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How Do You Vote? 50 Million Google Images Give a Clue (nytimes.com)

Artificial Intelligence is now being used to scan millions of pictures taken by Google Street View to glean insights like income or voting patterns, The New York Times reports. In a Stanford project, computers scanned millions of pictures of parked cars to predict voting patterns and pollution. From the report: The Stanford project gives a glimpse at the potential. By pulling the vehicles' makes, models and years from the images, and then linking that information with other data sources, the project was able to predict factors like pollution and voting patterns at the neighborhood level. "This kind of social analysis using image data is a new tool to draw insights," said Timnit Gebru, who led the Stanford research effort. The research has been published in stages, the most recent in late November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the end, the car-image project involved 50 million images of street scenes gathered from Google Street View. In them, 22 million cars were identified, and then classified into more than 2,600 categories like their make and model, located in more than 3,000 ZIP codes and 39,000 voting districts.

103 comments

  1. Re:Donald TRUMP by ArtemaOne · · Score: 3, Informative

    Clinton stole the election from Sanders and the U.S. and her inept campaigning netted 5 million fewer votes than the Democrat in the previous election, resulting in her loss.

  2. Re:Donald TRUMP by quonset · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    And yet she still got millions more votes than the con artist which is why he keeps ranting about her.

  3. Prius voter for Trump here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    j/k

  4. Re:Donald TRUMP by davide+marney · · Score: 1

    Aren't you making the GP's point, then?

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  5. "AI" by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Troll

    This is the entire program: if (pct_prius > 1) {democrat=true;)

    1. Re:"AI" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An AI would at least get the closing brace right

  6. Re:Donald TRUMP by ArtemaOne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Right, she campaigned to her constituants, losing the states that gave her opponent far more electoral votes for an easy win. Stupid decision that saved us from one mess and got us another. Vote third party!

  7. ridiculous by swell · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I hope they noticed my car, in front of my home, on election day. Like millions of others I vote by mail. Furthermore, there is probably an identifiable class of people who do that. A clear understanding of that segment of voters would interest those who pay for such studies more than the results of this ridiculous experiment.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
    1. Re:ridiculous by davide+marney · · Score: 1

      If you voted by mail, I feel bad for you. The USPS is neither a guaranteed-delivery service nor a secure one. If you cannot guarantee the chain of custody of a ballot, you cannot guarantee the privacy of your vote.

      --
      "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
    2. Re:ridiculous by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      ... Did you even bother to read the summary? It has nothing to do with if your car was in its spot on election day.

    3. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope they noticed my car, in front of my home, on election day. Like millions of others I vote by mail. Furthermore, there is probably an identifiable class of people who do that. A clear understanding of that segment of voters would interest those who pay for such studies more than the results of this ridiculous experiment.

      How the hell do you know you vote by mail? How the hell do you know your vote isn't changed?

      "Vote by mail" seems designed for vote fraud.

      "Oh, but there is no voter fraud!"

      1 - Yes, there is. Michigan's recounts in the 2016 Presidential election had to be stopped because there were more votes than voters in some precincts. Records: Too many votes in 37% of Detroit’s precincts

      2 - There's no verification of who votes - something that UN standards for free and fair elections REQUIRE positive identification of voters along with the fact that they are allowed to vote.

      Voter ID is "raaaaacist"!!!!

      Bullshit.

      1 - Why can't black people be expected to get a picture ID? YOU are racist for thinking that "Blacks must be held to a lower standard".

      2 - Again - voter ID is required by the UN standards for free and fair elections.

    4. Re:ridiculous by ArtemaOne · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      1 - Why can't black people be expected to get a picture ID? YOU are racist for thinking that "Blacks must be held to a lower standard".

      Are you referring to things like in Alabama where when they implented an ID system they promised not to limit the means of minorities to actually acquire an ID. Then they immediately shut down places that issue IDs in predominately black counties as a "cost-saving measure" which does exactly what they promised not to do. Also IDs are not free, and thus neither are Americans.

    5. Re:ridiculous by WH44 · · Score: 1

      Please learn the difference between voter fraud and election fraud.
      Voters need to be on the rolls regardless of whether or not they have photo ID.
      That means, in clear text, that your cited example of "voter fraud" cannot be voter fraud - it can only be election fraud.
      Something that voter ID will not help with.

    6. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      False, fake, never happened. This is a left wing talking point but it's completely untrue. You are spreading rumors and lies.

    7. Re:ridiculous by sheetsda · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Here's a snopes link on the subject. It links to local news articles related to the subject.

      https://www.snopes.com/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-license/

      Assuming you still maintain the position that this did not occur, can provide links to back up that position?

