Statistical Evidence of Widespread, Strategic Election Fraud

Election fraud is all over the news. The debate pits those asserting that last week's presidential election suffered from massive strategic fraud favoring Joe Biden against those insisting that there's no evidence of fraud.

Far too few discussions even consider the operative question: What sort of evidence might support a finding of massive strategic fraud? The anecdotes capable of establishing instances of fraud — dead voters, duplicate voting, discarded ballots, etc. — are unlikely to prove hundreds of thousands or millions of fraudulent ballot tallies. Worse, the notion that massive, strategic, wholesale fraud must be proved at the retail level (i.e., one fraudulent ballot at a time) violates basic notions of justice.

That's where statistics and data mining come into play. Statisticians have developed numerous tools useful in detecting anomalies. Statistical tools that detect anomalous data patterns are used routinely in fraud investigations. Far more often than not, a data set whose internal patterns defy normal expectations was manipulated. The more anomalies detected within the data, the greater the likelihood that the data presented does not reflect what actually occurred.

The Chebyshev and Markov Inequalities are fundamental theorems of probability theory describing the distribution of individual data points and the likelihood of outliers. Without getting into technical details, they provide powerful tools for recognizing anomalies in a data set.

Consider a simple application to the 51 victory margins reported in the 2020 election. There are several instances of multiple margins clustering around a value. Statistical expectations predict that about half of the clustered data points should fall below the central value, and half above. Using a 1% threshold, 21 of the states form six clear clusters — only one of which defies expectations.

Biden won Delaware (19%), Washington (19.6%), Connecticut (20.1%), and Rhode Island (20.3%) by about 20%—two by a little more than 20% and two by a little less. The three states he won by about 30%— Maryland (29.2%), Hawaii (29.4%), and California (31.7%)—also conform to expectations.

Trump's margins conform to expectations around 20%, with Nebraska (19.5%), Utah (20.3%), and Mississippi (20.9%); around 16%, with Kansas (15.2%), Missouri (15.6%), Indiana (16.1%), and Montana (16.3%); and around 26%, with Kentucky (25.9%), Alabama (26.1%), South Dakota (26.2%).

The sole anomaly arose around the most critical number: zero. Based on current tabulations, four states cluster around the zero, showing a victory margin of less than 1%. All four show Biden ahead: Georgia (0.2%), Arizona (0.5%), Pennsylvania (0.7%), and Wisconsin (0.7%). That heavy skew towards one side is statistically anomalous — occurring with probability less than 0.01 (one chance in 100).

This finding is robust. Thresholds other than 1% yield similar results. Combined with other statistical anomalies pointing in the same direction; the reports and affidavits of irregularities in ballot printing, distribution, collection and tallying; and the numerous warnings prior to the election that the procedural changes many states put into place compromised the integrity of the election; by far the most likely conclusion is these data were manipulated to favor Biden.

Further statistical analyses can even highlight the gaps from which the manipulated data were most likely taken to suggest that Democratic fraud likely shifted millions of votes.

To answer the operative question with which we opened, that's precisely what evidence of massive, strategic fraud looks like: New rules easing the inclusion of fraudulent ballots that produce statistical anomalies favoring the side most adamant about the new rules.

In the terms of civil litigation, this evidence makes it far more likely than not that the 2020 presidential election was riven with unprecedented systematic, strategic fraud by people and groups aligned with the Biden campaign. That should shift the burden of proof to those who contend that despite appearances and evidence, the election was indeed free and fair.

If a normal sense of justice and the normal rules of evidence are applied, it is now up to the Biden campaign to prove that its claimed victory in key swing states was more-likely-than-not devoid of fraud. If it can't, and if it's impossible to disentangle fraudulent from valid ballots, the courts should act to ensure that the party committing the fraud cannot benefit from it.

Whether that means presuming that Biden's claimed margins of victory in all litigated states were fraudulent, handing the selection of electors cleanly to state legislatures, or crafting some other remedy remains to be seen.

What is clear, however, is that a president whose rise to office relied upon deeply fraudulent election would destroy the legitimacy of the American government. Contra Lincoln, government of the people, by the people, for the people, will have perished from the earth.

Only judicial action can restore integrity to America's electoral system and provide a basis for a legitimate continuation of the American government beyond January 20, 2021.

America is waiting.