Abstract
In the aftermath of the 2020 US Presidential election, the argument was raised that because Joseph Biden's county vote totals in Pennsylvania do not follow Benford's law but Donald Trump's do, Democratic voter fraud occurred in Pennsylvania. We use US recent presidential election data to investigate whether this argument holds water. We use statistical tools such as chi squared goodness-of-fit tests and hypothesis tests for proportions, which are commonly used in Benford settings.
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Notes on contributors
Brooks Groharing
Brooks Groharing graduated from William Jewell College in 2021, earning a BA in data science with a bioinformatics emphasis. His primary focus is on computational biology, though he has a broad enthusiasm for applying statistical methods to interesting problems. He really enjoys making graphs.
David McCune
David McCune is an associate professor of mathematics at William Jewell College. His research focus is the mathematics of elections, with an emphasis on apportionment theory. He earned his PhD in algebra from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2011.