"Child Molesters, Rapists and Other Sexual Deviants Overwhelmingly Supported Democrats"

What does the above title make you think? It’s a quote from an article in the Chicago Daily Herald., which reports that in a particular precinct, a worker registered 127 residents of a treatment center for sex offenders; 120 residents of that facility later submitted absentee ballots. “In the clerk’s race, 229 voters were cast in that precinct. So sex offenders made up more than half the vote.| Voots, the Republican, received 42 votes in the precinct. May, the Democrat, received 187.”

The reporter notes that the Republican (who ended up winning after all had “championed the 1998 state law responsible for [sex offenders] being detained for treatment, perhaps for life, rather than freed.” Thus, this particular group of offenders would have had a motive to vote for the Democratic opponent. The statistic provided in the news article applies only to a particular precinct that happens to contain a sexual assault facility; but by taking that quote slightly out of context, I can create the impression that the news article is making a statement about all Democrats (or all sex offenders). The moral of the story: be skeptical when you read a startling statistic (or any statistic, for that matter).”Child Molesters, Rapists and Other Sexual Deviants Overwhelmingly Supported Democrats”Literacy Weblog)