Okay, review of the Benford guy video having watched the whole thing. Given that it was sitting at no.24 on YouTube's trending list I felt it worth digging in.
I'm an amateur logician, so please do chip in if there's something I've missed or misunderstood.
It's only accurate if there are multiple orders of magnitude, i.e. 10s, 100s and 1000s.
This guy's analysis centres around Chicago specifically, which does not show enough orders of magnitude to apply. Out of 2069 total, only 7 precincts had <100 votes (i.e. 10s), and only 20 had >1000. Therefore Chicago city isn't an appropriate candidate for Benford. His reasoning for examining Chicago is that it was the sample used for a widely-circulated graphic:
An actual quote from that 2011 paper he cites:
"If a competetive two candidate race occurs in districts whose magnitude varies between 100 and 1000 the modal first digit for each candidate's vote will not be 1 or 2 but rather 4, 5 or 6"
Fine, makes sense, but Biden's results still don't conform to that. That isn't addressed.
He says 'you can't just use Benford's law to look for fraud in elections'.
I don't most people here are
just using Benford's law to decide there is fraud. Admittedly, it could be the basis for faulty reasoning through confirmation bias for some people.
Checking if the last 2 digits are randomly distributed is another good way to spot if something unreasonable is happening,
He compares the Chicago Biden data and Trump data to Pi to establish the randomness of their last 2 digits. He states that the Biden data is random but the Trump data is not:
He says he considers this 'indication that there is something suspicious going on' but then reveals this as a teachable moment (god I hate that phrase), because actually Trump received a much higher share of tallies that totalled two digits, so the data isn't saying what it appears to say. His lesson is:
Don't take anyone's word for it, always verify the data, they've probably got an agenda they're trying to push.
Overall, I'm going to say that he's not lying or wrong as such, but he is deflecting and misleading. Same way the factcheckers mislead, using weasel words and addressing topics tangential to what they claim to be debunking. Eg:
-He stated that Chicago isn't a suitable candidate for Benford, but does not examine any data that would be, nor does he suggest any more relevant data sets for viewers to examine. I'd guess state level, using county tallies might be more appropriate, particularly in a state with both very low and very high population counties.
-'you can't just use Benford's law to look for fraud in elections'. 'Just' is a weasel word here.
Finally, and you can completely disregard this as personal opinion, I find his facial expressions and tone of voice interesting. Lots of expressions of contempt and disgust, and a fair bit of smirking. I've looked at another video of his on a non-contentious issue, and while he is generally a bit condescending, the overall range of facial expression appears quite different.





Finally, finally, I was wrong. That semi-literate quote did come from the 2011 paper he linked. My apologies
@Zero Day Defense.