plan all along. Legal documents are often written in language that's hard to follow, and are generally outside the average person's radar screen. It appears the Trump team consciously arbitraged this difference in information in the legal and lay communities, much as the market arbitrager takes advantage of discrepancies in information in different markets.

    Nonetheless, we need to plow through the snow, overcome this arbitrage effort, and understand for ourselves the claims actually made and the evidence actually presented in court, not what was said about it in the press conferences or on Twitter

    Jonathan Siegel
    Director Clinical Statistics


    Sent from my iPhone





  • 20.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-29-2021 11:25
    I, too, am disturbed by some of the discussion.  Arguing about the appropriateness of statistical models is an appropriate discussion. But political slants sometimes have sneaked into supplant statistical thinking.  For example, the word "debunked" has been used. Court cases have not debunked anything. They never looked at evidence, but rather had rationales to avoid doing so.

    ------------------------------
    [Mick] [Norton]
    [Professor Emeritus]
    [College of Charleston][]
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 19:26
    [Courts] never looked at evidence, but rather had rationales to avoid doing so.

    This is untrue and easily disproved. See here for many examples of where judges picked apart the arguments of the lawyers representing Donald Trump:

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/election-2020-trump-campaign-election-lawsuits-stand/story?id=74041748

    Here is one such opinion authored by Judge Stephanos Bibas:

    https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/203371np.pdf

    Excerpt:

    Free, fair elections are the lifeblood of our democracy. Charges of unfairness are serious. But calling an election unfair does not make it so. Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.

    Respectfully, in this day and age, I do not understand why someone would post a naked assertion like this without looking into it.

    ------------------------------
    Robert O'Brien
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 20:16
    Robert, that's an easy one.  Eagerness to promote a malignant political agenda untethers one from facts, data integrity, good statistical practices and reason. We've seen many examples of that the past few years, and it has jeopardized the ability of statisticians to do their jobs in at least one case. Look at what the state of Florida is doing to Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who shared information about the covid-19 epidemic numbers in her state.  This is what can happen when statistics and political agendas collide. Not a pretty picture. As a profession we should stand up to those who would deny the public the right to information and statistics, and oppose those who would manipulate and thwart the free flow of accurate and  necessary data in every sphere of our lives - economic, medical, educational, political, and so on.  That's what making America great again means to me.

    ------------------------------
    Stan Altan
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 21:33
    Stan is right we have troll amongst us, who is pretending to make statistical and logical arguments.  But it appear that he knows what he is spewing is as he indicated "poppycock."   

    Given the election outcome, I would suggest Malarky.

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    Andrew Beveridge
    Professor of Sociology/ President, Social Explorer
    Queens and Grad Center CUNY and Social Explorer, Inc
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  • 24.  RE: Election results

    Posted 01-30-2021 22:00
    I think David Wagner believes what he posted, although that does not make him any less wrong. He has received several substantive replies explaning why he is in error and if he does not realize that he is in error at this point then I do not know what more can be done. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotations from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (as translated by George Long):

    If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.

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    Robert O'Brien
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