Why no exit polls in Oh2? Where was the DNC support to fund exit polls?

[In Truth We Trust]

Damn them for not funding that and for not implementing a voluntary "shadow" ballot box for the voters to place a "public" ballot for a check on the process.

[Walt Starr]

1. Exit polls are extremeley expensive

So much so that they are only used in National elections and are funded by a media consortium to spread the cost across multiple media outlets.

[In Truth We Trust]

2. Thanks for that- In light of Nov 04 I would think that they would have

made the investment regardless given that this election was small relatively and took place in Ohio2 where so many "irregularities" took place.
Just saying.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Funny thing, they do exit polls in Germany, Canada, across Europe, in

the Ukraine--and, indeed, in most of the world's true democracies--routinely, as part of the election process, specifically to verify elections and check for fraud. And they are used-routinely--by international election monitoring groups for the same purpose.

But not here. Too expensive. Hm-m-m.

Billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars for the war profiteers, but nothing to verify elections with.

Hm-m-m.

Do you know what the Carter Center said about OUR election system? They said that it did not meet the MINIMAL international standards for transparency and verifiability, and they therefore COULD NOT monitor the 2004 election.

(Note: The exit polls done by the consortium for the 2004 presidential election in fact showed a Kerry win--but the consortium members, acting in concert, FALSIFIED those numbers on election night, on everybody's TV screens--"adjusting" the exit poll data to fit Diebold's and ES&S's "official result" (Bush won), thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud--the evidence that OTHER countries use to DETECT election fraud. Is it any wonder that the Carter Center threw its hands up? We don't really have a democracy, you know. We have rightwing Bushite electronic voting machine companies counting all our votes with secret, proprietary software--and news monopoly war profiteers who falsify data in order to confirm their non-transparent, unverifiable election "results.")

The Dems damned sure should have done an exit poll for the Paul Hackett election!!!! What DID they do with all that legal money we gave them on election night so that "every vote would be counted"?

[Walt Starr]

7. NOWHERE do they do exit polls for elections this local in nature,

Goddess, only 112,375 votes were cast!

[In Truth We Trust]

8. Then that would mean it wouldn't be too expensive! And as someone else

pointed out the expense is minimal compared to the other bullshit burdens we are financing.

How expensive would it be to conduct exit polls in a total of 700 something precints or in reality a statistically acceptable percentage of that.

[Walt Starr]

10. Cost benefit analysis

Look it up.

The cost to do an exit poling of such a localized election is too high when compared to the benefit derived.

There is no justification for exit polling in such a special election.

[electropop]

11. The benefit of democracy versus tyranny?

I think that is priceless. If we do not get serious about stopping the monsters, we will all die in the gas chambers.

[Talismom]

17. I absolutely agree! The evidence about OH voting irregularities

is so convincing that it would have been worth it just to catch them at it to prove it to the doubters!

[Walt Starr]

35. Point to ANY evidence WHATSOEVER in this election

You can't because no such evidence exists!

[Talismom]

58. Right! ...and because they weren't observed, we never will know!

Given the debacle that Conyers found in the 2004 election, the system should have been observed more closely and would have if not for people being in denial!

[Walt Starr]

62. GOOD GRIEF, THE POLLS WERE WATCHED

Get a grip, man.

[Talismom]

68. We "watched" the polls in 2004 also! It's the counting we can't

watch because it's proprietary--the property of the corporations that do the counting.

I'm not nearly the only one trying to wake people up like this. See this thread to read what MANY others are saying.

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1980252

(sorry, I couldn't figure out how to make this a hyperlink)

[Walt Starr]

70. Not in any county in this election

Again, Diebold was not involved here.

[electropop]

83. Surely you jest

(1) Voter registrations cancelled days before the election, without notice.

(2) Made-up new rules for the kind of paper for same-day registrations.

(3) Voting machines moved out of dem precincts, causing 8-12 hour lines in the rain.

(4) Voting machine representatives tampering with machines btween election and recount, and leaving lists of numbers to force the recount to match.

(5) Republican thugs at the polling places to intimidate Dems.

There are hundreds of other things too; these are just some of the more obvious ones. All except #4 were on live TV, or publicly and officially announced (#2).

Either you are so seriously in denial you should get some help, or you are trolling.

