Let’s say you are running for public office. Campaigning hard, losing sleep over poll results, wishing somehow you could get a guaranteed edge on you opponent. And then one day you get a phone call from a guy who says he can sell you a little computer program that would let you get into those electronic voting machines and change things around.
The simple program can do whatever you want it to. It can delete votes. It can add new ones. It can “flip” votes so those that should have gone to your opponent instead go to you. You can use this program to change the results of any or all the precincts.
So how do you use this magical tool?
You will need to be clever because of all the polls leading up to the election, plus the voter registration numbers by party, plus the exit polls. It would look funny if the results are too different from what is expected.
Additionally, precincts keep good track of how many ballots are cast, so it’s best not to add or delete votes. Better to flip them – change votes so ones that were cast for your opponent go to you instead.
It looks like you’re trailing 49% to 51%, so you need to do something.
But what, exactly?
Well. You know votes are counted precinct by precinct. And exit poll takers will be there at many of those precincts, hoping to make a prediction even before the polls close.
And you need to change the results by many thousands of votes in order to close that 2% gap.
Therefore, it’s best not to touch the small precincts. If only 200 people vote in a given precinct, eyebrows might be raised if you flip even 20 of the votes, because that’s 10% of the total. Which is a lot. Plus 20 votes is a drop in the bucket, compared to the number of votes you need to flip to ensure that you win the election.
Additionally, each time the “flipping” occurs you run the risk of being caught somehow. An automatic backup might catch your program in the act, or a power interruption might cause it to stop running before it has had a chance to delete itself.
So it’s much better to leave the small precincts alone, and skim the votes from the larger precincts. In a precinct where 1000 ballots are cast, those 20 votes are only 2% of the total. That’s a small enough amount to easily get lost in the noise, and you minimize the risk of somehow being caught in the act.
So you set your program to only flip votes in precincts where a certain number of votes have been cast.
It’s the only sensible way to go about this.
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
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