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News & Views

Krakenbusting: Moving On After the Statistics Zombies

Election 2020 is over, and many of the wilder conspiracy theories about “the stolen election” are receding into zombie-dom. However, we’re still seeing some persistent “concerns” about election results that “can’t be right” because “something’s wrong with these numbers” based on amateur statistical analysis and a complete misunderstanding of election night reporting. So crazy are these “concerns” that we’re compelled to continue trying to quash the Kraken.
We’re not afraid of any Kraken, so let’s do this…

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Election-Stealing Voting Machines Theories: Secret Decoder Ring, Part 1

Weeks after a normal election there are still 100s of thousands of people, or more, tuning into a variety of theories about how the presidential election was “stolen.”  Among these are theories that center on software in voting systems. These theories exist in a perpetual social media mix-master that continues to generate new combinations of old and new zombie memes about things like “Evil Voting Software,” and “Rampant Election Fraud.” Let’s start deciphering…

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Deciphering Theories of Stolen Elections – A Series

Once again, it’s time for some plain talk, after I’ve had to explain election stuff to many worried people in my life, from neighbors to family members on the other side of the planet. This time, the issue is whether the 2020 U.S. Election was “stolen” using voting machines or voting systems…

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Plain Talk on Election Audits and Recounts

Suddenly many people are asking: What’s an election audit? How is it different from a recount? And they’re asking with both interest and confusion, probably because of the just-completed ballot-counting activity in Georgia. For some really plain talk, it’s not so complicated, so let’s do that….

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Game of Margins—Part II

Following our previous post about the recount process in general, and in particular what it normally would mean in Georgia, this article is an “explainer” on the effort begun recently to “audit” the Georgia election per a directive that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced this week…

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Game of Margins

A cornerstone to trustworthy elections is a recount process to ensure accurate outcomes. Likewise, trust in the recount process is essential. Recounts are a game of margins, which for this election is especially true. So, I offer an explanation of how recounts are conducted in just the states of most potential consequence in the coming weeks…

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Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania

As the undisputed top election geek of Menlo Park’s Willows neighborhood (very little competition for the title), I seem to be the “go-to” person for answers about mysterious election stuff. The last couple of nights of socially distanced back yard drinking and noshing have generated a lot of questions. I have summed up the first question in the following dialog….

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