The Bellwether Counties argument is frequently cited on Twitter as evidence of an anomaly in the 2020 elections. In 2020, Trump won the popular vote in bellwether counties but lost the election, whereas in 2016, he won both the popular vote in these counties and the election.

The argument states: there are 15-20 bellwether counties, and the candidate who wins the popular vote in these counties will win the General Election.

This concept is flawed since the winner of the General Elections is not decided by the popular vote but by the Electoral College.

Interestingly, there is only one county in the United States that has consistently voted for the winner of the presidential election since 1980: Clallam County, WA.

I have identified 16 bellwether counties that have allegedly predicted the winner. Among them are three counties in South Carolina (Calhoun, Colleton, and Darlington), two in Ohio (Ottawa and Wood), and two in New Mexico (Valencia and Hidalgo).

What do bellwether counties predict, and what do they ...

People think that the Wikipedia is not a reliable source because anyone can edit any article.

📣 Actually, Wikipedia is an excellent source for information. However, it is important to learn how to use it effectively. Here are a couple of examples of how to dig into a Wikipedia article:

• You can check the Wikipedia article in other languages and cross-check the information using Google Translate. The information on the same subject may vary significantly depending on the language in which it is written.
• You can go through the history of Wikipedia article edits and compare the information. You may discover that some essential information was removed by an editor.

I plan WIKI to be a series of articles on the Debunked, where debunking can be done solely using Wikipedia.

Russian Collusion was an alleged interference between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere in 2016 elections. The Mueller report "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its ...

On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a duty officer who was stationed in the nuclear early-warning system of the Soviet Union saw a big RED BOLD message all over the screen - 5 missiles launched from bases in the United States.

Petrov saved the world by not reporting them to his superiors, and instead dismissed them as a false alarm. This was a breach of his instructions, a dereliction of duty. The safe thing to do would have been to pass the responsibility on, to refer up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the story did get into the press. Mr Petrov received several international awards. But he does not think of himself as a hero 😆

"That was my job", he says. "But they were lucky it was me on shift that night."

📣 The story has all attributes of a classic hoax: only one source, no witnesses, unnecessary visual details that make the story sound more trustworthy.

🧵 Context 1: ...