    8. Re: ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Identification can be as simple as name and address as compared to a list of registered voters. I've never had to show ID to vote in my state. I've also never had to wait in line to vote. Strict ID laws are almost exclusively pointed at minorities. They have onerous requirements like in person registration 2 hours away with the office being open 4 hours a day 2 days a week. Then you get to the polling place and you have to spend the whole day (Losing a day's wages) waiting in line because there are 2 poll booths to serve 20,000 voters. On top of all this, these laws are typically enacted 6 months or less before an election in order to create confusion or catch people off guard. I don't object to strict ID requirements in principle. I object to them in practice. It's just the modern day poll tax or literacy test. It's not enhancing the validity of the election. It's just there to keep legally entitled people from voting.

    9. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Alabama requires every voter to have a valid photo ID to cast a ballot. While a driver’s license is the most common form of ID in the state, Bentley said anyone without a driver’s license can go to any county register’s office and have a photo ID made and the closing of the DMV offices will not change that fact.

      Bentley also pointed out that every probate judge in the state has the authority to renew driver’s licenses and the closing of the DMV offices will not change that fact.

      Bentley said not only is the state not engaged in any effort to curtail voting, it is doing all it can to make sure anyone who wants to vote will be able to register to vote.

      We will go to people’s houses to have their picture made if they don’t have a photo ID in the state of Alabama,” said Bentley. “We’re not ever going to do anything to keep people in the state of Alabama from voting. And for them to jump to a conclusion like that, that is politics at its worst.”

    10. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm not the poster you're responding too, but:

      Here's a snopes link on the subject.

      Snopes lost all credibility years ago when they had a Democractic activist doing their political fact checking. Interestingly, Google makes this particularly hard to search for now that they use Snopes as a fact checking basis, thus including "snopes" in the search pretty much takes you to snopes.com (-site:snopes.com takes you to other fact checking sites).

      But, the sketchiness of the male founder or Snopes, who re-married to a former escort and pornstar who happens to also work for Snopes.com. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the original founders are in a nasty divorce and they're both quite willing to either cheat or lie to publicly ruin each other:

      They are accusing each other of financial impropriety, with Barbara claiming her ex-husband is guilty of 'embezzlement' and suggesting he is attempting a 'boondoggle' to change tax arrangements, while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas. ...

      She also claimed he embezzled $98,000 from the company over the course of four years 'which he expended upon himself and the prostitutes he hired'.

      (From a right-leaning website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fact-checker-arbitrate-fake-news-accused-defrauding-website-pay-prostitutes-staff-includes-escort-porn-star-Vice-Vixen-domme.html)

      "Can you provide links to back up that position"

      ... for something that did not happen?

      I do not live in Alabama, but I know that people were saying the exact same things about Virginia, where I do live. This has not happened at all here.

      It's somewhat unfortunate that you need to spend a whole $10 on a Voter ID, but it's also a myth that that is blocking people from voting to begin with. If it were, then Democrats would be submitting legislation to help such poor individuals get free ID cards. Instead, practically all Democrats cry "racism", which is amusingly racist: only black people cannot afford to get Voter IDs? If that's even remotely true, then there's a much bigger problem in the areas that are politically dominated by ... Democratic politicians.

      Maybe instead of talking down about your favorite constituents, you all should actually try helping them?

    11. Re: ridiculous by mapkinase · · Score: 0, Troll

      People who can't afford IDs should not be voting . Same goes for all kind of other thresholds

      --
      I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
    12. Re: ridiculous by shanen · · Score: 1

      You need a sarcasm tag for that one. If you're NOT being too subtle, then the "other threshold" should be set one notch above what you can satisfy.

      Let me clarify that I do have the mechanistic perspective of seeing all human beings as UTMs. There is a fundamental equality in that, though each UTM is unique and different. We just have to accept that some of the UTMs are too slow to make the best possible voting decisions on any scheduled election day.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    13. Re: ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "this ridiculous experiment"

      I voted beforehand, making the Standford research project flawed. My parking spot had nothing to do with polling stations.

    14. Re: ridiculous by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

      I didn't say they can't afford them, I said they closed the places to get them after requiring them, but only in the areas with high minority populations.

    15. Re:ridiculous by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Snopes is a secondary source, like Wikipedia, and as such is in no way authoritative.

      It should be treated as a quick way to find a lot of relevant primary sources, and it mostly does fine at that.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    16. Re: ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is a UTM?

      Assuming you're wedded to egalitarianism then there are two possibilities regarding voting:
      (1) Everyone votes
      (2) No-one votes.

      Sadly, while (2) seems to be the more civilized of these, it is rarely considered.

    17. Re:ridiculous by sheetsda · · Score: 2

      Snopes lost all credibility years ago...

