More Trump-ian gullibility

I noticed that old JC and others at fascist (as long as they don't care for the gays) friendly New Catallaxy, amongst other gullible wingnuts, were excited about a Special Counsel report on voting in Wisconsin that claimed that nursing home votes there were very, very suspect, including a claim that some showed 100% of votes for Biden.

Nevermind that the author of the report had already decided in November 2020 that the election had been been "stolen":

Leading the investigation is former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman, no neutral arbiter but rather a man who told a group of supporters of former president Donald Trump in November 2020 that the election had been stolen. Asked last week if he had voted for Mr. Trump, he proudly declared: “You bet I did.” 

or that he has now suggested "de-certifying" the election (something that has no legal basis whatsoever), gullible wingnuts just have to read any claim of fraud and they'll gobble it up without bothering with the details.

As I've said before, all Trump-ian "the election was stolen" evidence is actually just a bunch of conspiracy primed twits seeing something they don't understand, thinking "that looks suspicious to me", and then leaping from that to thinking it proves fraud.   

So I knew that a more careful examination of the Wisconsin situation with nursing homes would show how little there is to this report.   And those examinations have been done now.

Have a read of this article, for example:

Senior citizens have long been more likely to vote than the population at large. But after reviewing thousands of pages in the 2020 poll books from the 10 Dane County municipalities in which nursing homes are located, the State Journal could find only one where turnout was 100%: Nazareth Health and Rehab Center in Stoughton, where all 12 people listed as registered in the poll book had their ballots tallied.

Turnout among all the others ranged from 42% to 91%. In the case of the facility with 91% turnout, Capitol Lakes in Downtown Madison, it’s likely that number includes mostly independent living residents along with nursing home residents because both types of voters registered at the facility’s main address, 333 W. Main St., according to Capitol Lakes executive director Tim Conroy.

Even those turnout figures are inflated, since the state Elections Commission considers turnout to be the number of votes cast divided by the voting-age population, not the number of registered voters, since that number can change up to Election Day. It’s not known how many voting-age residents lived at the nursing homes in 2020.

The DHS list of nursing homes does not include all types of long-term care, which also includes various kinds of assisted living care, but the list provides a snapshot of one county’s nursing facilities as defined by a state agency.

Turnout figures compiled for city of Milwaukee nursing homes by city elections administrator Claire Woodall-Vogg also call into question the 100% turnout figure Gableman reported for all nursing homes in Milwaukee County. Woodall-Vogg found turnouts of between 36% and 97% for 32 city nursing homes.

Gableman and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who appointed him, did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

So once again, a highly partisan person made a big claim (without providing the detailed evidence), it got inflated on the Wingnut web by partisan commentators who make a living by promoting Trumpian conspiracy, and gullible Australians believe it.