A Widespread Error in the Use of Benford's Law to Detect Election and Other Fraud

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a common misconception about Benford's Law's range spanning multiple orders of magnitude is false, providing concrete counterexamples to clarify its limitations.

Contribution

It refutes a widespread claim about Benford's Law by offering constructive counterexamples showing the claim's inaccuracy.

Findings

The range of Benford distributions does not always span multiple orders of magnitude.

Counterexamples disprove the assumption that Benford's Law always covers several orders of magnitude.

The paper clarifies misconceptions about Benford's Law's applicability in fraud detection.

Abstract

The goal of this note is to show that a widespread claim about Benford's Law, namely, that the range of every Benford distribution spans at least several orders of magnitude, is false. The proof is constructive and concrete examples are presented.