      No problem. They're just providing an information hub. Since they cited sources we can assume Snopes isn't credible and go a level deeper.

      ... for something that did not happen?

      Yes. Why should this be a problem?

      If the credibility of the sites Snopes links to is highly questionable then that's something that can be demonstrated. I propose we start with the local news station, WHNT. http://whnt.com/2015/09/30/alea-announces-driver-license-office-closures-includes-two-in-north-alabama/

      According to wikipedia there is an WHNT TV station in the area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHNT-TV.

      A short look at their front page shows no obvious political baiting that would lead one to believe this site just exists to push an agenda. (Try this test with Fox News' front page...)

      I'm going to ignore the rest of your comment because I think we need to determine what the facts are before we can have any sort of sensible discussion on the results of those facts.

    18. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Did you even bother to read the summary?

      You must be new here.

    19. Re: ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Might be best if IDs cost $500 to keep the riff-raff from voting. And if *you* are still voting, then maybe $1000 or more.

    20. Re:ridiculous by jrumney · · Score: 1

      I don't think streetview has daily images for the whole country, so I doubt that what they were looking at was whether your car was at home or the voting location. More likely they are making up shit like if you drive a Prius you are a Jill Stein voter, if you drive an old beat up pickup you are a Trump voter.

    21. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ALEA says an analysis shows transactions performed in each of the 31 locations they are closing accounted for less than 5% of Alabama Driver License transactions performed. The busiest of the locations performed less than 2,000 transactions in 2014.

      This shows that they closed the places that were the least often used, which seems to cut against your claim that it was done to shun black people. Since people need a license for basically everything in modern life, it's pretty racist to assume black people somehow cannot figure things out if they have to go to a different place.

    22. Re:ridiculous by shanen · · Score: 1

      Who are the moronic moderators who wasted 5 mod points making this AC moron visible? More of Putin's paid trolls with their herds of mod-point-wielding sock puppets?

      Remember the passage where Mark Twain wrote about sieving his pilot's blood after the epic swearing at the other boat? Let me quote it here:

      This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was crossing the river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course the traders sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as Mr. Bixby was: because he was brim full, and here were subjects who would talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such an irruption followed as I never had heard before. The fainter and farther away the scowmen’s curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught curses enough to disturb your mother with.

      Imagine the same operation on ALL the sock puppets and ACs. Not a bit of credibility to be found and nothing to pay attention to.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    23. Re:ridiculous by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      The rest of his comment is just ad hom slander to attack Snopes with, it's not an actual argument and not worthy of further consideration.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    24. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if Snopes is wrong on this, why not point out where they are wrong instead of heading off on a character attack of the founders of the site?

    25. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By your criteria since I've been divorced twice and once dated a stripper I must be untrustworthy. Nice.

    26. Re:ridiculous by geekoid · · Score: 1

      How about you shut up until you understand how it's done? Voting by mail is excellent.
      There are laws the actually do protect my privacy when using USPS.

      " chain of custody of a ballot"
      HAHAHAHAHAHHAhahaha. Yeah, the voting station have such a steller reputation for maintaining that.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    27. Re:ridiculous by geekoid · · Score: 1

      AH, nice to see you spread the GOP FUD about snopes. Tell me, are you just stupid, or do you do it on purpose?

      Jesus Fucking Christ you people are stupid

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    28. Re:ridiculous by geekoid · · Score: 1

      " that would lead one to believe this site just exists to push an agenda."

      what?

      Owner Tribune Broadcasting
      (sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group pending)

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    29. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Claiming 'a source is not trustworthy and here's why' is not ad hominem.

      2. Actual aguments can contain ad hominem.

      3. An argument, or a nonargument, containing ad hominem is not necessary and sufficient justification for summary dismissal.

      4. Fallacy fallacies exist.

      For how many people claim to understand and use logic an syllogism, vanishingly few display an introductory freshman class level of understanding.

    30. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's stupidly assuming that the reason to disbelieve them is because they are divorced rather than because they accuse each other of stealing money, with the male founder supposedly doing it from the company itself.

      I suppose that's classic liberalism though: ignore reality because it's inconvenient to the byline, just like shanen and geekoid who assumes that anyone against Snopes must be a card-carrying member of the GOP. Then of course there's the others than seem to suggest that people use Snopes as a way to find links to resources, much like Wikipedia. Both ideas are false: researchers use sites to find their sources and use those sources, but the average person reads the first thing and then stops -- it's why Wikipedia is such a problem for college students because they're too stupid to do the extra step. Finally, it's also easy to draw a picture by only including sources that are convenient to your version of events.

