Sigh: No, Hillary Didn't Lose Because Wisconsin's Voting System Was Hacked

The richest part of this conspiracy theory is that it's being peddled by many of the same people who were reaching for the smelling salts when Donald Trump refused to rule out challenging the outcome of an election he might allege to be "rigged." That reckless talk, you'll recall, was outrageously and unforgivably undermining the public's trust in our democratic process and institutions. But now that Trump has won, some lefties are clinging to their own dark allegations of nefarious rigging -- just as they did in 2000 and 2004. Because every presidential election they lose must have been stolen, it seems. Via the same crowd that's been wringing its hands in a paternalistic panic over the alleged proliferation "fake news" or whatever, ta da:

NOT SO FAST: Election results may have been hacked in three swing states @realDonaldTrump won https://t.co/ivvoefQzvN pic.twitter.com/vVUhweb0yM
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) November 23, 2016

Team of computer scientists presented Clinton campaign with evidence that WI voting machines may have been hackedhttps://t.co/EnHq9wGbB6
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) November 22, 2016

Nate Silver punctures this line of argument, noting that the Wisconsin claim doesn't stand up under deeper scrutiny, and pointing out that Michigan exclusively uses paper ballots -- negating that element of this nutty, lazy argument. The New York Times' Nate Cohn is similarly unimpressed. Why? Clinton's performance among various demographics in the Badger State very closely mirrors her showings in nearby states that use paper ballots. Her terrible performance among rural Midwestern voters was quite consistent:

Two states that use paper ballots: Iowa and Minnesota, where the results look exactly like those in Wisconsin
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 23, 2016

And this is just common sense:

Furthermore, the WI voting pattern looks quite easily explained by the fact that rural counties use machines and urban ones use paper.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) November 23, 2016

Occam's Razor: Hillary did worse in Wisconsin's rural counties because...she was extremely weak with rural voters. The method of tabulating votes in those precincts isn't to blame; her poor performance (mirrored and demonstrated elsewhere) is the culprit. Pretty simple. In other bulletin's from the Left's alternate universe, Hillary Clinton's popular vote lead just surpassed two million -- which is as irrelevant as ever, for reasons explained in this post. And in case you're keeping track of randomly-selected measures of partisan support that do not serve as the basis for determining electoral outcomes, the House GOP's national "popular vote" margin remains well north of three million. (Click through for a related chuckle at the expense of one of the Smart Set's leading lights). But hey, if you're inclined to embrace wild conspiracies rather than grapple with your fair-and-square loss to the least-liked presidential nominee (but notice the post-election trend) since the advent of modern polling, you might as go with this guy as your party's chairman. As the left-wing has embraced him, the White House is reportedly concerned about Ellison's ideological baggage and extremism. Gosh, I wonder why: