Post histories can be edited <| sep |> The shift in the correlation is exactly what you would expect to see under the hack theory , but only if electronic voting was more likely to be used in areas that had more whiteno college degree voters . Refer to my illustration , lower right quadrant this thought experiment , set aside any preexisting beliefs for the sake of the thought experiment . Path A is the correlation between use of paper ballots and stronger support for HRC . That is the assertion of the hack theory . That correlation is significant in Wisconsin , at least in larger cities , both Nate Silver ' s analysis and Nate Cohen found that effect . Path C controlling for A is the effect that Nate Silver tested he regressed the voter outcome on the segment indicator whiteno college education and on the paper voting indicator , and found that the paper voting coefficient dropped to near zero . That finding of Nate ' s , that the A path drops to zero , is exactly what you would expect to find if there was a hack , but only if the hack was selective in areas where there were more whiteno college education voters . What nobody has done as far as I know is test path B , namely the correlation between the use of paper voting and the segment . If paper were used less in the segments where more votes switched to Trump than would be expected given prior results and eveofelection polling data , in other words if the B path were statistically significant , then that would be contributory evidence for a hack . So the proper analysis is thisShow that path A is significant and negative use of paper ballots is correlated with more votes for HRC , controlling for prior election results . Show that path B is significant and negative use of paper ballots is correlated negatively with membership in the segments hat showed more shift toward Trump . Regress the vote outcome on paper and segment simultaneously , and if path A drops to zero , the analysis supports the hack theory . Note that supporting the hack theory does not prove the hack happened , it ' s all correlational , and the reason I am being pedantic is not because I think there was a hack , but rather because I ' m pretty sure Nate ' s initial analysis that he tweeted is incomplete . Lots of people get mediation analysis wrong , it is a useful analysis to understand , which is why I ' m muddling through this .