    31. Re:ridiculous by sheetsda · · Score: 1

      Not all of it. :)

      For example, here's an obvious straw man... I do not live in Alabama, but I know that people were saying the exact same things about Virginia, where I do live. This has not happened at all here.

      Here's a straight up troll... Maybe instead of talking down about your favorite constituents, you all should actually try helping them?

      *sigh* The quality of discourse on this site continues to concern me. I notice in this case of this thread a lot of unsubstantiated assertions appealing to the political right coming from ACs, in some cases modded up even though they add nothing to the discussion. This sort of thing should scare all rational people regardless of political leanings.

  8. Re:Donald TRUMP by DaMattster · · Score: 1

    This asshole appears on every post. He's like a fucking mosquito that won't go away.

  9. Just live with it... by martiniturbide · · Score: 1

    Multivac will choose your next president.

    1. Re:Just live with it... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      So? Like it mattered anymore.

      Quite seriously, if you put a gun to someone's head last year and said "Hillary or Trump?" he'd probably have said "Oh just shoot already".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Just live with it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hopefully, Multivac will choose Multivac.

      I don't like the idea of being effectively enslaved by a giant computer but, as political systems go, it smashes social democracy. At the very least it strips away the illusion of "representation" that blinds almost everyone into ultimately defending the government's existence.

  10. Google - influencing the vote! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why settle for being merely evil?

  11. All that AI and they couldn't get 2016 right by ze_foster · · Score: 2

    The election was just over a year ago, but the vast majority of data mining "AI" got it wrong, including Google and Facebook.

    So what's the point of making claims about the method used in the OP when it isn't tested and won't be tested for at least 3 years?

  12. How many gallons of stew from a few oysters? by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 1

    Does it account for all the nice cars being in a garage and invisible to street view? Does it account for people who donâ(TM)t own cars? Account for results in areas with gated communities, where âoestreet viewâ might not have been allowed? What of families with teenaged kids who park their beaten jalopies at the curb while dadâ(TM)s Mercedes and momâ(TM)s Volvo or Land Rover sits invisibly in the garage? Iâ(TM)m not saying thereâ(TM)s NO oysters in the stew, just that no one should go about assuming a high oyster content to this stew.

    --
    Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
    1. Re:How many gallons of stew from a few oysters? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      'Nice cars' are a silly criteria anyhow. Test of how well the 'consumerism indoctrination' (TV) has worked.

      'Bad' zip codes are full of nearly brand new 'nice cars', sitting in apartment complex lots and depreciating faster than they are being paid off. Moron owners, every one, R, D or independent.

      You can't determine equity in a car by taking a picture. Buying something like an A8 or 7 series BMW on time, just proves the 'owner' is a vain, ego driven idiot. Which correlates with both parties _bases_.

      Buying one for cash, just proves the owner has forgotten what money is worth. Which, again, could be either party.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:How many gallons of stew from a few oysters? by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Does it account for all the nice cars being in a garage and invisible to street view?

      Well I suppose they could combine it with Satellite View and assume there are nice cars in the garages they see. But then they could just forget about the cars and assess people's votes on what their houses look like in Satellite View. Or they could even (gasp!) just count the ballot papers to see how people voted.

      Not sure I'm seeing the point of this. Is the idea to replace voting with scanning the cars in the streets? I suppose the results would be just as meaningful.

    3. Re:How many gallons of stew from a few oysters? by mschuyler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It does not have to account for garaged cars. All it has to do is show valid predictions. The criteria here is not to capture every single vehicle; it is to record a sample of sufficient size. That's how poling works. No one has to know how YOU voted. All they need is 1200 sufficiently random people to accurately predict the election.

      --
      How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
    4. Re:How many gallons of stew from a few oysters? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      You can't determine equity in a car by taking a picture. Buying something like an A8 or 7 series BMW on time, just proves the 'owner' is a vain, ego driven idiot. Which correlates with both parties _bases_.

      Which vain, ego driven party is more likely to buy a Prius?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  13. Re:Donald TRUMP by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

    No, Hillary lost the Presidential vote by 77 votes. That's 25% less votes than Trump got, which is a pretty decent majority. (The 2016 Presidential election was 304-227.)

    --
    The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  14. Re:Donald TRUMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And yet she still got millions more votes than the con artist which is why he keeps ranting about her.

    Let me Google how Presidential elections in the US work:

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=electoral+college

    PS - it's Hillary! who won't go away.

    PPS - Hillary! still can't articulate why anyone should vote for her other then "Muh vagina!"

    PPPS - Hillary!'s "I'm with her" slogan was not only lame, it was arrogant as hell. "She's with me!" would have been so much better. Wanna bet Hillary! herself picked out that slogan?

    PPPPS - Please articulate just ONE Hillary! accomplishment other than "Married Bill".

