[ExI] ok, so prove it

spike spike66 at att.net
Sat Nov 12 18:05:57 UTC 2016


 

 

 

On Nov 12, 2016 10:00 AM, "John Clark" <johnkclark at gmail.com <mailto:johnkclark at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com <mailto:rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> > wrote:

 

​> ​>…I know it because I can think and derive this from first principles.

 

​>…With such prodigious thinking abilities you should be able to easily derive the mass of the electron from first principles too. I eagerly await your next post.    John K Clark   ​

 

 

 

 

 

If you are in a hurry, skip to the last paragraph (the rest of this you can pretty much guess what I said (for I freely admit it is my longstanding obsession (because I fear we will eventually get an election that is as close as 2000 but as consequential as 2016 (and that will be dangerous as all hell (but you already know me and tolerate me (thanks.))))))  

 

The reason I proposed a recount wasn’t even political: I have little reason to hope the guy I voted for would do much better in a recount.  But I think we could build confidence and create the statistician’s playground were a recount to occur, particularly if every machine total is published.  If we did that, it still preserves perfect anonymity of the voters, still keeps everything legal, and shines a bright light on the process itself and builds proletariat confidence in the process.  Everyone wins!

 

This modest proposal seems so fitting in an election which appears to have been tipped by transparency.  (Anyone here wish to argue that transparency was not a deciding factor, if not the very most important deciding factor?  (I thought not.  (We found out a looootta lotta stuff about the inner circle we proles have never been allowed to gaze upon (the leaked video, the hacked email servers and so on.)))

 

If all those results are published, broken down by absentee ballot, mail-in ballot, in-person paper ballot and paperless machine ballot we can do marvelous things with statistical models, and we don’t know what we might find in those numbers, but my fellow yanks and my patient non-yank interested US watchers, those numbers will tell a story.

 

When in college, if you took lab courses, you remember the drill: you recorded the serial number of every instrument you used, along with the readings because that sometimes is important.  Later if you had a lab job (I did) you recorded the SN of every measurement instrument in your report, the last calibration date and where to find the calibration documentation, all that stuff.

 

OK so… is it such a stretch of the imagination to demand some kind of post-game documentation on any instrument which has calibration?  Some of the machines use a touch screen, ja?  And we know that touch-screen devices are calibrated, ja?  And pretty much all of us here have seen touch screens that aren’t working very well and what happens if it is off by a little, if you are trying to play a video game on one, ja?  OK so what if the calibration is off on one of the machines.  What would it look like in the statistics?  Would you have examples of a polling place with ten machines and exactly one is off in its total count?  What if that one is differs from the others by 10%?  Can we make a statistical model and calculate the probability of that?  And can we compare manufacturer and look at other data and figure out the probability of something like that happening by chance?  Answer, ja we can.  We have the power!  We have statistics!  Ohhhh the heady feeling of proletariat empowerment!  I am high on it!  Intoxicated!

 

The willingness and eagerness to view that data should be universal, ja?  The losing parties have nothing to lose and the victorious party cannot reasonably object, after the comments that have been uttered.  Turning over the data will not damage confidence in the election process; on the contrary, it would build confidence.

 

Nowthen.  I would take it a step further please, and I do thank you if you are still reading down to the bottom of this caustic screed.  I would argue that this election data belongs to US!  That data belongs to the taxpayers!  We paid for it with our tax dollars, now that information is our property.  The same argument that gave us FOIA (blessed be that legislation, and may it live forever) applies to this data: we bought it, now we get to eat it!  And oh boy, that would be a tasty statistical feast, a data banquet I would sooo like to devour with digital relish.  So hand it over, all we can eat.  It is ours, we paid for it, dearly we paid for that, we are still paying and we will pay into the far future, and note that the final election takes place in five weeks and two days.  

 

So prove it, serve up our data, all of it, hot and fresh, forthwith.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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