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Do these scatter plots reveal fraudulent vote-switching in Michigan?

Stand-up Maths4 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2020–2021
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explainer · general · 2020–2021 on HN

Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths examines scatter plots that were claimed to show fraudulent vote-switching in Michigan's 2020 election. He recreates the analysis and shows that the pattern arises from comparing percentages across different bases, not from fraud.

HN commenters cite it as a clear debunking of election-fraud statistics and as a warning against comparing percentages without context.

Data science & statisticsRecreational & visual mathUS politics & elections#statistics#election2020#debunking#scatterplots

6 comments from Hacker News

@hinkley2021-03 · in “Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking”

Don't. Compare. Percentages. Stand-up Maths called this out recently and it's good to mention. I think this might be the video: ▶ this video Give me the output and our total consumption please.

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@szc2020-12 · in “What we can learn from the latest indoor dining study”

The way this is presented is going to be interpreted incorrectly. It is incorrect to compare percentages or probabilities like this. Here is a different example to try and illustrate the problem: Is 10% larger than 5%? It is not possible to answer this question if the basis on which the percentages are calculated are different. What if I said the 10% was 10% of whatever you last spent money on, but the 5% was 5% of Google's annual revenue. Which is larger? The same thing is happening in the above - it isn't okay to calculate the probabilities in two situations and then try to cross compare them for size. Sadly this error seems to be cropping up quite a lot! Matt Parker (Stand-up Maths) has an example of this and related to a recent election: ▶ this video . His explanation is likely better than mine.

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@trevor-e2020-12 · in “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud”

I really hope something is done against Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai's content. He's been posting highly misleading/disingenuous election fraud material in order to gain a following, and people are believing it because he touts his PhD from MIT. Honestly at this point between his senate run and "Inventor of Email" scandal I'm surprised MIT hasn't had a response. For example, here's a video that debunks many of his claims: ▶ this video

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@nitrogen2020-12 · in “California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M”

I am replying for the sake of the hidden sibling comment: I don't watch any major media coverage of politics, but a mathematician and comedian I follow on YouTube (from a different country who presumably has no horse in the race) has analyzed some of the numerical allegations of fraud: - link - ▶ this video - link

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@ehsankia2021-01 · in “U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests”

> Can you link me to those majority of cases? ▶ this video link And this third one just shows how much of a joke some of the claims in the lawsuits are: link Like, this is basic high school level statistics they can't even get right.

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