  15. Re:Donald TRUMP by Daemonik · · Score: 0

    Sanders was a d*** who was happy being an independant until he wanted votes so he jumped onto the Dem's bandwagon and now just whines about how he was treated. Screw him and his opportunistic elderly ass and all the bernie hos who thought they were entitled to win. He's STILL not a member of the DNC btw.

  16. Re:Donald TRUMP by ArtemaOne · · Score: 2

    DNC is a corrupt organization, so that's good on him. The rest of what you said was relatively accurate.

  17. Fuck Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This goes to show that Google knows more about us than we do ourselves.
    This has to stop.
    Google is indeed morphing into Big Brother.
    {I will not go to Room 101 unless you drag me kicking and screaming}

  18. Make America Believe Again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I voted in the 2016 election and all I got was this Mulder & Scully shirt. Looking forward to 2020!

  19. Yet another abuse of technology--pre-voting by shanen · · Score: 2

    I think this story could have been bundled into the recent story about abuses of technology. We could be using computers to increase our freedoms and give us more and better choices, but over-controlled elections are NOT helping. Why bother to vote when the outcome has already been so heavily manipulated?

    Let me focus on the specific problem of gerrymandering that this technology would obviously support (too well). Partisan redistricting has two principles, and both of them are based on predicting how people will vote next time. So far the main data has been prior voting patterns, but this will help YUGEly. Principle 1 is making your districts safe, which usually means a cushion around 5%. Principle 2 is wasting your opponent's votes in concentrated sacrificial districts, which is normally required because you would barely need to tweak the districts if you actually had more voters. The worse abuses of partisan gerrymandering are when actual minorities of the voters get to "win" the legislatures. (We've actually seen that in recent elections for the House of so-called Representatives, thanks to diabolical gerrymandering in such states as Texas.)

    So let me switch angles to a possible computer-based solution in two parts:

    Part 1: Guest voting. If you don't like your own district (for example because it is so gerrymandered that your vote is meaningless), then you would be able to reject your ballot and vote as a guest in one of the neighboring districts. The more they gerrymander the districts, the MORE options voters would have and the LESS predictable the outcomes of the elections.

    Part 2: Allocate the voting power based on the actual outcome of the election. Easiest to make this clear with a simple example using three districts, A, B, and C. Assume half the voters of District A decide to vote as guests in Districts B and C, with one quarter going to each district. Then whoever wins A only gets 1/2 vote in the legislature, and the legislators from B and C get 1-1/4 votes each. The total of the 3 districts is still 3 votes in the legislature, but each voter gets truly equal voting power in the legislature. (Non-voters, too. Each non-voter gets the same 0% representation, but that's true now, too.)

    An amusing side effect is that the winner still has incentive to actually represent ALL of the voters who voted for AND against him, because even those negative votes still contributed to his influence in the legislature. Also the voters are motivated to vote because they know they are increasing the voting power in whichever district they pick.

    So let me be the first to admit that it will never happen. Certainly not via an evolutionary path, much as I prefer evolution to the alternatives. No "Fantasy" mods on Slashdot, eh?

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    1. Re:Yet another abuse of technology--pre-voting by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      how about getting the political parties out of the districting and election rules making process? Also increase the number of Representatives in the house so it's the same representative : Constituent ratio as when the house was set at the current number.

    2. Re:Yet another abuse of technology--pre-voting by shanen · · Score: 1

      I considered your first ideas, but every angle I could think of was just subject to some new form of gaming. The problems with your second idea are that the approach doesn't scale and that technology has changed so much since the Constitution was written. In general, that's why I think we need to focus on scaleable solutions that have negative feedback loops against the gaming. With guest voting, the harder they gerrymander, the worse the gerrymandering will work and the harder it will become to predict (or manipulate) the election results.

      This is actually a case where electronic voting makes sense, too. Rather than having to print lots of extra ballots, you just have an electronic ballot that branches when the voter says "I want to guest vote". However, I did think of a way to do it with paper. After the candidates for your default district, there could just be a box for "No vote here. Guest voting." Then there would be a note for where the guest districts are listed, where you'd also get the instruction to vote in only one district.

      However, that paper ballot idea gave me a new crazy wrinkle. Maybe you should be allowed to divide up your vote among as many of the neighboring districts as you are interested in? The computers can handle the fractions quite well enough, and what those neighboring legislators do in their districts does affect you to some degree. Again, the more they gerrymander the more the complexities of the actual elections may cancel out their best gerrymandering.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    3. Re:Yet another abuse of technology--pre-voting by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      my first idea was to get rid of the gerrymandering.

