Throughput: Migrant Stats Edition

[ThTh1] One of the many downsides of having a political campaign focused entirely on blaming illegal immigrants for all of the woes of the United States is that facts and social sciences are the first things thrown out of the window. For example, the claim circulating last week was that the Biden/Harris Administration has released 13,000 illegal aliens convicted of murder onto our streets. This claim was laughably false. The numbers refer to those not in ICE custody. Many of them are in prison or awaiting deportation. And the numbers have not increased dramatically since Biden took office.

Yet another claim that got less attention was a claim that millions of illegal immigrants are voting, enough to turn the tide of the election. This struck me as odd given that Oregon has done research into this and found that 1259 non-citizens were registered to vote (not all of which are illegal immigrants) and only nine had voted. And those registered were registered by mistake when they got driver’s licenses; not because of policy. A Georgia study found that, over 25 years, only 1634 non-citizens has “potentially” registered and none had voted. These are hard number based on actual examinations of voter registrations.

So where does this claim come from? Let’s walk down how papers are amplified into BS.

The paper this claim is based on is here. Through my University, I have access to the paper and have read it, which most of the people citing it clearly haven’t. First of all, it is based on an internet survey, which is never the most reliable source of data. Second, only 1% of the people in the survey identified themselves as non-citizens, which cuts our sample down to a few hundred people answering an internet survey. Of those, only one-fifth claimed or were confirmed to have registered to vote, which the authors adjust upward to 27% to account for demographics. And after all is said and done, we’re down to 29 non-citizens who may have voted. They then extrapolate this to the entire nation to claim that somewhere between 38,000 and 2.8 million citizens voted. And that’s spread over the entire country.

That is … a gigantic range of certainty. But guess which figure the Election Truthers are citing?

“Just Facts” discounts a later study from the same authors who said the number of registered non-citizens is toward the lower end of that uncertainty range. They then vaguely estimate that half of the non-registered citizens voted, even thought the very study they cite claims the number if closer to 5-10% and most of the studies they link claim much lower actual voting.

When all is said and done, the number of non-citizens voting in the US is not zero but it’s closer to zero than to millions. And keep in mind: most non-citizens live in California, Florida, Texas and New York. None of those are swing states. Maybe this could make a difference in a particularly close state. But it’s not swinging the election to the Democrats. Even the study they cite claims it may have swung one Senate election at best.

This is partly about politics, but it’s also about facts. Inevitably, when I hear a fantastic claim like “2.8 million illegal aliens voted”, I can track down the claim to cherry-picked studies, misunderstanding of those studies, combining different number from different studies and a helping dash of exaggeration. That is how maybe a few tens of thousands of non-citizens voting becomes “the illegals stole our election”. And, unfortunately, it takes me a thousands words in a blog to explain a lie that can get hundreds of thousands of retweets before I’ve had breakfast.

[ThTh2] There’s been a sharp increase in heat-related deaths over the last few years. Not coincidentally, there’s been an increase in extreme heat waves, something that will become more common as global warming progresses.

[ThTh3] More and more information is coming out about the Oceangate submarine disaster. This thread walks through some of the appalling information coming out — the extremely tiny safety factor it was built with, O-rings improperly fit, a CO2 scrubber that used a PC cooling fan. Stockton Rush killed himself and four other people.

[ThTh4] This is behind a paywall, but a growing body of evidence suggests that the increasingly heavy vehicles Americans drive are pushing up traffic deaths with no gain in safety for the drivers of such vehicles.

[ThTh5] I saw this article, wondering why hurricane season had been so quiet, a month ago and sat on it for a while to see how it would age. The answer is like milk in a sauna. We are now up to 12 named storms, seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes including a the ongoing Hurricane Helen disaster. This is getting us close to prediction and a reminder that you can’t really evaluate a hurricane season until, you know, it’s actually over.

[ThTh6] A stunning image of the Moon

708 GB image of the Moon

[📹 Darya Kawa Mirza / daryavaseum]pic.twitter.com/KEF4cjMMYY

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 1, 2024

And in case that’s not enough: the Moon and Saturn:

A traveled to the top of a Volcano in Hawaii to capture this: Saturn briefly covered by the moon. One of the most difficult shots I’ve captured and a bucket list moment, this event gave me a new perspective on the solar system.

I’ll have it available in print for a short time. pic.twitter.com/hA4k9m8eyT

— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) September 20, 2024

[ThTh7] For years, scientists have been trying to figure out why certain parts of the world have an extraordinarily large number of super-centenarians. It turns out: people are lying.

[ThTh8] One of the myths floating around about COVID is that it doesn’t harm young people. Well, this is false. Kids are showing cognitive deficits from COVID vaccination. And adults are showing major cognitive deficits, especially after severe infection. In addition to this, it’s now clear that COVID infection in pregnant women endangers their babies and that vaccination protects them.

In short, every day piles more data on the mountain of evidence that the COVID denialists were and are full of it.

[ThTh9] And while we’re on the subject, there is now a third option for vaccination: Novavax. This one is not mRNA-based so maybe the luddites won’t fear-monger about this one as much.

[ThTh10] In 1977, scientists at Ohio State detected the Wow! signal, a sudden flash of radio light that has so far defied conventional explanation. But a new paper argues it was the brightening of a hydrogen cloud, possibly from a nearby magnetar eruption.

[ThTH11] What has JWST been up to lately? Oh nothing. Maybe just discovering a whole new region of the solar system. And discovering a frozen eyeball world.

[ThTh12] Why send one probe to Alpha Centauri when you could send hundreds?

[ThTh13] Earth may have had a ring … 450 million years ago.

[ThTh14] And finally a stunning image of Mars:

1/n 🧵 New epic photo of Phobos over Mars – lurking around Olympus Mons! (2024-07-13)

Full size image 140 MP: https://t.co/IB6o2dNbza (it's huge)
Image Processing: AndreaLuck CC BY
Raw data: ESA/DLR/G.Neukum-FUBerlin

ESA Mars Express – New Data Release#Space #Astronomy #Mars pic.twitter.com/wztumMxxyQ

— Andrea Luck (@andrluck) September 1, 2024