It truly is. The article isn't even written well with just some of the dumbest bits of logic imaginable.
"How could the most unpopular candidates in history end up with historic levels of undervote?! It doesn't make sense!"
Just . . . L.O.L.
It's. so. dumb. And the breathless writing and assertions proved solely by virtue of previous assertions is like every discount conspiracy YouTube video ever created. "I've already proved this thing that I absolutely did not prove, so I'm going to rest a whole other pile of nonsense on top of that."
Classic conspiracy theory tactics.
And they don't even have basic facts correct. Here are the undervotes in Michigan for presidential elections previous to 2016.
2016: 1.55%
2012: 1.04%
2008: 0.74%
2004: 0.75%
2000: 1.09%
But that's statewide. The author then narrows it down to Flint and Detroit. I legitimately cannot figure out where they get that 75k number for Flint and Detroit. The entire state had roughly 75k undervotes. Every number I've found doesn't come remotely close to it for Detroit. Here's an article from Detroit News putting that number at 1,400 for Detroit.
In 2016, Michigan had roughly 75,000 under-voted ballots in which voters filled out their ballots but did not mark a selection for president, according to Woodhams. Roughly 1,400 of those ballots were cast in Detroit.
The under-vote number was not dramatically higher than the 50,000 in 2012 and 40,000 in 2008, Woodhams said.
Given the record disapproval ratings for Trump and Clinton ahead of the election, "it’s not surprising to us that some people chose not to vote that ballot line," he said.
And to whit, Genessee County voted for Clinton at 52% - hardly the crazy super Clinton supporting area advertised by the author. There are roughly 80,000 African Americans living in Genessee County, Michigan. Given the Detroit number, did someone throw out practically all of the Black votes in an entire county and literally no one noticed? (Until this clever substack author arrived!)
And then I realized this number is getting traced to Greg Palast. Who also never cites where he pulls these numbers from. Which is kind of weird when you're trying to make arguments based on data. Palast is literally saying practically all the undervotes in Michigan were solely in Flint and Detroit.
Based on the data, how likely does that seem? To anyone? With rudimentary math and statistical skills?
Does that look like the "statistical siren" author claims that they're basing this "It's a crazy statistical anomaly with a gigajillion odds!" argument on for historically unpopular candidates?
And do you notice how the author very intentionally avoids giving extensive historical data? When it comes to statistics, the larger the data set, the better the chances of getting significant results. But the author sidesteps this throughout.
Again, this stuff is just embarrassing. It's a terrible look for us. It's a full embrace of election denialism that MAGA is rightly mocked for. It's not magically ok when people on our side do it.
This stuff is truly kooky and should be considered such. It's pure mathematical illiteracy designed to trick willing believers into sending cash along.
= new reply since forum marked as read