[In Truth We Trust]

12. Here's a simple justification,in one word: INTEGRITY

[burythehatchet]

13. words cannot describe that statement

Look it up.

The cost to do an exit poling of such a localized election is too high when compared to the benefit derived.

There is no justification for exit polling in such a special election.


that's a keeper for the Funny File

[AmBlue]

14. No price is too high...

...to insure an accurate vote count. There is EVERY justification for exit polling, especially now, with our democracy hanging in the balance. This election would have been the PERFECT opportunity to hold their feet to the fire-- and in a state where we know there's been vote tampering. The DNC should have been all over this, IMO. It's just common sense.

:kick:

[emcguffie]

18. If the campaign is worth it, then the exit polls are worth it.

What's the point of pouring all that money into a race without exit polls, so we will never know if the counting was fair or not? I think that kind of assurance is pretty valuable.

Of course, you have to be willing to pay attention to it, once you pay for it.

But it could have been done with volunteers, at this point. There are quite a few upset people.

[electropop]

84. How many billions did we spend on the Iraq election?

$300 billion, plus thousands and thousands of lives, last count.

Surely we can spend a little on our own?

[Lars39]

19. Yeah, transparently clean elections just aren't worth it.

:sarcasm:

[Walt Starr]

21. WTF was dirty about this election?

Seriously, this was perhaps the cleanest election in Ohio history!

I have no clue WTF anybody is complaining about here. Tehre was no need for exit polling in this one. It was scrutinized to the highest degree.

Exit polling was completely unnecessary for this one.

SHEESH!

[Lars39]

23. I have no clue why you persist in defending them.

Exit polls would have illuminated the transparency. Why be against anything that would do this?

[Walt Starr]

25. Oh bull SHIT!

Come off it. Just because the Democrat lost is no indication whatsoever there was anything dirty about the election.

In fact, if you want to scream "ELECTION FRAUD" on this one, then the circumstantial evidence would have to point to the campaign of Paul Hackett as the culprit because an exceedingly Republican district went more than 48% in favor of Hackett when no such candidate got that close in nearly two decades.

SHEESH!

I cannot believe the paranoid delusions I see on DU at times.

[Lars39]

31. Walt, Walt, Walt.....*shaking head*

[Walt Starr]

33. Come off it!

If you exit poll a standard sampling in this small an election, you'd have an accuracy of around +-5%.

How the FUCK would that tell you anything about the results of this election?

[Pacifist Patriot]

39. I have no clue whether the election was fair or not.

But there are certainly some anomalies worthy of investigation. What an incredible opportunity we have here for those irregularities to be fully and sincerely investigated precisely to put such unease to rest.

They could be innocent irregularities or symptomatic of deeper problems. Why not use this "off-year" single race to try to find out?

[Walt Starr]

42. Exit polling would have done nothing to expose irregularities

and the only irregularites was the failure of the optical scan machines in a county that is so red they think Bush is a little too liberal for them.

[Pacifist Patriot]

45. Actually, that is one irregularity I had yet to hear about.

[Walt Starr]

52. They ended up hand counting the ballots

Which is what people want done in a recount, anyway. As far as irregularities go, that was fairly regular.

[electropop]

85. 48/52 until 11:50 PM, then instantly 52/48.

It's fine with you because you want your candidate to win, regardless of the cost or how it is done. To those of us who feel that the foundation of Democracy is the consent of the people, such things are completely unacceptable.

If you actually believed your guy won in November, or your gal won in Ohio, you wouldn't be so frightened of transparent elections.

[Talismom]

15. Why didn't Kerry offer up the 5 mill. he was sitting on at the end

of the 2004 robbery?

[Kolesar]

22. Do you mean to audit/exit-poll yesterday's OH-2 race?

Or do you mean at the November 2004 election?

[Talismom]

24. The latter has been discuss ad nauseum, but since he didn't

the $ could have been put to good use for exit polling yesterday.

[Walt Starr]

26. Why? What possible service could have been performed by exit polling

an election in which less than 130,000 people voted?

There was NO FUCKING REASON TO EXIT POLL THIS ELECTION!!!

Un-fucking-believeable.

[Kolesar]

29. I agree with you, only less vehemently

:) I thought Talismom had an interesting corollary, although it would never have happened.
I do feel kind of odd that Kerry ended the election with a slush fund that he can use for future campaigns.

