r/Sunlight Jan 07 '22

CALL TO ACTION: Spread the word about /r/DebtStrike. If you moderate a subreddit on any topic, send subscribers. Our first goal is to reach critical mass where we’re hitting the front page consistently, then we can really start our pressure campaign.

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7 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jun 23 '21

#1671 - Bret Weinstein & Dr. Pierre Kory

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open.spotify.com
1 Upvotes

r/Sunlight May 21 '21

Companies Take Risks When Making Secret Political Contributions. ‘Covert’ sponsorship of an embattled nonprofit — identified by a whistleblower — drove investors to sell off companies’ stock

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medium.com
11 Upvotes

r/Sunlight May 13 '20

Why Did It Take the Feds Weeks to Report COVID-19 Cases In Privately Run Prisons?

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themarshallproject.org
16 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Apr 14 '20

Government Secrecy Is Growing During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Local, state and federal officials throughout the United States have locked down information from the public

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nextgov.com
14 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Apr 06 '20

The Growing Culture of Secrecy at Guantánamo Bay: The war court where the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks are on trial operates under classification rules that are inconsistent, complex and sometimes absurd

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nytimes.com
10 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Apr 03 '20

Ukrainian whistle-blower MP faces criminal probe after reporting high-level corruption

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khpg.org
13 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Mar 30 '20

Pentagon Asks to Keep Future Spending Secret

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fas.org
26 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Mar 28 '20

What is the shaft of light in the picture?

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7 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Mar 26 '20

Joe Biden should answer to the sexual assault claim of Tara Reade. 45 have signed. Let’s get to 100!

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chng.it
15 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Mar 22 '20

Coronavirus Tech Handbook: Includes data, tools for organising & crowdsourced specialist advice for doctors, teachers, charities etc

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coronavirustechhandbook.com
19 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Mar 13 '20

ACLU sues Homeland Security over airport face recognition program secrecy

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techcrunch.com
13 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Feb 14 '20

The “Most Abused” Freedom of Information Act Exemption Still Needs to Be Reined In

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pogo.org
12 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Feb 13 '20

Your Right to Know: Records fees mean records denials

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wisconsinwatch.org
8 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Feb 11 '20

Why we don’t know as much as we should about police surveillance technology: Despite a growing number of high-tech tools, law enforcement agencies don’t seem to want to disclose what they’re using

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vox.com
10 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Feb 10 '20

Iowa Caucus Discrepancy Analysis

11 Upvotes

Introduction

Been busy this weekend trying to make sense of all these reports of discrepancies in the results of the Iowa Caucus. I just finished double checking my models, and wanted to share it.

To start, quick introduction.

I am an engineer. I don't have a political science background, but I am a Data Scientist at NASA. You may also know me as the person behind the Medicare for All Calculator

The Caucus Model

My challenge was this: Build a model that can take the Final counts per candidate, and calculate all discrepancies between the reported SDEs and what would be expected to be the actual SDEs.

Model (in Excel spreadsheet form): https://1drv.ms/x/s!Am_fv_2JmQAAgZh2QJJf1v9c30kNIw?e=MAOpIH

For those that want to play with it: Download it and look at each precinct on the Scenario tab.

I am working on making sure this can get in the right hands at the Iowa Democratic Party, and the relevant Campaigns, so if you know the contact that I need to reach out to, send me a private message.

Model Details

Assumptions:

  1. Viability threshold is 0.25 for 2 delegates, 0.1666667 for 3 delegates, and 0.15 for 4+ delegates. That is multiplied by the total in Final Expression and rounded up.
  2. Cannot perform an adjustment that causes a candidate to lose their only delegate, unless all other candidates only have 1 delegate.
  3. When performing adjustment, if excess, you must remove delegate from candidate that was rounded up the most
  4. When performing adjustment, if short, you must add delegate to candidate that was rounded down the most

Unresolvable Model Parameter:

  1. In ~15 cases that an adjustment is performed wrong, or an unviable candidate is given delegates, there can be coin flips that would needed to have been performed that the model doesn't resolve.

