Amazing!… Even the Media's Number Crunchers Are Biased

Remarkably, the media was even able to round up a biased mathemetician this year to report on voter turnout.

Yesterday, ABC reported that Tuesday’s turnout was the highest in 100 years:

*** Highest turnout rate since ‘08 — 1908: Provided the number stands, the turnout rate for yesterday’s election was the highest in 100 years, according to the estimate from turnout guru Dr. Michael McDonald at George Mason University. Almost 137 million (136,631,825) went to the polls — 64.1% of the voting-eligible population. 1960 saw 63.7% of the populace go out to vote; In 1908, 65.7% voted. It was, of course, the most people ever to go to the polls topping 2004’s 122 million. That’s 12% increase from 2004.

Of course, Dr. McDonald was a bit off with his analysis.
As of today– the 2008 turnout stands at 121.2 million.
This is lower than the 2004 turnout of 122.3 million.
Although there are votes being counted, so far McDonald is about 15 million votes off.

Today, Dr. McDonald was back in the news making statements about Alaska’s turnout “bust” this year:

But Election Day is looking like it was a turnout bust in Alaska. As of Thursday, voter turnout in the state stood at a measly 45.1 percent — well below the 69.1 percent turnout clocked in in the 2004 presidential race, according to state election officials.

The 2008 number is certain to rise significantly as additional absentee and provisional ballots are tallied. But turnout specialists say it’s clear that the so-called “Palin effect” Republicans expected to see didn’t drive up voting numbers in Gov. Sarah Palin’s home state.

“It’s just perplexing to me,” said Michael McDonald, a George Mason University professor who specializes in voter turnout. “You can make some inferences, I guess, about Sarah Palin’s future. If this was a referendum on her in the state, perhaps there’s not as much enthusiasm about her as their used to be.”

But, once again, Dr. McDonald was a bit off with his analysis:

Shelly Growden, Alaska’s elections systems manager, tells ABC News that the current vote totals don’t tell the full story. At least 70,000 absentee and provisional ballots have yet to be counted, she said.

Dr. McDonald took into consideration the uncounted votes when talking about national turnout.
But, for some strange reason, this fact escaped him when talking about Alaskan voter turnout.

It looks like the media even has biased number crunchers now.
What a shock.

UPDATE: Alaska voter turnout may set a record.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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