Silly numbers from New York's primary election

[passy]

I posted this in the Bernie Sanders group earlier and I thought this group might also find it interesting.

"If you look at my previous post I explained how the numbers for Kings and Bronx counties looked too perfect, well crunching the numbers some of them appear way too similar.

The numbers for Kings are 174 236 - 116 327 so 59.96% - 40.04% a 19.929% difference
A perfect 60% - 40% is 174 338 - 116 225 a 102 vote difference 0.035% of the total

The numbers for Bronx are 95 772 - 41 114 so 69.96% - 30.04% a 39.929% difference
A perfect 70% - 30% is 95 820 - 41 066 a 48 vote difference 0.035% of the total

The increase in votes for Hillary in Kings is also almost a third extra (32,9995%).

The increase in votes for Kings from 2008 is 9.9963% or 26 406 votes a perfect 10% increase would be 26415.7 a 9.7 vote difference or 0.0367% of the total increase. (At least based on the results still up at the NYT)

In 2008 Hillary and Obama combined got 1963 votes more than Hillary and Bernie combined a 0.108% decrease in 2016. If you also count the votes for Edwards and others in 2008 you actually see a greater 2.4% decrease of in 2016.

Kings is the biggest county in terms of votes and saw the biggest increase, Bronx actually saw a 1.2% decrease and Queens a 0.94% increase.

Another interesting number is 126.000 the number of purged voters in Kings (Brooklyn) is almost the same as the number of people who voted for Obama in 2008 (126 885). If all these people were unable to vote then it makes no sense that Kings experienced such an increase compared to 2008 when none of the other big counties did and the state as a whole had a lower turn out. Could it have been made to look like the purge really hadn't affected the turn out.

Is it just me or is there too many numbers that don't make sense."

[Kalidurga]

1. There are too many numbers that don't make sense

and we are never going to know what actually happened. So, my suggestion is take notes and if we ever have a real progressive running in New York again then the battle can begin much sooner. Also I would say New Yorkers need to push for some changes in how they do primaries what an archaic system that is.

It's time to move on and fight the next battle. I am not saying don't investigate though. Just don't sweat it so much don't be sad just focus on the next thing and figure out how to fix the problems for the next election.

PS this whole thing has been a horrible learning experience for me. I really thought Democrats at least cared about voting rights and bringing people into the party and working for change. Whoops.

[passy]

4. No one wants to talk about it

It's a hot potato. When ever people mention the rigging of elections they are called conspiracy theorists.
Electronic voting is so vulnerable that it's not too far fetched to believe that machines are hacked on a regular basis.
Ohio has been hacked since at least 2004.
It was supposed to go to Romney in 2012 but I believe someone hacked the hack or prevented from taking place, just look at Rove's reaction as the results came in.

[Kalidurga]

5. Scary the polls were close enough they could get away with it if the did it.

And you are right. Before this primary season I was like oh elections are fine. People might vote stupid, but wide spread cheating isn't going on at least. Now, I am wondering how far back wide spread cheating has been going on 2000? or before that even.

[pnwmom]

6. The 538 aggregate of polls put Hillary 15 points ahead. That's not close.

And the final vote tabulation showed virtually the same lead -- 16%.

Do you think there was a massive conspiracy involving the Elections office and all the pollsters, too?

[cui bono]

9. Yes. There are widespread descrepancies that favor the establishment candidate.

The exit polls do not match the results. Exit polls are usually the accurate indicator, not outdated polls conducted before elections where they use outdated and flawed methods such as landlines and polling likely "Democratic" voters even in open primaries.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511819256

I highly doubt this is a coincidence. If it happened in the GE favoring the GOP candidate you guys would be all over it, but since it is favoring Hillary almost every single time the Hillary fans are silent or ridiculing Bernie supporters for caring about democracy and fair elections.

.

[pnwmom]

16. Exit polls have plenty of reasons of their own for being inaccurate.

It's not as easy as you think to get a good sample. First, they have guess what precincts to sample based on past elections (which aren't always that predictive). Then they have to grab every 4th or 5th person (or whatever) who comes past their station -- even though people often come out in clumps and most of those people don't want to stop and talk (and don't have to). Young people are more likely to cooperate than older people. And people who voted absentee don't walk past at all.