[Walt Starr]

30. The big thing on exit polling this particular election is

you could never have taken a statistically significant sampling of voters.

Seriously, the differences in the precincts versus timing of the polling, the only way to get something with any validity would have been to nearly exit pooll all voters! Otherwise the results would have been accurate to something like + - 5%, which statistically would not make sense to even bother with!

[Kolesar]

34. I see. Hundreds of thousands of voters instead of 100 Million

eom

[Walt Starr]

36. Actually, just over 100,000 voters

If you want to pay enough people to stand outside the polls and ask every last voter how they voted, you might be able to get close, but your accuracy still would not be 100%.

Compare this very concentrated, localized, and small election to a large, statewide election. Senatorial races would awarrant exit polling to check results in many cases depending upon the state. Statistically, though, a state like Wyoming probably would not warrant such an exit poll.

[Vinnie From Indy]

48. Is There Anything You Don't Know?

As long as you are gracing us with such an abundance of certainty and clairvoyance, could you let me know where my damn TV remote control is?
Also, send me a PM about tonight's Powerball lotto numbers.

Thanks!

[Walt Starr]

56. I know somehting about statistics

Statistiaclly, exit polling would have been useless in this election.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

72. You obviously DO NOT know much about statistics

Your statement that you would need to survey almost every voter is totally absurd. Look up "the Central Limit Theorem" ...if you actually own a stats book.

[Walt Starr]

73. Doesn't apply in this case

Look at the circumstances of the population in a special election. There is no way to predict the makeup, the variables are simply too large. You cannot tell how many people to poll in which precints at what time to get an accurate sample. What you end up with is a sample that prvides a margin of error that is greater than the margin of victory.

HAd this been the standard election next year, it would be a different story.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

78. Central limit theorem applies even better

The reason national election pollsters need to do sophisticated predictions and weightings is because they need a representative sample and can't afford to place pollsters in more than 1% (or perhaps 0.1%) of precincts.

In an election for a House seat, voters are geographically proximate. They are also more homogeneous. So it's much EASIER to figure out how to find a representative sample. And you could even place a pollster at every precinct.

[Walt Starr]

79. I stand corrected. n/t

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

80. I admire you for that. We all make mistakes. Few of us ever own up to them

[emcguffie]

16. And in San Diego they did that "shadow" election --

-- with volunteers, for the mayoral race. They could have done that in Ohio. All they had to do was ask for volunteers.

I think we should be thinking about organizing such volunteers for '06. Every time I mention exit polls, I get told how expensive they are. So we have to find an alternate way of providing them, but we have to have them, and we must have access to the data. Of course, I mean the statisticians, not me.

[Talismom]

37. I went to Cleveland to work for ACT duringthe 2004 election and would

be more than happy to volunteer to do exit polling in 2006. Lot's of others would too if we could end up feeling some confidence that the votes were counted.

I really can't understand why my question about exit polling got such a vehement response. So many other nations do exit polling and it's now our nations' election results that have been likened to those of a banana republic. Carters' group said that the 2004 results were so poorly arrived at that they couldn't be verified. When do we DO something rather than just sitting around singing the blues and dumping on the ideas that are suggested?

[Yupster]

63. Talismom

did you read the NY Times magazine story right after the election?

They followed the head of ACT for the state of Ohio around all election day. He was head of the Clark campaign until he pulled out, then went on to work for ACT organizing the state precinct by precinct.

To me it was the best election day story anywhere in the press.

[Talismom]

69. No Yupster, I'm sorry to say that I was so blown away by Kerrys'

rapid-fire concession, as I rode home to NYC from Cleveland (with 14 other people in a 15 person van!)that I just wasn't up to taking in anything! I'm now sorry that I missed it and will try to find it! Thanks for the tip! What was the gist of the conclusions? Did he/she think that ACT did a good job? I was amazed at the number and enthusiasm of the volunteers, and the kindness and intelligence of the people we were canvassing,leafleting, etc. and I just could tell that Kerry should have taken a huge majority of that vote! When the stories about shortchanging democratic areas of voting machines, and counties where more people voted for Bush than registered to vote, etc. came out I was not at all surprised! The only thing that surprises me now is how many people--including democrats--drink the republican/MSM koolaid and insist that people like me are conspiracy theorists!

