Benford's Law and the Iranian election: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/benfords... | Hacker News

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		jgrahamc on Jan 26, 2010 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Why 30.1% of numbers start with 1 Benford's Law and the Iranian election: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/benfords-law-and-iranian-ele... And the British MPs' expenses: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/its-probably-worth-testing-m... And BBC executives' expenses: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/running-numbers-on-bbc-execu...

joss82 on Jan 26, 2010 [–]

But as the article says, if you add a certain percentage of votes to one candidate, you don't actually break Benford's law.

I wonder why this law is used for detecting fraud...

jgrahamc on Jan 26, 2010 | [–]

It's not clear that it should be used for elections. See for example, http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/does-benfords-law-apply-to-e...

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