In New York's case, up to 20% in the Dem primary identified themselves as independent. But it was a closed primary -- no one should have been an independent. How could this happen? The people who filed the emergency lawsuit to open the primary were urging independents to vote by asking for a provisional ballot. Those votes can get counted by exit pollers, but wouldn't have been included in that night's results, since the judge did NOT rule to open the primary.

I agree that there should be an investigation into the problems we know occurred. But I haven't seen any evidence so far that the occurred in a way that would benefit Hillary more than Bernie.

[passy]

17. Interesting how you dismiss exit-polls entirely ...

... as if it were alchemy.
They aren't some weird instrument, they work fairly well in other countries, but maybe it's because they only use paper ballots like the Neanderthals that they are.

[pnwmom]

19. No, I don't dismiss them. They are imperfect but useful tools, like all polls. n/t

[passy]

11. It still doesn't explain the numbers I talk about in my post and ...

... we know elections can be manipulated and it doesn't need a conspiracy, just no paper trail and access to the central tabulator. Look at the audit they did in Illinois where they altered the audit results to match the election results which probably came from the central tabulator.
As far as the pre-election polls, you are trying to tell me that suddenly they are correct when they mostly have been off, or way-off the rest of the time and they have underestimated the Sanders share of the vote every time.

[MFM008]

2. well

Sanders lost by 16 points. Sure there probably could have been mistakes. Here, we ran out of ballots at the caucus and they had to go get more and we had to wait.
Mistakes happen.

Not 16 points worth of mistakes..........

[passy]

3. I'm not talking about mistakes

It rather looks like they just typed in the results.
Look at the numbers for Kings, where they purged 126 000 voters.
How is it possible that they actually saw an increase of 10% after that, whilst the other counties didn't.
And what happened to all the newly registered voters throughout the state, how come the turn out was lower than in 2008?

[pnwmom]

7. The newly registered could have been balanced out by people moving or dying.

There does need to be a thorough investigation. At this point it's all speculation.

[passy]

12. So Kings is the only county with people moving or dying?

It's not speculation. The number of cast votes in Kings increased by 10% even though 126 000 people were purged. If all those people could have voted and half did let's say 60 000, that would have meant an increase of over 50%.
No neighboring county saw anything close to such an increase, so tell me what makes Kings county so special.

[eomer]

10. Who "won" NY isn't what really matters. The delegate count is.

So it doesn't have to rise to the level that would flip the "winner" in order to make a difference in the results that matter.

[passy]

13. Who won New York and by how much is what really matters ...

It creates perception, Bernie coming within 5% of Hillary in New York would have a really good showing, helping to build momentum.

[eomer]

14. OK, what I was arguing against is the talking point saying it doesn't matter because...

it wouldn't have changed who "won" New York.

The post I replied to said:

Not 16 points worth of mistakes..........

Implying that it doesn't matter unless it made a 16 points difference and therefore would have flipped the "winner".

So what I'm saying is that a difference smaller than 16 points is still important because it likely would have changed the number of delegates each candidate got.

I do also agree with your point that a change less than 16% would also change momentum. So we're both pointing out reasons that it matters even if the effect was less than the amount required to flip the "winner".

[Scootaloo]

20. You miss the point

How many layers of "mistakes" are tolerable to you? 'Cause it seems to be a cumulative problem. A mistake this election is "just the way it is" next election.

Is it enough mistake for the results to switch? I don't know. I also don't care. That's not what's important.

[Scuba]

8. Silly lefties. Unicorns, rainbows and fair elections are just blue sky pipe dreams.

[passy]

15. K&R

[bkkyosemite]

18. Disgusting.

[RoccoR5955]

21. Why do we have to ELECT our Queen?

It's her turn, we should just coronate her already!

[autorank]

22. Wall Street anointed her

We should just STFU and watch things go straight to Hell.