I always thought R was Reverse and D was Drive. (and L was Low Gear.) Fitting, actually.

Ok, hang on a sec.

Regarding the straw man, the study itself states: "At this point of our analysis, the cause appears to originate with electronic voting equipment; the problem does not exist when manual methods are used." But the Iowa example shown two pages later flatly contradicts this. See p.5 and p.7: Linked Study

Regarding Iowa: "GOP officials discovered inaccuracies in 131 precincts"... Perhaps, but the scope of these inaccuracies were magnitudes different than the purported "vote-flipping" implied by the study. Romney lost less than 50 votes on the statewide recount (relative to Santorum), compared with the study's implied 7850-vote gap. Data from the missing eight precincts couldn't come remotely close to closing this gap. So even correcting for the found inaccuracies, we're left with over 99% of the purported discrepancy unaccounted for. Were the fraudsters simply 99% successful at covering their tracks? If so, wouldn't there be many fewer precincts with discrepancies? The ~50 vote recount correction could easily be due to random human error.

Regarding cherry-picking: there is no question that there is a bulletproof correlation between precinct size and vote ratios, in Iowa in this primary. (The null hypothesis has been proven false, in other words.) The real question is whether that correlation ITSELF correlates strongly with the type of balloting/counting used, and for this there are very few data points shown. Are there counterexamples (places where electronic voting was used but the anomaly is not seen, or vice versa)? How many? What distinguishes the ballot-counting process in the Iowa Caucuses from, say, FL Palm Beach County (where there was no anomaly observed)? What were the correlations, if any, in all these different states and counties, of precinct size vs a priori voter registration (Republican / Democrat ratio)?

Can anything be gleaned from this? Again, it would be nice to see the study peer-reviewed, and to have stronger logic why the correlations COULDN'T be a result of "natural causes", rather than just we can't think of a way. (I agree that there is no other immediately obvious explanation, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist.)

As a career mathematician / software developer, NOT prone to conspiracy theories, this study nevertheless got my statistical Spidey sense tingling. If I were determined to rig an election, particularly through electronic voting/tallying, this is EXACTLY how I would do it; selectively target larger precincts, because the vote flipping is less likely to be noticed there. (And more importantly, because spot-tests of the system are unlikely to cast enough votes to trigger the mechanism.)

That said, the study is sloppily done, not peer-reviewed, and prone to accusations of cherry-picking. They claim to have replicated their results all across the country, but provide no data to back this up. (E.g. they should show a scatterplot showing voting mechanism vs. "anomaly" strength, for a large number of states or counties.) And their shining example, the 2012 Iowa Primaries (actually Caucuses), DID use paper ballots and precinct-level tallying, yet still showed the anomaly. I'd like to hear their explanation for how they think the fraud could have crept in here. They also use Duval County, FL 2012 Primaries as another example of the anomaly, but paper ballots were used there as well. I don't know if the tallying was per-precinct or centralized for that election; if it were centralized, the fraud could easily happen there because it's a single point of failure.

More than anything, I would LOVE to get Nate Silver's take on this study. Perhaps he would have some intuition for how the precinct size / vote correlation might have arisen "naturally," and presumably he has access to the databases required to re-run the study on a larger scale. Either way, it's absolutely clear that paper ballots and transparent precinct-level tallying are essential to ensure fair elections. They can pry my cold, dead trees from my cold, dead hands! ;-)

Why not release a Free app, with an embedded "Donate" button that triggers an in-app-purchase? Voila, Shareware.

"Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet". What?

Obviously, to go higher, you need SpacePort.

Yes, KPT Fraxplorer in the KPT5 suite of Photoshop plug-ins implements 1024-bit math to zoom in far deeper than double-precision allows.

I submitted a comment to the EPA suggesting that the "Gallons / 100 Miles" number be more prominent relative to MPG. (Converting to metric is a lost cause, unfortunately.)

I also suggested that they add "Gallons SAVED per 100 miles" relative to an average car in its class. This statistic can be surprising: switching from a 33mpg Corolla to a 50mpg Prius saves one gallon per 100 miles, but switching from a 10mpg Hummer to a 14mpg Land Rover saves three gallons per 100 miles driven.

So if there's a solar car with really poor efficiency, would it be rated "D Flueless"?

Spokesbeings for the Kinsey Institute announced that they were "stunned" to learn that for millenia human males were using an incorrect algorithm for orally reporting the size of their member, resulting in frequent exaggerations. A report of "5 bars" was in reality often closer to 2 bars.

A software fix is unlikely to be effective and a hardware fix is not a trivial matter. One possible work-around: tell your partner that "you're holding it wrong."