US Elections 2016 Part II: The Debates & General Election

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by Newhope

And new wikileaks and what a surprise the mainstream media polls are rigged.

Let me guess, you were cheering the Mainstream media polls when Trump took a temporary lead after the republican convention a couple of months ago. When the poll says trump is winning, they are true, but when they say he's losing they are rigged.

You need to read some REAL news sites. These people who think the wikileaks e-mails are proof of poll rigging tend to be people who have no idea how accurate polling is actually done. Really its the same nonsense that happened in 2012 where you had conservatives constantly saying the polls were rigged and even had their own website showing the "unskewed" polls that showed Romney winning. And y'know what? They were wrong; their "unskewed" poll was way off, while statisticians like Nate Silver of 538 were exactly correct.

A lot of these hacks think that an accurate poll should be based strictly on demographic percentages. That might work, IF we had a 100% turn out rate... but we don't. Our voter turn out rate is more like 50-60%. There are A LOT of Americans that do not vote and some demographics vote more than others. Statisticians don't just consider demographics, they also look at the actual likelihood that those demographics will come out to vote. For instance they know that liberal turn out tends to be higher in presidential election years, but lower during the midterms and their polls reflect that. Given Clinton's presidency and Trump's sexism, they can expect higher turn out from women. With Obama they took into account the added energy seen in youth voters. Statisticians adjust the polls in an attempt to reflect ACTUAL voting trends, not simply demographics. Afterall if someone isn't gonna vote, then including them in the poll would only make that poll less accurate

That's why the REAL news media is not talking about that supposed poll rigging; they have people on their staff that actually know how polling works. The irony for a lot of Trump supporters is that they constantly accuse the media of lying, but the only sources of information they trust either have no idea what they are talking about, are conspiracy nuts, or are just plain lying to them.

Originally Posted by Brother Coa

When I was asked on my last elections here who I will vote for I outright lied and yet my vote in those official polls was counted as true. Election day came and ruling party instead of winning 53%, which they would according to those conducted polls, they won 44% of the votes. That's difference of 9% which is a lot.

You see how simple lie from certain number of individuals can alter polls?

Or its just the case that the poll you were part of was a poorly handled poll. You really think that 9% difference came from a whole slew of people lying? Likely not. The poll likely had numerous other errors. Most well made polls tend to have results that fall within their margin of error.

if a poll was created a sizeable sample of pollsters, a single liar alone would not have much impact on the results; you would need multiple pollsters telling the same lie to ruin the results(and people telling the opposite lie, would negate their lies). If you are one of a thousand people then your lie will only make about a 0.1% difference in the results(depending on how your vote might get weighted). That's enough to be noticed, but not significant. Lying would have even less of an effect when you have multiple polls being conducted over a long time. Why? because the people taking the poll usually change each time. You might lie on one poll, but you might not get a chance to lie on the next, and thus the error will not pop up a second time.


Granted, some polls do have their errors... But the idea that every poll in the country would be wrong or rigged is pretty ludicrous.

[Brother Coa]

I also agree that not every poll is rigged, but many are. I know that system sounds perfect in paper and on theory but in practice and reality it is prone to mistakes, especially if there is higher power in the works who wants to influence public opinion via them. Just like everything else, if you have enough money and power you can do pretty much whatever you want.

I agree that single liar cannot have much impact, this is why you consider there is much more than one. Also, I was polled only once for entire election process, rarely who was asked twice, and when asked many of them lied again ( because let's be realistic, only a fool will tell one candidate first time and change to his own on the next polls. He will lie until the election day when he check or encircle his true candidate ). Average poll sample in the US seems to be anywhere from 500 to 1500 people. US has a population of 315+ million, chances that many of them got polled twice is really small.

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

As a side note, the Russian state media started commenting before wikileaks even released anything this time. Do you need anymore obvious indication that Wikileaks is just a puppet for the Kremlin now?

Based on comparison of RT's and Wikileaks' Twitter timelines, that seems to be the case...but it seems the batch of emails was uploaded to Wikileaks before the tweet, by a couple hours at least. The exact time of uploading isn't available on Wikileaks' site, but the mails from batch #16 were linked to on message boards before their release was announced on Twitter.

So the question is...could RT have written up the articles in that short amount of time? I'd say it's plausible. It is hard to tell, because apparently they have a habit of putting out articles fast and editing them later, without indicating what was edited. Kinda like my posts on these forums, lol. The batches are coming at about the same time every day, so journalists could've made their reporting routine at this point.

Gimme a link if you have more information. I'm keeping an open mind on whether or not the hacker was Kremlin. Doesn't have much effect on the election either way, but knowing that would make Russia's intent more clear, so it's still interesting to me.


About the poll rigging allegation, I'm not quite convinced either. Seems to be mostly from this email, which really only shows that the media isn't always quite as versed in polling as research institutes are. Not surprising. They talk about oversampling, but that's a legitimate technique to make polling samples better reflect the voter demographics. I wouldn't trust "media polls" anyway, they are too often just looking to sell a narrative instead of the truth.

[Ithekro]

What was that old book called, 'How to Lie with Statistics'?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

What was that old book called, 'How to Lie with Statistics'?

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.

[frivolity]

Originally Posted by GDB

But there IS raw footage of this. He just isn't providing that. Why is that? Could it be just like every other time he's done this and the raw footage proves that he's a lying fraud? Why even give doctored footage the time of day when undoctored footage exists?

He edits the footage. Nothing in the last two videos will change the narrative of what the first two videos said. That's the point of editing footage to fit your narrative, which is what he does.

If you think not releasing the raw footage isn't grounds for immediate dismissal given his history, then there's no point in discussing this any further with you as you clearly care more about feels than truth.

It certainly could be that he's twisting the story, and I'm not denying that possibility. There are other possibilities as well, such as protecting the identities of the interviewers, or that unedited footage would result in an info dump akin to Wikileaks. With the latter, interviews such as this often involve significant prep time where the interviewer has to discuss irrelevant material in order to get the interviewee to open up, and most people don't have the interest to wade through 90% of irrelevant material to dig into the last 10%.

Editing footage is not sufficient grounds to disregard a claim. Every media channel and website edits evidence for various purposes, with the primary one being length. News channels show small soundbites of recorded material and written articles only include selective quotes of books or interview transcripts. In that regard, the fact that the first two videos are edited is not sufficient grounds for dismissal. If that were true, then every bit of news you watch and read will need to be dismissed, since news by definition involves summaries of events.

The key question is therefore not whether the footage was edited, but whether the footage was taken out of context. In this regard, seeing the last two videos will indeed give more information that we can then use to assess its reliability. One of the interviewees has given his side of the story in response to the first two videos, and I will wait to see the content of the last two videos plus any follow-up responses before I come to a position based on my own sources.

Not going to be baited into a flame war with your last paragraph. Feel free to reply if you want, and feel free to not reply if you don't want to.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

This is such a hollow argument. People can come to any conclusion they want, even without seeing any video in question just based on what they hear from others. It doesn't mean they should and it definitely does not mean these conclusions are equally valid. The original complaint in this thread was that the darn mainstream media refuses to take these O'Keefe videos seriously. I explained why based on his reputation and his unwillingness to release the unedited footage which could clear up the matter, that it is perfectly sensible why they would not take it seriously.

Yeah, plenty of people saw that same scandalous made-up planned parenthood footage and came to a conclusion that Planned Parenthood was dismembering fetuses and selling their parts. It was also completely untrue. This kind of fraudulent behavior is dangerous (Almost certainly resulted in that Planned Parenthood shooting) and giving airtime to hacks like him only damages the national conversation.

You can sit here and say that you'll come to your own conclusion. Great, more power to you. I don't think your conclusion is worth taking seriously though if you somehow believe these videos constitute real evidence of any of O'Keefe's claims.

If your beef is with the argument that the mainstream media refuses to take the O'Keefe videos seriously, then I'm not sure why you're addressing these posts at me, since that isn't even an argument that I made. My primary argument is that the last two videos will add more information that can be used to come to a conclusion, so I personally am going to wait for them to be published before I do that. I can see arguments for both sides here, so I am not going to think less of the opinions from others who have already made their conclusions before the last two videos are out, including yours.

In any case, your own argument is partially in agreement with mine. If you're going to say that conclusions from people who haven't seen the video in question are less valid than those who have seen those videos, then it follows that more valid conclusions can be drawn from seeing all four videos in the series instead of only watching two. So watch the videos, read the responses by people who were in the video, and come to your own conclusion. That's what I've been saying all along.

Originally Posted by Slayerx

Your use of a court case for comparison is heavily flawed. In this case, we don't have the full evidence available. In this case, Its like the prosecution has full control of evidence, has the power to tamper with the evidence, presents only a fraction of the evidence available and outright refuses to let the defense present the the evidence available. And the persecutor in this case has a long history of tampering with evidence. How can you have a fair trial when you allow one side to control ALL of the evidence and tamper with it, and don't allow the court to see the most of it? How can the defense properly defend themselves? This kind of BS would never fly in the court of law. Really if O'keefe were a prosecutor he would have been disbarred by now.

The court of public opinion is specifically being denied enough evidence to make a fair and informed opinion. Heck that's why O'keefe specifically said he would be willing to go into contempt to keep the raw footage hidden; if the democrats sue him for libel and slander the court would FORCE him to present the raw footage to the jury, to prove whether or not the footage was manipulated (refusal to present the raw footage would put him in contempt). The Best defense the democrats have against O'keefe's videos is the raw footage which would show the TRUE full picture.