[Karmadillo]

27. What would be the cost of an exit poll for this particular election?

n/t

[Walt Starr]

32. The problem is, in order to get the margin of error

within the differences in the polls prior to this election, nearly everybody who voted in teh special election would have to be exit polled.

Basically, everybody goes in to cast their secret ballot then they come out anbd are asked how they cast their secret ballot.

Otherwise, using standard methodologies and sample sizes, you end up with an accuracy of about +-5% which wouldn't tell us anything about the accuracy of the election results anyway!

[Pacifist Patriot]

38. I don't understand....

I mean I do, but I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. Why would a statistical sampling of 112,375 people require almost everyone be polled? What size pool do you need to have a reasonable MOE?

[Walt Starr]

41. Look to the closeness of the race

If this was a race that was ten points out going into the election, the statistical sample wouldn't need to be large to be accurate enough.

The larger your sample comparable to the population of the precincts, the better your results.

Add to that the fact that your starting sample is all registered voters and you had such a lousy turnout, your accuracy for an acceptable MOE becomes even lower because you must begin you modeling with the voters who turned out in previous elections. Since special elections are notoriously unpredictable on who will or will not turn out, you can never have a model for a statistical sample that will give you anything with a reliable MOE.

[Pacifist Patriot]

47. So are you saying that given the closeness of the

presidential race in November, only sampling almost everyone who voted would be a valid exit poll for comparison?

[Walt Starr]

54. Nope, because you had a much larger sample

and could spread it out over many more locations in each state. Statistical significance is achieved when the overall population is larger over a wider area.

This was a concentrated election in a very small area. A statistically significant sample is much more difficult to achieve.

[Pacifist Patriot]

40. But do they have to be?

I suspect a volunteer organization could exit poll a single congressional district fairly inexpensively. Just because something is done a particular way doesn't mean that's necessarily the best or only way.

[Walt Starr]

44. How accurate is it going to be?

Not nearly accurate enough to tell us anything about the eleciton.

[Pacifist Patriot]

46. My question is entirely unrelated to accuracy since it responds...

to your premise regarding expense. You said nothing about accuracy at that point. I am more than willing to stipulate that yesterday's situation would probably result in a meaningless MOE. But that still does not speak to expense.

Why can't exit polling be done less expensively?

[Walt Starr]

50. Accuracy is directly related to expense in this

If you do this with volunteers, accuracy will suffer and thus the results are useless.

[Pacifist Patriot]

51. Why are volunteers necessarily less accurate than

paid pollsters? Often my best work is when I am committed to an unpaid project about which I am very interested.

[Walt Starr]

53. Because those who perform exit polls are trained professionals

They know what to look for and when to ask the next person to leave.

[Pacifist Patriot]

55. So volunteers are incapable of being trained to do the same thing?

[Walt Starr]

57. They can be trained, but won't be anywhere near as accurate

and in a small local elections, even professionals won't get a significant sampling to accurately predict close races.

You need statewide elections in larger states to approach a significantly predictive sample.

For instance, a close governors race in Ohio can use exit polling to predict the winner relatively well, and trained volunteers could still present a good sampling in this sort of race.

By the same token, a Senatorial race in Wyoming would not be worth the effort due to the small population that would participate in the election. You're better off watching the polls and waiting for the outcome of the counting after you've watched it.

I think you'd find if you looked, this election watched the polling places closely and watched the counting closely. I would say the results produced from this election are probably very accurate, and far more accurate than any exit polling on any level could have produced.

[Pacifist Patriot]

59. *shrug*

I've been involved in volunteer polling at a County Commission level. Much smaller sample. We pretty much hit the nail on the head. Maybe we were lucky, but the pollsters were top notch for a bunch of old geezers who'd never done it before. I guess we got lucky.

I do understand what you are saying, I'm just not ready to climb all the way on board.

[Walt Starr]

60. Pre-election polls do not have to be right on

Close counts in that sort of polling.

Exit polling has to be precise for it to indicate any shenanigans.

[Pacifist Patriot]

61. No, I'm talking about a volunteer exit polling initiative.

Though our pre-election polls were dead on too. This was done in 2002 with the approval of the SOE. It wasn't candidate-driven. It was a political science project by a local college.

[Yupster]

64. We probably could have organized an exit poll

for this district here at DU.

Our results wouldn't have been considered legitimite by the MSM, but we could have at least satisfied ourselves.

