|
As an alleged scientist, I'd think you'd be much less likely to engage in "proof by credentials". Particularly here, on a site frequently traveled by folks who as a matter of habit tend to walk a path in life far more adjacent to the Arts (scientific, technological, and yes, sociological) than most. To engage im brow beating of the person when you have data in front of you that shows admmittedly interesting skews evidences to an impartial observer an entrenched interest in avoiding the topic. You're doing the same type of thing I came down on people for during the 737 MAX fiasco, and as we've all found out, many of our "armchair experts" from that time ended up being right. I have no love for either candidate, or the implication made by this data has for the country at large. In fact, that this is the most closely watched election in decades is exactly why these statistical anomalies are so important to look at. Not for Trummp's sake mind, but because usually there's no point in sweating it because most of the time there isn't really that much choice in candidate, so everyone just moves on and doesn't look that hard in the interests of keeping things moving along.
Further, you have had drastic operational changes that have effected the efficacy of traditional poll watching. These statistical anomalies are the outcome. Claims that no one has evidence of any fraud in this is a bit llike claiming gerrymandering doesn't happen. It absolutely does, it just doesn't have a well formulated legal test making a determination that it has tenable in the Courts. There's a few drips of precedent around it here and there, but nothing to the scale of being in the national toolkit. In a slight sense I agree with you; because I'm not sure that anyone wants to approach the can of worms created by dealing with the issue of "Okay, lets say this was a fraud. What then? Do over?" However, if life has taught me anything though, it's that nothing worth keeping and depending on is worth being spared the rigor of really testing and working out the warts of it from time to time. There is something odd afoot if we're heavily departing from historicals in so many places at once and if there is any merit to statistics at all as an auditing tool, and we rely upon these techniques elsewhere to perform as a sniff test, then you're either arguing the technique is flawed (which I don't fully buy; there being academic controversy on something doesn't disclude it from still being useful) and calling into doubt everything based on it; or you're asserting that for some reason Benford's magically doesn't work in the United States, and we've just capriciously used it as a specious reason to classify other country's elections as fraudulent for diplomatic purposes. Either of those is enough to justify some scrutiny. I don't, however, think the Courts are necessarily the right avenue for this disagreement to take place in. In short, sit back, relax, and chew on the data. Forget how close to home it hits. Definitely don't dogpile those who are out of curiosity. Interesting times indeed. If I had to offer up an interim solution for how the country should be run until any controversy gets resolved, I'd say that Executive authority should in a limited fashion be distributed to the cabinet as overseen by a re-affirmed Speaker of the House and Senate, working as co-equal partners. Not President and Vice President, but both together carrying equal weight. If one disagrees, the answer is no, if unanmity is reached on a direction, the answer is yes. The House and Senate must reaffirm any extension of that arrangement with a two thirds vote and Unanimous agreement between both houses. If the Congress can't manage to even do that, everyone gets dismissed and barred from reelection, and it goes back to the People to re-prime the pump. An alternative is to simply re-run the Presidential election. The Congressional statistics don't seem to be a subject of contention anywhere near as much as the Presidential. That seems to me the most consistent way to handle things given by my reading of the Federalist Papers, and other source material from around the Founding, and also has the perk of just kind of making sense given the current political situation. |