O'Keefe' has a history of lying and manipulating evidence to completely change its context, not even fox news takes him seriously. And those who have appeared in the videoo have accused him of doing just that, even going so far as to explaining the TRUE context of their comments which completely changes their meaning. You COULD base an opinion on O'Keefe's videos, but you would be willingly make an uneducated and uninformed opinion. You KNOW source of your information can't be trusts and you KNOW that the source is hiding information from you

Exactly, it is not a fair trial, which is why if you read my post more carefully, you would see that I specifically drew a distinction between judicial courts and the court of public opinion, both in the post you quoted and in my subsequent posts. I explicitly stated that we are not in a court of law, so your first two paragraphs are in agreement with me on that point. I also said that it is perfectly valid to draw an adverse inference on the basis that O'Keefe hasn't produced the raw footage.

Law analogies are in fact relevant here because they represent a more restrictive set of standards than what's required for public opinion. The reason why courts use standardised evidence rules is because at the end of the day, the court decisions will be legally binding on the parties to the case, so a well-defined set of legal procedures is required in order to add certainty to the legal process. The standard of proof for court cases is set at a high bar due to asymmetric risks - the Blackstone ratio, which is attributed to Justice Blackstone in the 1600s [edit: Typo here, the ratio became more widespread in the late-1700s to early-1800s, not the 1600s], states that it is better to incorrectly set 10 guilty men free than to incorrectly indict 1 innocent man.

On the other hand, the opinions of individual members of the public have no binding legal effect on anyone, which is why there is no need for a single universal standard that everyone must ascribe too, and we are all free to set our own standards, which we are unable to force onto others anyway. The relationship between court standards and individual standards are therefore usually: sufficient, but not necessary. If evidence fulfils court standards, then it is usually sufficient to fulfil most people's individual standards, but the reverse is not true.

The second point that I made in my earlier posts is that even within the judicial system, with its strict rules and procedures, individual jurors and individual judges often come to different conclusions in spite of having the same set of evidence before them, both in terms of matters of fact and matters of law. As such, in the court of public opinion, where the rules and procedures are relaxed, people will most definitely come to different conclusions based on their own interpretation of the material before them.

Your last paragraph is an example of this process - you looked at O'Keefe's history and formed the opinion that his videos are unreliable. That's your interpretation of the circumstances and I'm perfectly fine with it. I'm not sure if you watched the videos or if you came to that conclusion "even without seeing any video in question just based on what they hear from others", but if it's the latter then Reckoner would probably want to have a word with you.

In my case, I will wait for the last two videos to come out and for the people in the video to give their side of the story before I come to a conclusion.

[Brother Coa]

This was actually on FOX news...

The stunning report was highlighted on the critically acclaimed Lou Dobbs Show, the popular Fox host citied a Pew Report stating that 1 in 8 votes cast are “significantly inaccurate” and are “no longer valid,” which actually comes out to 18-million votes being invalid and out of that number over 2-million votes are being currently cast by “dead people.”

However Charlie Hurt a Washington Times staff writer points out that voter fraud is a lot worse than one illegal vote, in that for every one fraudulent vote cast, it cancels out one legitimate vote, therefore it’s doubly egregious.

Even if not true ( although I doubt it ) the fact alone will make this elections results doubtful if nothing else.

[Eisdrache]

Obvious question first: It aired on FOX, is it factually true?

Originally Posted by frivolity

The key question is therefore not whether the footage was edited, but whether the footage was taken out of context.

If O'Keefe doesn't release the unedited footage you will never know whether or not he just added things to it that weren't there before to create a false context regardless of whatever more he releases. And given his highly dubious history he is basically undermining his own legitimacy. Even if everything he said is true nobody will believe him without it. That alone should be reason enough.

It's a lose-lose situation for O'Keefe. Don't release the unedited footage and he'll never lose the label of being an untrustworthy liar. Show the unedited footage and most likely prove that everything he said was a lie again. He doesn't gain anything from this stunt aside of some attention but when it's too negative even that loses its value.

[Brother Coa]

That is not the point, as I said - no matter if true or false this was actually broadcasted on US most dominant news channel, meaning millions of Americans saw it.

Add to this Hillary's accusation of possibility of hacking by the Ruskies and Trump's accusation of rigging the results and you will have majority of Americans actually starting to doubt election system. Maybe maybe to that point that they will decide not to vote at all.