    4. Re:Yet another abuse of technology--pre-voting by shanen · · Score: 1

      And I strongly agree with you, but I think we need to do that through a variation of "following the money" to break the motivation of the gerrymandering politicians. I think any attempt to tweak the rules of the redistricting process will only create a new game for them to play. We need to change the game in such a way that gerrymandering itself is counterproductive so they might as well district on some rational and nonpartisan basis, such as minimizing the lengths of the borders between districts that divide the voting population equally.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    5. Re:Yet another abuse of technology--pre-voting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's stop with the "gerrymandering" bullshit, okay? It (along with the Russia thing) is nothing but blame passing. Democrats lose because they suck. Don't believe their propaganda. Quid pro quo is non-partisan. And people are free to choose to be either for it or against it, "gerrymandering" or not!

  20. Useless in Rural Areas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many times in rural areas you cannot see the houses or the cars parked near to the house from the one lane roads.

  21. Divide and conquer still works by shanen · · Score: 1

    Is there an older account than Caesar's report on dividing and conquering? However the tactic is much older than Rome.

    Putin divided and conquered the Democratic Party before he did it to America as a whole. Count me as one of the suckers who was conned into donating to Sanders before the New York primary when I should have donated to the Democratic Party in Michigan.

    However Putin doesn't actually deserve much credit for merely harvesting the mindless mushrooms. He just noticed that we'd cultivated a huge crop of them by destroying the public education system. Too bad we did that ourselves with our own American divide and conquer strategy. Now we have a tiny number of good public schools, basically to dangle as hope for the parents who are sufficiently concerned to play that lottery. Most of the schools have become obedience schools you wouldn't send your dog to. The goal is not the creation of wise and thoughtful voters, but docile employees (and inmates) who will obey the ads selling toothpaste or political candidates.

    Now for the punchline. I used to think public education was destroyed because stupid (or religious zealot) parents were most concerned with making sure their kids were as stupid as they were, but now I've realized they were just useful idiots. Follow the money. Public education was mostly funded by property taxes, and rich real estate investors (like #PresidentTweety) have always hated property taxes. One way to cut property taxes is by slashing the public schools to death.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  22. Display of public reputation? by shanen · · Score: 2

    If Slashdot had a better mechanism for aggregating and displaying and filtering based on public reputation, then I would adjust my settings to render such trolls (possibly a paid professional?) invisible. (I think you're referring to 5161731? Probably just a fresh sock puppet, but I'd also tweak my setting to deal with fresh sock puppets.)

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    1. Re:Display of public reputation? by DaMattster · · Score: 1

      Thanks! That is a good idea. I changed my settings.

    2. Re:Display of public reputation? by shanen · · Score: 1

      Now I'm curious what you did. There is a setting that is useful against ACs, but most of the settings are not really related to the earned reputation of the author. What I'm actually advocating would be linked more directly to an improved and more symmetric version of karma.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  23. Or look at voter registration by tomhath · · Score: 2

    Wouldn't it be easier and more accurate to simply look at voter registration records? Everything else is mostly a guess.

  24. Car on blocks in the front yard by Latent+Heat · · Score: 1

    How hard is this predicting-votes-from-an-image anyway? Let's look for some clues.

    A brand-new shiny F-250 Super Duty Turbo Diesel parked in the driveway to a ramshackle house?

    The name of a roofing business painted on this truck?

    A rusted 1990 Buick LeSabre with the hood up parked on the front lawn?

    An NRA bumper sticker on each vehicle?

    A Trump-Pence sign hand painted on a 4X8 sheet facing the roadway?

  25. Re: Donald TRUMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I really liked some of Sanderâ(TM)s policies but he is too liberal to be elected.

    The real issue with American politics is that a small vocal minority at the far left and right assist in and donate to primary campaigns. Even by the time of the primary election, the choices on the ballot are not good.

  26. So how is this different than voting records? by niftymitch · · Score: 2

    So how is this different than voting records that have
    names addresses voting history and party affiliation?

    The reality is cars, voting like TV news is a market and market
    share and differentiation to keep the market is critical.

    Some think that FoX vs. CNN is about morality and politics...
    it is about market share.

    --
    Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
    1. Re:So how is this different than voting records? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Voting records are full of people who no longer vote, do not vote or who vote many, many times.
      So the idea is to count cars, property, rent, work, unemployment, education, number of illegal migrants in an area.
      That gives some idea of the wealth, buying habits, education level and group think of an average person.
      How they will be swayed by the politics of more wars, more spending on illegal migrants, more support of interventions around the world, more spending to support other nations. Accepting more illegal migrants and moving more refugees with no skills into the USA.
      How a person will feel about jobs staying in the USA vs boring speeches on supporting more globalism, rebuilding the USA, supporting the USA, a guest worker system that only brings in the best workers the USA actual needs short term.
      Once all that is worked out the political speeches can focus on what a region would like to listen to.
      More nation building globally, more wars to bring democracy, more supporting failed nations, more support for illegal migrants?
      Another area might want a speech about new jobs, education and spending that stays in the USA.
      A good healthy politician with stamina can then move all over the USA and give a positive speech for every part of the USA collecting all that needed local support.
      A political leader with health problems would have to be more careful about longer speeches and moving around a lot.
      They would talk to the tame national media and in front of smaller safe party selected crowds on the elite east and west coast. They would never gain real support all over the USA and not get the states needed to win an election.

