The actual outcome of this election with •the whole US population• as the denominator:

Paul Cantrell

A relevant article:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/donald-trumps-margin-size-is-almost

Lone Pundit

@inthehands The election numbers have been explained to us in so many ways. None of the explanations include manipulation of the vote totals. I guess Russia and China decided to sit this one out.

2xfo

@inthehands
I'm curious whether the unable to vote population count includes children

Daniël Franke :panheart:

@inthehands That "not eligible to vote" segment, does that include children? Because that's an insane number if not.

Paul Cantrell

@lonepundit
There is no credible evidence I'm aware of that Russia et al have ever manipulated vote totals, and there's •ample• reason — both in process and data — to think they haven't.

There is, on the other hand, overwhelming evidence that Russia at least has manipulated •voters• with disinformation and fake engament designed to foster infighting, exacerbate divisions, and de-motivate people. That, I think, very much shows in the numbers I posted.

Paul Cantrell

@RnDanger
Yes, I tried to make it so

Paul Cantrell

@ainmosni
It's supposed to include children, yes. Whole US population.

MyOpinion

@inthehands Trump won the popular vote and the electoral vote. America is getting what it asked for.

Paul Cantrell

Re @davids7’s question: my numbers are back-of-napkin calculations using press reports of current vote tally + sloppy web searching for US population and voting-eligible population. Please take my numbers with the appropriate gain of salt.

The broad “each group is about about 1/4” conclusion should be approximately correct, but don't stare too hard at exact percentages until somebody does this calculation a bit more carefully.

David (@[email protected])

@[email protected] Would love to share this more widely but would like to have sources for these numbers before doing so.

Mastodon (mastodon.social)

Paul Cantrell

@MyOpinion
No, all of the US is getting what 1/4 of the US asked for.

Daniël Franke :panheart:

@inthehands OK, just making sure, as I do know that many places in the US ban ex-convicts from voting.

Paul Cantrell

The broader point of my OP here is that there are a lot of analyses circulating that use more meticulously gathered data about •the wrong questions• — or at least about flawed questions that ignore over half the population of the country.

Paul Cantrell

@ainmosni
Indeed it does. They're in that 28% too.

Two things we need to be careful about are:

- “eligible but did not vote” includes both apathy and suppression
- “not eligible to vote” also includes suppression

Peter Butler

@RnDanger @inthehands I’m pretty sure that number has to include children

The other percentages indicate the full population of the US, including kids

I believe it’s around 2-3% of adult population who is ineligible to vote due to felony convictions and I can’t think of any other reason for ineligibility

Paul Cantrell

@peterbutler @RnDanger I pulled total US population, which would include children, and presumably also non-citizens.

JW

@inthehands
I reckon it would be more useful to base the figures on US citizens over 18.

The Janx Devil

@inthehands Looks like a narrow majority of the whole population comprises people who were eligible to vote and yet decided that voting to stop Trump wasn’t their bag. Hard to put a positive spin on that.

Paul Cantrell

@janxdevil
Keep in mind that the 26% and the 28% both include people whose vote was suppressed: wanted to vote, but couldn't. So probably not quite a majority are as you describe.

Still damned depressing.

Queer Like The Slur

@jwi @inthehands I reckon the usa would be more useful if those people were eligible to vote.

Paul Cantrell

Like…just for starters, if you're walking down the street thinking, “Did HALF of these people really vote for this miserable fascist shitstain?,” the answer to that question is, “No, about a quarter did.”

…Which is still pretty damn depressing, but…well, I find that that thought does give me a substantially different picture of the country I live in.