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This article is part of Votebeat’s reporting into the use of Walter Mebane’s work to question the result of the 2024 election. Click here to read our main story.
Shortly after the 2020 election in South Korea, University of Michigan political scientist Walter Mebane Jr. published his first version of a working paper estimating that a significant share of votes for the winning party may have been “fraudulent.” Mebane’s election forensics model pointed to statistical anomalies that it found could reflect votes being “manufactured” from nonvoters or “stolen” from opposing parties.
Local politicians and online commentators used the study to support their contention that the election was fraudulent.
There was just one problem: The election wasn’t fraudulent. An investigation by the country’s Supreme Court found no evidence of misconduct.
Mebane included cautions. “‘Frauds’ according to the eforensics model may or may not be results of malfeasance and bad actions,” he wrote, adding that statistical findings alone “cannot stand as definitive evidence about what happened in an election.”
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