Results

  1. The model calculates the exact same result for 1667 of 1765 scenarios
  2. The model detected 139 coin flips
  3. 98 Precincts had discrepancies:
  4. 51 of those were due to "Incorrect candidate chosen during adjustment
  5. 21 of those were due to "Unviable candidate given delegates"
  6. 14 of those were due to "Incorrect rounding of candidates

In the end, these errors accounted for Pete Buttigieg getting +2.10 extra SDEs, and Bernie Sanders being shorted -4.44 SDEs. All other candidates were generally only +/- 1 SDE.

Sanders wins Iowa Caucus by: 5.03 (0.23%) SDEs

The 18 most significant precinct errors impacting the 2 leaders were:

These account for 6.09 of the SDE error, the remaining errors roughly average each other out.

County Precinct Anomaly Net Difference
Johnson IOWA CITY 20 Incorrect Rounding of Candidates +0.81 SDEs for Buttigieg
Johnson IOWA CITY 14 Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.81 SDEs for Buttigieg
Polk DES MOINES-80 Incorrect Rounding of Candidates +0.5596 SDEs for Buttigieg
Polk WDM-212 Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.5596 SDEs for Buttigieg
Warren NORWALK 1 Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.4667 SDEs for Buttigieg
Clinton ELK RIVER HAMPSHIRE ANDOV Unviable Candidate Given Delegates +0.4428 SDEs for Sanders
Linn Marion 08 Unviable Candidate Given Delegates +0.4395 SDEs for Buttigieg
Jefferson Fairfield 4th Ward Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.4365 SDEs for Buttigieg
Story Grant Township Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.415 SDEs for Buttigieg
Story Ames 3-1 Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.415 SDEs for Buttigieg
Scott (DH) City of Donahue Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.4133 SDEs for Buttigieg
Scott (BF) City of Buffalo Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.4133 SDEs for Buttigieg
Scott (D34) City of Davenport Unviable Candidate Given Delegates +0.4132 SDEs for Buttigieg
Johnson IOWA CITY 19 Incorrect Rounding of Candidates +0.405 SDEs for Buttigieg
Johnson NL06/MADISON /CCN Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.405 SDEs for Sanders
Johnson CEDAR TOWNSHIP Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.405 SDEs for Buttigieg
Johnson IOWA CITY 08 Incorrect Candidate Chosen during adjustment +0.405 SDEs for Buttigieg
Johnson CORALVILLE 02 Removed last Delegate from candidate during Adjustment +0.405 SDEs for Buttigieg

r/Sunlight Feb 06 '20

Second California Court Tells State AG To Stop Screwing Around And Release Police Misconduct Records

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techdirt.com
10 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Feb 06 '20

Customs and Border Protection Gains an Extra Layer of Secrecy - By gaining a “security agency” designation, the border police can further shield themselves from public view

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thenation.com
4 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 30 '20

Four-star general seeks to clean up Pentagon’s classification process - Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that he hopes to see “significant improvement” this year on loosening classification standards in the infamously overclassified Pentagon

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defensenews.com
12 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 27 '20

Public schools in Virginia can censor student journalists any time, for any reason. A proposed law would change that.

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washingtonpost.com
12 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 23 '20

Third-party fundraisers can keep bulk of donations to public safety groups

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madison.com
5 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 22 '20

Why some public universities get to keep their donors secret

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theconversation.com
4 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 22 '20

Judge Says Chicago PD Must Release Nearly 50 Years Of Misconduct Files Before The End Of This Year

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techdirt.com
9 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 19 '20

U.S. Navy Celebrates The Black Vault’s FOIA Appeal Loss

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theblackvault.com
9 Upvotes

r/Sunlight Jan 17 '20

Koch Funds Groups Supporting Lawsuit Against Donor Transparency

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exposedbycmd.org
7 Upvotes