      Have a candidate who is healthy, can give great speeches all over the USA and win real votes that are needed to win in every state.
      Counting cars, incomes, what people do with their discretionary income does not win an election. Having a photogenic candidate who can give a speech that is on topic many times all over the USA wins elections. Who can recall what state, city they are in and can recall and comment in a good way about their last visit to that state, city makes locals proud and gets the vote out.
      Lecturing in a very negative way most of the USA from the elite costal states about how most people all over the USA will have to change will not win the needed states.
      Not been sick, getting out to meet voters in more states and cities. To be healthy enough to talk and listen all over the USA. Give a positive long speech to any citizen in any state. No matter the car they own, their work, level of education. Put the USA, US jobs first and have a positive message for everyone in the USA.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    2. Re:So how is this different than voting records? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "Voting records are full of people who no longer vote, do not vote or who vote many, many times."

      no, not really. Stop lying.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    3. Re:So how is this different than voting records? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you sure proved him wrong with all of your cited facts and data.

  27. Parking Lots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Just look for the fucking Priusâ(TM). Iâ(TM)ll give you no guesses as to how they vote.

    Now give me my grant money.

  28. Re:Donald TRUMP by StevenMaurer · · Score: 1

    Clinton stole the election from Sanders

    In the Democratic nomination contest, Clinton got 3.7 Million more votes than Sanders did, so the only way this could possibly be true is if declaring the person with more votes to be the winner, is somehow akin to "stealing".

    Anyone who believes that, pines after dictatorship, not democracy.

  29. Re:Donald TRUMP by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

    You clearly didn't follow any of the trickery and manipulation. It's understandable to make that statement from ignorance

  30. inaccurate view by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What about the cars that are parked in the garage out of site of street view?

    My neighbor's renter's cars are parked in the street. A bunch of over-sized-gas-guzzlers and junkers on the street. Everyone with a decent vehicle in my neighborhood parks in their garage, out of site of street view. Whatever info they have about cars on the street is skewed to the rental demographic in my neighborhood. The street is full of cars but not those of home owners for the most part.

  31. Distance to polling booth by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    How sparse are US polling booths? It sounds strange to drive to vote, except of course in rural areas.

    1. Re: Distance to polling booth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Americans will drive to their mailbox.

    2. Re:Distance to polling booth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I live in an "urban" area (by the census definition). My polling place is 5 miles from my house. I have never lived less than 1.5 miles from my polling place. The US is very spread out. Besides, most people who vote in person vote on their way to or back from work, so if they're driving to work anyway, the distance to the polling place is irrelevant (and yes, I do drive to my mailbox quite a bit because it is at the end of the driveway that I need to drive down anyway to go anywhere).

    3. Re: Distance to polling booth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When it's -2 degrees out with a -18 wind chill, and your mailbox is at the end of a half-mile driveway, you're damned right we drive to get our mail.

      Not everyone lives in an urban center packed in like sardines.

  32. Probably Already Used for Employment Screening by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It might sound a bit tin-foil-hat, but it doesn't take much imagination to guess that this will be (or already is) used to screen job candidates. Soon enough, merely keeping your mouth shut at work, or even 24x7, about your possibly unpopular opinions isn't going to cut it. AI can tease out amazingly subtle patterns. Time to start being more careful about what you think.

  33. Signs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had signs all over my yard for Donald Trump (as did everyone else for a good mile radius from my house). I think it's pretty obvious. There was one house with a Hillary sign. He had one. Most of the Trump supporters here had quite a few signs all over.

    Most Democrats I know were pretty 'meh' on Hillary. She can't accept that she sucks. Well, I guess according to Bill she didn't.

  34. Just because they photographed by pedz · · Score: 2

    my car in front of the brothel does not prove anything. I did not hae sex with that woman!!!!!!

  35. Re:Donald TRUMP by Optic7 · · Score: 2

    What alternative action do you propose that Sanders should have taken instead of running as a Democrat?

    You do realize that both the Democratic and Republican parties have made state ballot access laws almost impossible for a 3rd party candidate to be in the ballot in all 50 states, right? And that's just one of the impediments to running as a 3rd-party or an independent candidate. Sanders did exactly what anyone who is serious about running for president needs to do.

