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Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by TheDesolate0 on Thursday November 12, 2020 @12:48PM (#25072459)
Nice try cambridge.

Stand-Up Maths on Youtube already beat you to it.

Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by petee on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:01PM (#25072623)
Well first, it was published "Summer 2011", right at the top, and second, why be snarky? Cambridge is clearly more reputable than some guy on YouTube...not to knock that guy, but he's still just some guy on youtube
Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by kahrl on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:21PM (#25072888)
Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by petee on Thursday November 12, 2020 @05:39PM (#25076189)
I appreciate the link but still never heard of him; like most though, I've heard of Cambridge. Publishing on youtube requires no peer review or approval,so it's literally just some guy, and in the context here it's still odd to slap down Cambridge for a youtube video
Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by herodotus on Thursday November 12, 2020 @12:54PM (#25072542)
Actually, Stand-Up math directly quotes from the linked article.
Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by lhorie on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:18PM (#25072858)
For those who are interested in said video, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78
Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by gopalv on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:11PM (#25072756)
> already beat you to it.

Netflix's "Connected" had an episode which was probably prescient on this topic.

There was an election analyst at the end of the episode, who said that Benford's law is broken when people vote strategically against a candidate or change their vote when their preferred candidate drops out.

Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by esoterica on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:59PM (#25073439)
> Benford's law is broken when people vote strategically against a candidate or change their vote when their preferred candidate drops out.

That has nothing to do with why Benford's law doesn't work. Benford's law doesn't apply to precinct vote counts because precincts are roughly equally sized and Benford's law only applies to data that approximately follows a power law distribution and spans at least a few orders of magnitude.

Re:Benford's “law” does not detect voting fraud by Ninjaneered on Thursday November 12, 2020 @01:19PM (#25072862)
Relevant video, "Why do Biden's votes not follow Benford's Law?":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etx0k1nLn78