On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 01:23:06 +0100 Martin M?ller Skarbiniks Pedersen <traxplayer at gmail.com> wrote:> Please watch this video if you wrongly believe that Benford's law > easily can be applied to elections results. > > https://youtu.be/etx0k1nLn78Just watched this video and found it to be delightfully enlightening and entertaining. (Thank you Martin for posting the link.) However a question springs to mind: why is it the case that Trump's vote counts in Chicago *do* seem to follow Benford's law (at least roughly) when, as is apparently to be expected, Biden's don't? Has anyone any explanation for this? Any ideas? cheers, Rolf Turner -- Honorary Research Fellow Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
It was explained in the video... his counts were so small that they spanned the 1-9 and 10-99 ranges. On November 13, 2020 6:59:49 PM PST, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:> >On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 01:23:06 +0100 >Martin M?ller Skarbiniks Pedersen <traxplayer at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Please watch this video if you wrongly believe that Benford's law >> easily can be applied to elections results. >> >> https://youtu.be/etx0k1nLn78 > >Just watched this video and found it to be delightfully enlightening >and entertaining. (Thank you Martin for posting the link.) > >However a question springs to mind: why is it the case that Trump's >vote counts in Chicago *do* seem to follow Benford's law (at least >roughly) when, as is apparently to be expected, Biden's don't? > >Has anyone any explanation for this? Any ideas? > >cheers, > >Rolf Turner-- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
On Fri, 13 Nov 2020 19:02:19 -0800 Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:> It was explained in the video... his counts were so small that they > spanned the 1-9 and 10-99 ranges.Sorry, missed that. I'll have to watch the video again. Thanks. cheers, Rolf> > On November 13, 2020 6:59:49 PM PST, Rolf Turner > <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote: > > > >On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 01:23:06 +0100 > >Martin M?ller Skarbiniks Pedersen <traxplayer at gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Please watch this video if you wrongly believe that Benford's law > >> easily can be applied to elections results. > >> > >> https://youtu.be/etx0k1nLn78 > > > >Just watched this video and found it to be delightfully enlightening > >and entertaining. (Thank you Martin for posting the link.) > > > >However a question springs to mind: why is it the case that Trump's > >vote counts in Chicago *do* seem to follow Benford's law (at least > >roughly) when, as is apparently to be expected, Biden's don't? > > > >Has anyone any explanation for this? Any ideas?
? I really like this guy's video as well. (He also has another nice video critiquing a statistical analysis of vote results from Kent county, Michigan that was presented by a Massachusetts Senate candidate, who has some impressive academic credentials. ) ? And continuing in this same vein of the complexities of statistical analysis by intelligent people here is a video by Mark Nigrini using Benfords analysis on Maricopa County vote results. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrJui5d7BrI&ab_channel=MarkNigrini ??? If you search for Mark Nigrini on Amazon you will see that he has written a major text on Forensic Analysis, specifically forensic accounting investigations, that is now in its second edition as well as an additional two books on analysis with Benford's Law for accounting, auditing, and fraud detection (He plugs the text in the last part of the video). All four books have 4-5 star reviews with 2-48 reviewers. From the tiny amount of reading I have done on Benford's Law, it seems that Nigirini is a leading figure in the use of Benford's Law. In the video he shows that voting results for both Trump and Biden from Maricopa county AZ both agree with Benfords Law. However, he uses the last digit and not the first. A word of caution before you click on that link: he uses Excel ! Matthew On 11/13/20 9:59 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:> External Email - Use Caution > > On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 01:23:06 +0100 > Martin M?ller Skarbiniks Pedersen <traxplayer at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Please watch this video if you wrongly believe that Benford's law >> easily can be applied to elections results. >> >> https://secure-web.cisco.com/1nXQfJ050onRLM1UOwgj-z0o0L3Hj6hd0rCZ7zMpqnBfCDuZcCkxAJZnj7o7Z8ZAUVxYBTf5FBjL2Y-Ca8T_ecO-N54S0KhgRtLoVDgxiEKX9N7eqzuxO0k0HloVcc2lXrXFNAiansI8zHgyUS4gTdKtRsJCHttTn5bwmV8J7d0_6iqrjee_toWiGnTsDSFaKVkev7tKKV3ERLFwzTPtNf2Rm99EBbdA75FvsXfBk3WXuVop4GZbN3ZGkd2SssFJaw9AgTHmM1k3C2bnB_STO_w/https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2Fetx0k1nLn78 > Just watched this video and found it to be delightfully enlightening > and entertaining. (Thank you Martin for posting the link.) > > However a question springs to mind: why is it the case that Trump's > vote counts in Chicago *do* seem to follow Benford's law (at least > roughly) when, as is apparently to be expected, Biden's don't? > > Has anyone any explanation for this? Any ideas? > > cheers, > > Rolf Turner >
Maybe this could be interesting to verify against found anomalies? "A second memory card with uncounted votes was found during an audit in Fayette County, Georgia, containing 2,755 votes" https://www.zerohedge.com/political/second-memory-card-2755-votes-found-during-georgia-election-audit-decreasing-biden-lead