Debunking low IQ claims is so easy

Washington DC

Description

The misrepresented numbers appear to have been derived by calculating the difference between the number of votes cast in the presidential race and the Senate race between Perdue and Ossoff. “Trump: 2,432,799. GOP Sen: 2,433,617. Dif: 818 Biden: 2,414,65. Dem Sen: 2,318,850. Dif: 95,801,” the Twitter user posted on Nov. 5 Social media users took those figures further to suggest falsely that if a voter selected a Democrat for president but didn’t mark a Democrat for Senate, they had left the rest of their ballot blank. “The figures don’t lie, but liars figure,” said Charles Bullock, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, when asked about the numbers. Experts say that it would not be unusual for voters to cast a ballot that was only for Biden or Trump. They cite voter roll-off, which is the term for when voters mark only one race when several are listed, as one example. “Rolloff between presidential and down ballot races is routine,” said Kenneth Mayer, Professor of Political Science at University of Wisconsin-Madison in an email. There’s also split-ticket voting, where voters select different parties on the ballot. “There is absolutely no way to determine whether a ballot has a vote for Biden or Trump and no other races without actually looking at ballots or ballot images,” Mayer said. “What the numbers show is a small degree of ticket splitting.” Georgia eliminated straight-ticket voting in 1994, which allowed voters to select all candidates from one party with a single ballot mark.