analyzing results from Tuesday's US elections

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???? No reason to apologize. It's a timely and very interesting topic 
that provides a glimpse into the application of statistics in 
forensics. I had never heard of Benford's Law before and I think it is 
really fascinating. One of those very counter intuitive rules that 
show up in statistics and probability; like the Monty Hall problem. 
Why in the world does Benford's Law work ?? I have been wondering if 
it could in any way be applied to biological data analysis. (Also, I 
discovered Stand-up-maths !).

?? Often things are not as easy to figure out as we may first 
estimate. I think you would have to start with how you would envision 
a fraud to be committed and then figure out if there is a statistical 
analysis that could detect it, or develop an anlalysis. For example, 
if a voting machine were weighting votes and giving 8/10ths of a vote 
to 'yes' and 10/10ths vote to a 'no'. Is there some statistical 
analysis that could detect this ?? I, Or if someone dumped a couple of 
thousand fraudulent ballots in a vote counting center, is there some 
statistical analysis that could detect this ?? Who knows, maybe a 
whole new field waiting to be explored. A oncee-in-a-while dive into a 
practical application of statistics that has current interest can be 
fun and enlightening for those interested.

Matthew

On 11/16/20 9:01 PM, Abby Spurdle wrote:

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I've come to the conclusion this whole thing was a waste of time.
This is after evaluating much of the relevant information.

The main problem is a large number of red herrings (some in the data,
some in the context), leading pointless data analysis and pointless
data collection.
It's unlikely that sophisticated software, or sophisticated
statistical modelling tools will make any difference.
Although pretty plots, and pretty web-graphics are achievable.

Sorry list, for encouraging this discussion...