[Eisdrache]

You should work on your linking skills a bit :3

Originally Posted by Brother Coa

That is not the point, as I said - no matter if true or false

[Key Board]

What's happening is Fox is turning into Breitbart
They've been changing ever since the Megyn Kelly incidents

and honestly Breitbart is the real winners in all of this
if Trump wins they're going to be the new GOP propaganda wing
If Trump loses, they're going to rally around Trump and promote the we are less mainstream than everyone else brand
Fox is trying to adapt some of that alt right language

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Brother Coa

you will have majority of Americans actually starting to doubt election system

No they won't. "Millions" is not the majority of Americans, let alone the majority of voters.

[Brother Coa]

Millions can be anywhere from 2 million to 999 million. Hence the "s" in the word.
Giving that US has 300+ million citizens and that majority of them are connected via either TV or Internet... yeah, millions in that case are indeed majority. Voters as well since most of them can vote.

[GDB]

Using that awful logic, dozens could be the majority too, but it isn't because that isn't how people talk. If you meant more than 19 million, you'd say tens of millions.

And seeing a video still doesn't mean that they're automatically going to doubt the system. You cannot both distrust the media AND believe them when they say the election system doesn't work. Can't have it both ways like Trump supporters seem to want to argue.

[Anh_Minh]

Plus, there's already 40+% of potential voters who don't vote. Anyone who'd let themselves be convinced by such a dubious source was probably already not voting. And if they did, it'd be for Trump.

All that video can be is some last straw on some nutjob's last remnant of sanity who'll decide to try their hand at domestic terrorism.

[Guardian Enzo]

Jeebus, this is one of the most insane conversations I've ever seen on ASF - and that's saying a lot. I mean, I knew some people believe crap like this - Trump is in the high 30s in the reputable polls after all - but it's still shocking to be reminded of it.

[Dauerlutscher]

The 281 People, Places and Things Donald
Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List

Since declaring his candidacy for president last June, Donald Trump has used Twitter to lob insults at presidential candidates, journalists, news organizations, nations, a Neil Young song and even a lectern in the Oval Office. We know this because we’ve read, tagged and quoted them all. Below, a directory of sorts, with links to the original tweets. Insults within the last 60 days are highlighted.

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by monir

Ladies and gents, "Weird Al" Yankovic...... your moderator for the third debate:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/FdBF6h7oH5I

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Pretty good. But it doesn't compare to the ones they did for the last election:

YouTube

https://youtu.be/DSbxBQhzk3M

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

YouTube

https://youtu.be/7AreTsuFUOs

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

What becomes immediately apparent by comparing the final debate songs is how different they are in terms of issues being discussed, content/quality of the answers given and general disposition of the nominees.

Obama and Romney were much better candidates than Trump and Hillary. Or rather, Trump's inclusion to the debate has deteriorated the quality of it and Hillary is just following suit.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Jeebus, this is one of the most insane conversations I've ever seen on ASF - and that's saying a lot. I mean, I knew some people believe crap like this - Trump is in the high 30s in the reputable polls after all - but it's still shocking to be reminded of it.

I saw a lot of nonsense in the "skewed" polls discussion during the 2012 election. It was rampant in the comments area when Nate Silver was blogging at the New York Times. This time around I don't even see that much phony rationale for the "rigged" polls argument, but then Trump is hardly interested in facts or data, nor are many of the people around him like Bannon.

As for the Pew Report that right-wing blowhards like Trump and Lou Dobbs are pushing as evidence that the election is "rigged," perhaps you should read the Report itself rather than take their inaccurate portrayal of what it says as truth. Here you go: http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/leg...trationpdf.pdf

For those of us who have studied elections and voting professionally for decades, little in that report is surprising. Most of the inaccuracies in voter registrations results from how mobile Americans are. Because we sadly rely on personal registration with no centralized databases of registrations, it's quite easy for someone to have an inaccurate registration because she moved. Even moving from one town to another in the same state can be enough to create inaccuracies.

Remember, in-person voter fraud is a minuscule problem, perhaps as low as 31 documented instances in one billion votes cast. A more significant source of fraud might come through absentee voting, but Republicans ignore this problem because it is more often committed by their own partisans. People wealthy enough to own two homes, say one in New Jersey and one in Florida, can easily vote twice by maintaining registrations in both states. The Pew report uncovered about three million people with registrations in two or more states.

[SeijiSensei]

The real way the election is "rigged," and Trump is the beneficiary.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/us...r-id-laws.html

While Donald J. Trump repeatedly claims that the election is “rigged” against him, voting rights groups are increasingly battling something more concrete in this year’s ferocious wars over access to the ballot box: Despite a string of court victories against restrictive voting laws passed by Republican legislatures, even when voting rights groups win in court, they are at risk of losing on the ground.

In an election year when turnout could be crucial, a host of factors — foot-dragging by states, confusion among voters, the inability of judges to completely roll back bias — are blunting the effect of court rulings against the laws.