Talk:Vote pairing in the 2016 United States presidential election/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Joshualouie711 (talk · contribs) 16:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Planning to review this article. Joshualouie711^talk 16:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Criterion 1: "reasonably well written"

• The lede is probably the part of this article that needs the most work. One sentence is not nearly enough to adequately summarize the article.
• There should probably be an external link and see other section.
• "In the 2016 United States presidential election, this has usually manifested in the form of supporters in swing states of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein swapping votes with supporters in blue states of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton." Should read "manifested itself" as standard English usage.
• "In the 2004, 2008, and 2012 presidential elections, vote pairing was rarely used or talked about, possibly because there were no third party candidates who seriously challenged the major-party candidates." "Third party" should be hyphenated as in the rest of the article. Also, this claim could use a citation.
• "These vote pairing sites fall in three broad categories:" Into, not in.
• "This has two effects: it increases the number of votes received by the third-party candidate nationwide, while still increasing Clinton's chances of winning the election." Since the article uses a semicolon to introduce the two effects, "while" should be "and" or a similar conjunction.
• In the "#NeverTrump app" subsection, the Democratic candidate is referred to as "Hillary", while in the rest of the article, she is referred to as "Clinton". Standardize one of the two.
• "Registered users are matched on the website, and then take it from there." "Take it from there" is a bit unprofessional. Clarify/reword.
• "AlternativePAC's chief Matt Kibbe reported that as of September 7, 2016, 33,393 Democrats and 33,036 Republicans have signed up, for a total of 66,429 signed up and 30,819 successful matches made, covering 61,638 people." "Have signed up" implies present count. Change to "had signed up".
• "On August 6, 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a case, Porter v. Bowen, stemming from the California Attorney General's shutdown of voteswap2000.com." "Stemming from" is improper grammar here. Change to "which stemmed from".

Criterion 2: "factually accurate and verifiable"

• Citation 6 might not be considered a reliable source-Twitter isn't usually something to cite.
• Similarly, Citation 24 and 27 both link to a Facebook page.
• Citation 31 is sourced from a blog, which I'm also not sure is reliable.
• Citation 34, the Medium article, is a dead link.
• "voteswap2000.com, was shut down by California's Republican Attorney General, Bill Jones, only four days after it opened. A second vote-swapping site, votexchange.com, was never directly threatened but also ceased operations because of what happened to voteswap2000. Before it was shut down, voteswap2000 had brokered 5,041 vote-swaps, including hundreds in Florida. On August 6, 2007, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a case, Porter v. Bowen, stemming from the California Attorney General's shutdown of voteswap2000.com. Vote-swapping, it said, is protected by the First Amendment, which state election laws can't supersede, and it is fundamentally different from buying or selling votes." This entire section appears to be copied from two parts of this article. This is a serious copyright violation.

Criterion 3: "broad in its coverage"

• The "legality" section seems to cover vote-swapping in the 2000 election, without really explaining how the cases are relevant to the 2016 election.
• "However, it is unclear if other courts would agree should this arise again, and in recent years, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has had the most decision reversals of any United States court of appeals." Irrelevant to the topic.

Criterion 4: "follows the neutral point of view policy"

• "Launched by Amit Kumar, the app seeks to give a voice to both Hillary and third-party voters." A bit promotional. Either directly quote Amit Kumar or change the wording to be more neutral.
• The "Criticism" section might be considered a POV-fork, since it is entirely negative. Maybe change to "Reception" or "Responses" and include both positive and negative reactions.
• "Vote-swapping, it said, is protected by the First Amendment, which state election laws can't supersede, and it is fundamentally different from buying or selling votes." The way this sentence is phrased is a bit misleading. The current wording implies that the court said that vote-swapping is protected by the 1st Amendment, while it is a given fact that state election laws can't supersede it and that it is different from vote-buying.

Criterion 5: "stable"

• Fine.

Criterion 6: "illustrated with images and other media, where possible and appropriate"

• Well, there's not much to say on this, since there aren't any images at all in this article, which should be fixed.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail: