Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Wisconsin and voter fraud

 

People on the right screaming about voter fraud in Wisconsin's recall election, and quoting the figure of "119% turnout of registered voters" really need to check their facts.  For starters, this came from an estimate from the supervisor of elections early in the day, and showed a trend which if continued would result in 119% of _expected_ voter turnout. 

 

But seriously, the most superficial look at the number of voters who voted should refute the 119% figure. 

 

According to this article in the Huffington Post

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/wisconsin-recall-vote_n_1572662.html

 

the total voter turnout was 2.5 million.  This is FAR lower than what would be required for a 119% turnout. 

 

As a benchmark, consider the turnout from the 2008 election: 2.98 million votes, which was at that time 65% of registered voters.  Going by this figure, and keeping in mind the number of registered voters in Wisconsin has increased since then, if there really were a 119% turnout like pundits are screaming about, one would expect to see the total votes cast somewhere over 6 million.  There weren't that many votes by a long shot.  There were about 2.5 million, or a bit under 60% turnout. 

 

Again we see people on both sides of the aisle, but predominantly on the Right, screaming about vote fraud that simply does not exist. 

 

And yet again we see what really matters in American politics: money.  The side which spends the most money has better than a 90% chance of winning the election, and that is exactly what happened in Wisconsin.

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