  36. Re:Donald TRUMP by Daemonik · · Score: 0

    That's funny.. I don't recall Jill Stein jumping on the Dem's ticket to run her election.

    But then Stein is a Green and has an actual platform and party. Bernie was just a one trick pony (other than GIVE IT FOR FREE!!! did he really have anything else to say?) and the fact he couldn't build his own party kind of says a lot.

  37. Re:Donald TRUMP by geekoid · · Score: 0

    You are deluded if you think a atheist jew could have taken the bible belt.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  38. Re:Donald TRUMP by geekoid · · Score: 1

    "Easy"

    Also,. She would have been an excellent president. Of course, some of us have read here writing and been watching her career. She was only really smart and understood international frameworks as well as had a plan to pivot dying communities in the US.

    Did you even know that? have you read here stuff on foreign policy? trade? Her paper on how to pivot those communities which included how to pay for it? No? I thought not, child.

    I'll vote for who has a proven record of understanding issues and is smart, not just because of party. You should do the same.

    Screaming 'vote third party' is no difference then saying vote R! or Vote D!.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  39. Re:Donald TRUMP by geekoid · · Score: 1

    Do you not understand the Electoral college?

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  40. Re:Donald TRUMP by geekoid · · Score: 1

    He had to in order to get base votes. Sucks, but it's a reality that some people only vote letter. His followers whine, I don't see him doing it so much except when specifically asked..

    "who thought they were entitled to win. "

    so pretty much everyone who runs then?

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  41. Re:Donald TRUMP by geekoid · · Score: 1

    other than GIVE IT FOR FREE!!! did he really have anything else to say?

    ok, so you are a disingenuous oaf who actual didn't read anything about anyone. Got it.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  42. Re:Donald TRUMP by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 1

    That seems like an odd question to ask of someone who pointed out the Electoral College vote is the vote for president and the other votes are for who is going to be voting in the electoral college.

    Did you not understand the post?

    --
    The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
  43. Re:Donald TRUMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    She was only really smart and understood international frameworks as well as had a plan to pivot dying communities in the US.

    Pivot the "basket of deplorables" into what, exactly? Fodder for a war with Russia?

    Remember that the saber rattling, anti-Russian propaganda, and tension escalations only started when she gave a speech about it halfway through the election season when she began to lose ground.

    Even "Bane Capital" Romney, when leveraging Russia against Obama was suggested to him as being beneficial for his campaign said that the cold war was over for two decades and Russia is now our allies.

  44. Re:Donald TRUMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Voter registration fucked a huge percentage of people who never heard of Sanders before. Once they found out there was someone worth voting for, it was too late to register, in some cases even though it was almost a month until the election.

  45. Behaviour which can be predicted, by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

    can be more easily manipulated and controlled. It's now impossible for us to stuff the 'big data' genie back in the bottle, so we need to start finding ways to either poison the data en masse or find ways of using it to our advantage. I hate the rape of our privacy that is now pretty much taken for granted, but the thing I hate more is that there is no reciprocity and therefore there's nothing even close to a level playing field. The concentration of huge masses of personal data in a few hands, both parallels and reinforces the concentration of wealth in those same hands, and it's past time we started finding ways of de-concentrating both data and wealth.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  46. Sedans vs extended cab trucks by RockyMountain · · Score: 1

    Isn't this just a subtle exit poll?

    The relative number of sedans versus extended cab trucks owned in a neighborhood, can be correlated with political leanings.
    Perhaps, substituting a survey of vehicles parked near a polling place makes for a better indicator still, because it reflects voter turnout?

    https://news.stanford.edu/2017...

    1. Re:Sedans vs extended cab trucks by RockyMountain · · Score: 1

      OK, go ahead and mod me down for not RTFA'ing!
      If I'd read the original posting, I'd have realized they were referring to exactly the same Stanford study I just posted. Sorry!

  47. Re:Donald TRUMP by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

    A bit of Ad hominem fallacy there. She is smart and corrupt as hell. Voting third party is just a means to an end, to break the hold the two parties have over our freedom. They're both highly authoritarian, and routinely remove freedoms from Americans. We need to get people thinking, not just voting for "their" party.

  48. Re:Donald TRUMP by Daemonik · · Score: 1

    No, Bernie and the Bros showed up, said "You're welcome!" to the DNC and then got extremely confused that the DNC membership was focused on their candidate and not Bernie. That's the difference. They wanted a participation win.

  49. Re:Donald TRUMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Atheist jew? I don't think such a thing exists...

  50. Re:Donald TRUMP by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

    I didn't think it possible to be an athiest and Jewish at the same time.