A “fact check” by USA Today is defaming a Ph.D.-vetted study by Just Facts that found non-citizens may have cast enough illegal votes for Joe Biden to overturn the lawful election results in some key battleground states. The article, written by USA Today’s Chelsey Cox, contains 10 misrepresentations, unsupported claims, half-truths, and outright falsehoods.
Furthermore, Facebook is using this misinformation to suppress the genuine facts of this issue instead of honoring its policy to “Stop Misinformation and False News.” Compounding this malfeasance, a note at the bottom of Cox’s article states that USA Today’s “fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.”
#1 Dr. Glen’s Credentials
Starting with the most simplistic falsehood in Cox’s piece, she impugned the character of Dr. Andrew Glen, a Ph.D. scholar who specializes in data analytics and who examined Just Facts’ study and found that it “provides a credible data analysis that supports a strong hypothesis of non-citizens having a significant effect on this election.”
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Cox did this by claiming that “though he is attributed as a professor emeritus at the United States Military Academy, an ‘Andrew Glen’ did not appear in a search result on the website for the United States Military Academy, West Point. Glen attended the school as a student, according to his LinkedIn profile page.”
That statement reveals that Cox and her editor were ignorant of the fact that a professor emeritus is one who has “retired from an office or position.” Thus, Dr. Glen would not appear on the webpage of current faculty to which she linked.
Had Cox conducted a proper search, she would have found that West Point’s website lists Glen among a group of professors who wrote a reference work for its Department of Mathematical Sciences.
Cox could have also found proof of Glen’s professorship at West Point via a peer-reviewed journal, an academic book that he coauthored on the topic of computational probability, or the website of Colorado College, where Glen currently teaches.
After reading what USA Today published about Dr. Glen, current West Point adjunct professor Dr. Joseph P. Damore wrote:
I can personally attest to the fact that Andrew Glen, COL USA, ret. was an Academy Professor at West Point. I know, because I was there with him.
And Ms. Cox, to imply that an Iraq war vet, a graduate of West Point, and a retired Colonel from the U.S. Army is somehow lying about his credentials is so egregiously offensive, that it demands your apology.
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That a “fact checker” would be unaware of these types of interdisciplinary interactions that are common in scientific and academic fields displays a significant lack of qualification for the job and reflects poorly on the trustworthiness of USA Today.
Instead of an apology, USA Today altered the article 18 hours after publication to remove this attack on Glen without issuing a correction. This is a breach of journalistic ethics that require reporters and media outlets to “acknowledge mistakes” and explain them “carefully and clearly.”
#2 Dr. Cook’s Credentials
Cox also assails the credibility of Dr. Michael Cook, another scholar who specializes in data analytics and reviewed Just Facts’ study. Cook found that the study is “methodologically sound, and fair in its conclusions,” but Cox dismisses him as a “financial analyst, according to his LinkedIn profile page.”
However, Cook’s LinkedIn profile states that he is an “applied mathematician and strategic thinker with experience on Wall Street, scientific research, statistical modeling.” This experience, coupled with Cook’s Ph.D. in mathematics, make him eminently qualified to assess Just Facts’ data-heavy study.
#3 Cook’s and Glen’s Qualifications
Cox also attempts to discredit both Ph.D. scholars by reporting that they “are not election experts.” Given that Cox gives no credence to their reviews of Just Facts’ study, she is overtly implying that they are unqualified to assess it. After reading this, Dr. Cook wrote:
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Though I am not an “election expert,” I have training and experience in statistical modeling, statistical inference, and sampling theory, which is the basis of my comments on Agresti’s methodology and approach.
Agresti, the president of Just Facts, is the author of the study.
Dr. Glen replied similarly while explaining the folly of Cox’s argument:
Once elections happen, they leave the academic realm of sociologists and political scientists, and enter the realm of statisticians, data scientists, and operations research. Analogously, biostatisticians are often not medical doctors and yet are of great necessity in studying the effects of public health, disease spread, and drug efficacy.
That a “fact checker” would be unaware of these types of interdisciplinary interactions that are common in scientific and academic fields displays a significant lack of qualification for the job and reflects poorly on the trustworthiness of USA Today.