I think it would be an interesting project to try one time.

[Pacifist Patriot]

65. I don't see why not.

No harm in experimentation.

[SmileMaker]

76. Idea - get America's kids to do it as a service learning experiment

make it a national experiment in protecting democracy. The adults can't seem to get our elections right and are destroying the future of democracy for our kids. Imagine if math and civics students nationwide were called to duty as election auditors for a national service learning experiment. What have we got to lose?

[SoCalDem]

77. More expensive than wasting money in a losing battle?

There would be volunteers, if they would ask.. How expensive would it be to find a notary in each precinct..set up a card table, and mke a few signs?

have some clip boards with affidavits that they voted for the dem candidate..?

Doesn't sound expensive to me..it DOES sound necessary..

can you imagine the stink if there were 150 signed affidavits for Hackett in a precinct with a 200 person turnout, and Miss Humidity claimed 175??

[In Truth We Trust]

82. My thoughts exactly... thats why I posted the original question.

[peabody71]

81. BS!

[Karmadillo]

4. Ssshhhhhh! You're embarrassing the Opposition Party! Better to lose

again and again than be seen embracing, however gingerly, the possibility elections in an increasingly fascist America aren't fair. Please make another donation and then shut up. Hewing to the rightward moving center and sucking up to corporations is the way to guarantee the ultimate success of progressive ideals.

[In Truth We Trust]

9. "Please make another donation and then shut up" Ha- too true isn't it

[Peace Patriot]

5. If you want to understand why there was no exit poll for Hackett, and

why the Dem Party would have zero interest in Bushites counting all our votes in secret, check out this hogfest, sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, starting tomorrow, at the Beverly Hilton in Hollywood--a week of bipartisan fun and sun and "conferences" and a "graduation ceremony" with "graduation awards" and dinners, dances and shopping for election officials from around the country...

It will burn your eyeballs!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

We have a lot of work to do, friends, to restore our right to vote. The reason there is no money for verifying elections is that billions of taxpayer dollars for extremely insecure, unreliable and hackable electronic voting systems has been poured into the pockets of the major Bush donors who run these companies--through the hands of both Republican and Democratic election officials. THAT's the problem!

[Joanne98]

43. They did that last year! A private bi-partisn party. shhhhhhhhhh

[fearnobush]

75. DLC creeps?

[nicknameless]

71. Doesn't it start on the 9th?

I've been in touch with a State Senator's office about this and Conny The-Bad-Seed McCormack in general.

:hi:

[Peace Patriot]

6. Please recommend this thread! This is stuff people need to know. They

need to know WHY there is no money for VERIFYING elections, WHY neither party is INTERESTED in verifying elections, and why this crap of it being "too expensive" is being thrown at you. Diebold and ES&S also said that about a "paper trail"--the damned liars! Crooks! Election thieves! Bush fascists! Oo-oo, Walter, you have really got me mad!

[emcguffie]

20. We should also post this in the elections forum.

We need to be planning for '06, for where we are going to get the money for "our" exit polls.

Even if the media consortium does them, they won't share the data if it isn't data that they approve of.

Please! Can't we organize locally for local shadow elections?

[In Truth We Trust]

28. I agree. It is something that can not be compromised nor contracted out.

We should have such mechanisms in place next Spring for primaries and for the Fall elections.

[Freddie Stubbs]

49. Howard Dean must be on the GOP payroll

I wonder how much they are paying him? ;)

[NoBushSpokenHere]

66. Our answer to valid elections is to poll 100% of the people

Thanks Walt, for pointing that out to us. I am sure we won't have trouble getting the volunteers OR the training, tyvm!

[madfloridian]

67. Wow.

This just amazes me. I don't even know what to say.
:shrug:

[napi21]

74. The DNC had 29 of it's paid people in Ohio for Paul's election.

What would exit polls do for you? They don't PROVE anything!

Let's assume you had an exit poll that said Paul Hackett won by 75%. What would you be able to do with that information? You could complain, but that's it!

I listened to Dean on Randi's show today. He said they had people investigating the "machine problem" excuse in Clermont County.

He also said that the DNC is working to get all states to establish a law like Oregon has. It says "No voting machine or equipment shall ever be used in the State of Oregon that cannot be recounted by hand."

Don't you think we should concentrate on doing something positive like that instead of arguing for things that don't cure anything?