Remarks
Understanding That ‘One-in-a-Quadrillion’ Claim About the Election
This will be talked about in statistics classes for years to come.
This article is for subscribers only.
By now you’ve probably heard about the Texas attorney general’s lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to postpone the scheduled Dec. 14 certification of electors to allow for investigations of “rampant lawlessness” in elections in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
You may also have seen the claim in the lawsuit that the odds of President-elect Joe Biden winning all four of those states fairly (given certain assumptions, which we’ll talk about) was “less than one in a quadrillion to the fourth power.” You may even have seen some capable refutations of this allegation, such as here and here.