There are of course no shortage of loons in Minnesota, and even on Minnesota campuses (as Captain Ed shows us one example.) And as leftist faculty around the country continue to engage in conspiracy theories of stolen elections, it is no surprise that we would fine one such theorist here at SCSU. Unsurprisingly as well, the local paper chose to consume soy ink on him (after today, go to the Saturday opinion page to find this malodorous analysis.) Let's begin at the end, where he chooses the old appeal to authority:

John C. Alessio is professor of sociology at St. Cloud State University, where he has taught, among other courses, graduate and undergraduate Research Methods. He has published articles in some of the most prestigious journals in his field.

I.e., John "knows stuff". Back up to the top now...

As a data analyst, I find the declared election outcome, and many surrounding events, problematic.

...which is largely a function of the fact that your guy lost. How do we know that?

First, exit polls were attacked before and during the election. Yet they have accurately predicted and identified presidents for decades. We now know they accurately identified Al Gore the winner in 2000.

That's how. We "now know", as opposed to when?

Secondly, one must question from where President Bush attained an additional 9 million votes over his 2000 election votes. Democrats had about 51 million votes and Republicans had about 50.5 million votes in 2000. About 115 million people voted in 2004, and about 14 million of them hadn't voted in 2000. Of those 14 million, Kerry received about 8 million and Bush about 6 million.

From the available data, we can calculate that about 4 million people who voted in 2000 didn't vote in 2004. We cannot determine who they are. We do know that high voter turnout historically favors Democrats and challengers. So we can split the 4 million lost votes and subtract 2 million from each candidate without being unfair to Bush.

The 6 million new votes for Bush would increase his 2000 election total to 56.5 million. Subtracting the 2 million as described above leaves 54.5 million votes for Bush -- not enough to win, and 4.8 million votes short of Bush's reported 59.3 million 2004 total.

The only place from which Bush could attain 4.8 million additional votes is from the 2000 election Democrats because we already gave him his share of the new votes.

...which of course he finds implausible. For instance, looking at the New York Times' Portrait of the Electorate, William Kurewicz sees a complete return of the Reagan Democrats to the Republican party for the first time since Reagan. In particular, older voters who voted 51-47 for Gore in 2000 went 54-46 to Bush in 2004. Also Craig Newmark suggests the a significant number of Jewish voters rewarded Bush's loyalty to Israeli security concerns with their votes that went to Gore in 2000 (see his followup as well). Note that this requires perhaps a switching rate of 15% from Gore to Bush and 5% from Bush to Kerry. This does not seem too bad.

This is on top of the new-voter story splitting 4-3 for Kerry (whereas in exit polls of 18-27 year olds the split was 54-43), and that the loss of 4 million voters includes many old people, who again were more Gore than Bush supporters in 2000. In the case of Virginia, it is contended by officials that new rural voters turned the state ... to Bush.

So his analysis of the data might be flawed. But that would not be so bad if he didn't veer from bad analysis to Moonbatland.

I wrote the above general analysis on Nov. 3, and since then learned of a similar analysis .

Wow, other people know stuff too. He goes on to cite Moonbat outposts like Blatant Truth or Us Together, most of which looks like pickoffs from Stolen Election. (No, I don't link to these people. Wouldn't be prudent, as some guy used to say.)

We cannot afford to let our nation become old Chicago. People must have alternatives to accepting election fraud when all government agencies are controlled by the elected.

Can anyone make sense of the second sentence? And since when does his statistical analysis prove Daleyesque ballot box stuffing?

If we continue our current course, we will inevitably find ourselves where fraud can only be defeated with greater fraud. Is that the brand of democracy we want?

This strikes me as a threat -- this Leftist is deluded to think that he knows what the people want, and that if he cannot get the result he knows to be true by the ballot box fairly he will advocate taking it by force. Is this the kind of professor of a state university we want?

But let us be kind, and chalk it up to another case of P.E.S.T. Treatment should return him to good health and able to return to teaching statistics.

(Other articles read in preparation here, here, and here.)