From the conclusion of a new study of the Democratic Party primary elections this year by Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, Stanford University, and Axel Geijsel, Tilurg University, The Netherlands, entitled: “Are we witnessing a dishonest election? A between state comparison based on the used voting procedures of the 2016 Democratic Party Primary for the Presidency of the United States of America,” dated June 7, 2016:
Are we witnessing a dishonest election? Our first analysis showed that states wherein the voting outcomes are difficult to verify show far greater support for Secretary Clinton. Second, our examination of exit polling suggested large differences between the respondents that took the exit polls and the claimed voters in the final tally. Beyond these points, these irregular patterns of results did not exist in 2008. As such, as a whole, these data suggest that election fraud is occurring in the 2016 Democratic Party Presidential Primary election. This fraud has overwhelmingly benefited Secretary Clinton at the expense of Senator Sanders.
Essentially, Barragan and Geijsel, the authors of this study, looked at states where there no paper voting trail (i.e., e-voting machines) existed and found Clinton did significantly better in those states than Sanders compared to states where a paper trail did exist. They also showed that exit poll results deviated significantly from final results by a large margin in Clinton’s favor. Further, the discrepancies between the exit polls and final results were wider in states where there was no paper voting trail.
The authors used the 2008 primary elections as a control for this year’s primaries. They found that in the 2008 primaries between Clinton and Obama there were no such voting anomalies between states with paper voting trails and and states without paper voting trails. If you’re a statistician, please feel free to examine their paper at greater length.
Here’s a pie chart graphic from the study that shows the differences in a way anyone can understand:
Make of this what you will.
I don’t expect anyone to change their mind regarding their candidate preference over this. However, I do believe this is another reason why we should move to a paper ballot system, and get rid of all e-voting machines. I believe that Ohio in 2004 was also likely flipped thanks to e-voting machines. Other countries get by just fine running clean elections without these unverifiable, and easily hackable machines. And please remember that the GOP controls the majority of states. There is no reason why we should be using them.
Hopefully, all of us can agree upon that much.
UPDATE: In light of the criticisms raised by some commenting that the study I cited is “a joke” and otherwise invalid, I have passed all such comments in full along to the study’s authors for their response.
I’ve also sent it to my father, Donald T. Searls. He’s a retired professor with a Ph.D in statistics, for his evaluation of the study. I did not send along any commenta to him as I simply wanted his unbiased evaluation. In fact, I did not even mention that I posted about this study online.
A brief (and incomplete CV) to establish his credentials:
Employment history:
Westat Research Analysts, Inc., National Assessment of Educational Progress, Professor of Mathematics and Applied Statistics (retired) University of Northern Colorado.
Academic Titles:
Donald T. Searls, Ph.D.
(1996), Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Applied Statistics — B.S., M.S., Ph.D.; Appointed 1983)Selected papers:
ON THE “LARGE” OBSERVATION PROBLEM, Donald T. Searls 1962. link
An Estimator for a Population Mean Which Reduces the Effect of Large True Observations, Journal of the American Statistical Association
Volume 61, Issue 316, 1966Adjusting Educational Survey Data – American Statistical Association, Robert C. Larson and Donald
T. Searls, 1974Age of Admission and Trends in Achievement: A Comparison of Blacks and Caucasians, American Educational Research Journal, 1984
When I receive any feedback I will pass it along in a separate post.
