Reply #26: 5 million isn't just TIA [View All]

[OnTheOtherHand]

Steve Freeman, in his Philadelphia appearance with Warren Mitofsky last October, said: "Added together, the numbers indicate that Bush received 57 million votes... Kerry's totals... aggregate to 63.5 million votes.... All told it amounts to a discrepancy on the order of 10 million votes." (That is 10 million votes on the margin, which could be accounted for by switching 5 million votes.) Freeman basically uses TIA's argument based on reported 2000 vote.

As you and the estimable Febble indicate, it really does not seem all that easy to hide 5 or 10 million stolen votes. I mean, it might seem easy until one actually sets out to do it. One certainly won't be able to squirrel many away in New Hampshire no matter how anomalous it might be (and as you say, that dog won't hunt anyway).

Interestingly, NEDA has defined away most of the problem you describe by insisting that any analysis that takes past results into account is illogical bunk. No one associated with the group seems to understand what a disastrous move that is. Past returns tend to be very highly correlated with current returns, depending on the races being compared -- for the Ohio exit poll precincts in the ESI analysis, the correlation is over 0.96. And we have data for many, many precincts (potentially any precincts whose boundaries haven't changed). NEDA now says, no, forget all that -- indeed, it is intellectually dishonest to consider past returns. Real Scientists focus just on a few dozen exit poll precincts per state, with all the measurement noise that is bound to be in the exit poll data even on the most ridiculously cheery assumptions. And what does NEDA stand for? National Election Data Archive! It reminds me of my wife's stories about school librarians who actively discourage the students from actually using the books.

Yes, if I could have put money on the chances of Bush's approval rating hitting 30% at any decent odds, I would have gladly run up the home equity line to do it. I suppose Bush might have been caught trying to strangle his wife, or something, but I would have taken that risk.