I have stayed away from discussing any of the many important electoral contests that will be (hopefully) decided today. But given that he is at the center of one of the most hotly-contested Senate seats, I can’t help being reminded of his conduct during the campaign to overturn the 2020 election results, and what may have been the lowest of many low points in Ken Paxton’s career to date.
In December 2020, when he was Attorney General of Texas, Paxton was the attorney of record in a lawsuit against the states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, seeking to overturn the 2020 election results in those states. He petitioned the Supreme Court to exercise its original jurisdiction to hear the case, and to do so on an expedited basis. [See my blog posting at the time here; Paxton’s papers filed at SCOTUS are posted here].
In his filing, he wrote:
Expert analysis using a commonly accepted statistical test raises serious
questions as to the integrity of this election. The probability of former Vice President Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States—Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—independently given President Trump’s early lead in those States as of 3 a.m. on November 4, 2020, is less than one in a quadrillion, or 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000. For former Vice President Biden to win these four States collectively, the odds decrease to less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power (i.e., 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000^4).The same less than one in a quadrillion statistical improbability [applies to] Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in the four Defendant States. . . . Again, the statistical improbability of Mr. Biden winning the popular vote in these four States collectively is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000.
Put simply, there is substantial reason to doubt the voting results in the Defendant States.
Indeed there is! Prima facie proof of fraud in the counting of ballots, I’d say.
But only, of course, it it’s correct, or at least close to correct. But it’s not correct. It is, as anyone with a knowledge of elementary statistics would have recognized immediately, simply and laughably wrong. The technical term is, I believe, “utter bullshit.” I explain why here. The probability that Joe Biden would end up with a majority in any of those is not one in a quadrillion – let alone one in a quadrillion to the 4th power (!), which is approximately equal to the probability that the sun will rise in the West tomorrow, and will have developed the capacity for human speech – nor anything close to one in a quadrillion.
Hey, we all make mistakes, right? What is most disgraceful about this episode is not that Paxton screwed up in his brief to the Court; it is that he never acknowledges his error, either publicly or, more importantly perhaps, to the Court. His assertion that the probability that Biden actually carried these States was equal to the probability that you would pick the single blue marble from a collection of 1,000,000,000,000,000 marbles, is a falsehood, and it is one that is at the core of his argument, in a case that was of grave importance to the future of the country. If Paxton didn’t catch that falsehood before he filed his papers with the Court, he’s merely a lousy lawyer, which I suppose is nothing to get too worked up about, given that there always will be plenty of lousy lawyers out there. But if he doesn’t acknowledge that he has misled the Court after those misstatements are revealed – if he doesn’t tell the Court that it has to ignore the part of his argument that relied on this incorrect understanding of statistics – then he’s in a much more sinister category.
That this is the candidate whom the Texas Republican party chose as its candidate for U.S. Senate speaks volumes about the current state of the Rule of Law in this Administration. I’m sure that Mr. Paxton is looking forward, assuming the results go his way, to forging a close working relationship with Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is similarly scrupulous in his adherence to fundamental Rule of Law principles (as in the Slush Fund fraud-on-the-court perpetrated by Blanche and the DOJ].
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