Reply #26: Back to your original post... Yes, we KNOW the 5 original facts. [View All]

[Brotherjohn]

They are for the most part irrefutable (some assumptions about number of deaths and such, but reasonable ones).

You then make a big leap, and that big leap is as we discussed above here in other posts.

We DON'T "KNOW" that 57% new voters voted for Kerry. We DON'T "KNOW" that 71% of the "other" voted for Kerry". The preference of the 2000 voters and new voters in the 2004 elections is not KNOWN. You simply choose to believe the breakdowns as in the exit polls (final for 3.5M win, prelim for landslide of 7M). In short, we DON'T "KNOW" that the rest of the exit poll data is reliable.

Your think your logic is this:
KNOWN FACT (X5)... IRREFUTABLE CONCLUSION.

In reality, it is this:
KNOWN FACT (X5)... (many unknown facts which need to be trusted to reach the...) IRREFUTABLE CONCLUSION.

The "many unknown facts" are how each group voted in 2004. You assume this is accurate to 1%MOE, and even trusting the final poll results, this yields a Kerry win.

First, of course there's the issue of the sample not being random (which I won't be-labor here again).

But ALSO, as you pointed out yesterday, 1% MOE for a sample of around 10,000.

But the smaller samples within the 13000 (3% "other"; 17% new, etc) all have larger MOEs AS TO THE QUESTION of who THEY voted for in 2004. These are smaller polls within the bigger poll.

All told, these sources of additional error can certainly result in deviations from your assumed irrefutable conclusion. But even if they couldn't, all it would prove would be that E-M have a strong vested interest in making their poll look accurate (to the point where they'd fudge numbers)... whether that was to avoid embarrassment or to be yield validity to fraudulent election results.

Again, YOU were the one who "threw down the gauntlet", as it were... saying that "if we believe these 5 facts... then we MUST believe". Sorry, I don't. I don't think it's the smoking gun you hoped it would be (I wish it were). That's not to say it isn't TRUE. But the logic does not follow as you say it does. And you have set the terms of it as a logical argument.