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

Do these scatter plots reveal fraudulent vote-switching in Michigan? on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 2 separate months, 2020–2021.

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.

Why Hacker News recommends it

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

people recommended it
4
separate months
2
strong recommendations
0
discussed on HN
2020–2021
“here's a video that debunks many of his claims”
— trevor-e, Dec 2020, in “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud”

What HN commenters said

6 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

hinkleyMar 2021Recommends

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.

in “Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking” · View on HN

szcDec 2020Recommends

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.

in “What we can learn from the latest indoor dining study” · View on HN

trevor-eDec 2020Recommends

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

in “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud” · View on HN

nitrogenDec 2020Recommends

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]

in “California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M” · View on HN

ehsankiaJan 2021Cites it

> 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.

in “U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests” · View on HN

pwinnskiJan 2021Cites it

This is just bad, bad, bad math. Try running the exact same analysis for Biden votes. Turns out that drops too. "The one thing they should never do is drop" turns out to be completely incorrect! ▶ this video

in “The Lies that can Undermine Democracy” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Data science & statisticsRecreational & visual mathUS politics & electionsstatisticselection 2020debunkingscatter plotspercentages