NEW YORK—Responding to critics who contend that safer and more humane techniques exist to ascertain voters’ political positions, statistician Nate Silver appeared on several cable news programs Monday to defend the controversial torture methods he uses to project election results. “It’s not easy to accurately forecast how a given state or demographic will vote, and sometimes there is simply no other option than enclosing blindfolded voters in a confinement box and blaring loud, continuous music at them to keep them awake for 100 hours or more,” said Silver, stressing that he had extracted many crucial responses that helped him correctly predict all 50 states’ results during the 2012 general election by shackling registered voters from the ceiling in stress positions until they finally divulged the issues that mattered to them most. “What you have to understand is that we’re working on a highly time-sensitive schedule and need to get these projections right. So, yes, if stripping a second-generation Latino millennial voter naked, forcing him to stand in his own excrement, and then holding back a snarling German shepherd inches from his throat gives us a clearer understanding of where the nation stands on immigration reform, then that’s a choice I would gladly make every time.” Silver added that, with the exception of occasionally using pliers to tear out the fingernails of those he suspected of lying to him about their preferred candidate, none of his methods have ever been proven to cause permanent damage.

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