TruthIsAll: An Interview with TruthIsAll (12/21/05)...

[autorank]

From:
KERRY WON!!! …An Interview with Truth Is All
(permission to quote liberally from the authork me)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00242.htm

An Interview with TruthIsAll

Michael Collins: When was your first post on the 2004 election controversy?

TruthIsAll: Nov. 4, 2004: On DU “To Believe Bush Won the Election….” Will Pitt referenced the full post in an article he wrote a few days later and it spread all over the Net.

How many main posts on DemocraticUnderground (DU) and ProgressiveIndependent (PI) and other forums have you written on the election?

About 150 original posts.

Michael Collins: Why all this energy devoted to the 2004 election?

I was appalled when the election was stolen from Gore in 2000. I had posted daily projections of my Election Model on DU in the four months leading up to the election. The projections were based on state and national polls. The final national model had Kerry 51.6 % of the two-party vote; the state model 51.8 %. The state model included a Monte Carlo simulation with a Kerry expected total of 337 electoral votes.

The initial exit polls and the Iowa Election Markets showed that Kerry was a 3% winner. When Bush came from nowhere after 9 p.m. to win, I had this feeling of Déjà vu. So I decided to confirm the doubts using mathematical probability analysis, based on the
preliminary exit poll data downloaded by Jonathan Simon.

Your posts on DU are like no others. They are intense, complex, and require careful reading? What do you hope to accomplish with your new work.

My goal is to present the analysis in such a way as to inform both those who may have limited training in mathematics and those more knowledgeable. At the same time I want to negate the straw man arguments of those who attempt to obfuscate and misrepresent the accuracy of the pre-election and exit polls.

Where can you be reached for questions on this work and other dialog?

I’m posting on PI (primarily in the “Elections & Voting Rights” forum – which contains a collection of TIA's most recent posts.)

From your first posts on DU, you have attracted a large group of avid supporters? What is it that draws these users to your work?

It’s probably because they are frustrated like I am that the truth has been kept hidden by the media, politicians, Democratic bloggers and professional naysayers. They appreciate that the analysis is comprehensive and honestly arrived at.

In addition to supporters, there have been smaller cadres of users highly critical of your work. How do you explain that?

I firmly believe a few have a clear agenda to debunk the exit polls. But how do they explain the pre-election polls? Others are in denial. They can’t accept that their votes don’t count. Many are math-phobic and miss the essential analysis. Others feel the need to impress colleagues with their conservative credentials by knocking a spread-sheet blogger. Others just think I’m just an arrogant wise-ass.

Are the criticisms you receive helpful in revising your thinking or redirecting your analysis? Examples?

Yes. They inspire me to do additional analysis. As an example, the UCSV simulation which debunked the reluctant Bush responder (rBr) hypothesis was attacked by the usual suspects. I decided to take a different approach than USCV and developed an Exit Poll Response Optimization model based on the same E/M 1250 precinct response and WPE data. The results confirmed the USCV analysis. Later, I did a similar analysis based on state exit poll data which also confirmed USCV.

Who and what are the major influences on your work, both in applied mathematics and political advocacy?

I almost failed elementary 9th grade algebra. One day as I was entering class, I saw my mother speaking to the teacher. From that day forward, I studied hard and got a perfect score on my 12th grade advanced algebra final. I went on to get bachelors and two masters degrees in applied math. As a career, I have focused on applying mathematics in the development of engineering, investment and financial models.

As far as political influence, my favorites: JFK, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, Edward R. Morrow, Bill Moyers.

Anything you’d like to say in closing?

I’ll keep posting as long as I have something to say. If my work has in some small measure helped to raise awareness, then it’s all been worth it.

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.

-------------------


Start of Article
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00242.htm

The 2004 Election Controversy will not stop. Statistical analysis of polls is now more accessible
with free interactive Excel-based election models available on the Internet.
Plus an interview with TruthIsAll.

Special for “Scoop” Independent News
from Washington DC
Michael Collins

USEFUL RELATED LINKS:
• The Law of Large Numbers & Central Limit Theorem: A Polling Simulation
• Excel Polling Simulation Model
http://us.share.geocities.com/electionmodel/MonteCarloPollingSimulation.xls
• 2004 Election Model Projection; Exit Poll Collection; Excel Interactive Election Simulation; Other links.
http://www.truthisall.net/

The Kerry concession speech on November 3, 2004 marked the beginning, not the end of the controversy over the 2004 election. Just hours before the speech, Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards emerged and said that, “John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that in this election every vote would count and every vote will be counted."

Democrats were in a state of shock. 2004 was a banner year for new registrations, party financial support, and activism. Reported new registrations favored Democrats all over the country. Democrats were well ahead of Republicans in new registrations in Ohio. South Florida, the “scene of the crime” in 2000, saw major Democratic efforts and a lackluster Republican response.

Democrats matched and exceeded Republicans in funds raised. For the first time, the internet proved to be a highly potent form of fund raising. The Democrats collected $10 million a month for the Kerry Campaign on the Internet alone. Other groups supporting the Democrats raised substantial funds. MoveOn.Org and New Democratic Network ran parallel campaign commercials and provided other support with the $25 million they raised during the election cycle.

Activism was at an all time high. People who had never worked in elections volunteered in large numbers and local Democratic parties throughout the country saw a surge in citizen participation.

While Kerry may have conceded the election at 2:14 p.m., Nov. 3, a large portion of the population failed to accept the final results. They knew something was wrong.

As one Virginia activist said, “This is simply not possible, the national results or here in Virginia.”

[helderheid]

1. thrilled to recommend

[Marnieworld]

2. kickety kick

:patriot:

[madokie]

3. heading for the great page

:kick: & rec

[soup]

29. and then some.

:kick:

[Vidar]

4. K&R

[sonias]

5. K&R

For TruthisAll, truth is his name.

Sonia

[myrna minx]

6. K&R.

Excellent. :kick:

[BeFree]

7. Where would we be?

Without the information that TIA brought to us? His writings stand the test of time. Proof of that is that TIA's findings are still contested, fruitlessly, by the naysayers and bush supporters.

His product stands among the greatest ever produced on the Stolection of 2004, and America owes him dearly.

[Cleita]

8. What happened to TIA?

The last we heard is that he was in the hospital and very ill.

Thanks for posting this.

[survivor999]

31. No updates, as far as I know...

...

[foo_bar]

9. Mr. Pitt deserves partial credit for propagating this hoax

A poster named 'TruthIsAll' on the DemocraticUnderground.com forums laid out the questionable results of Tuesday's election in succinct fashion: "To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe: That the exit polls were wrong; that Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning Ohio and Florida were wrong...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804A.shtml

5pm election day calls in polls that didn't close until 8? Exit polls with big red shifts in MA/CT/VT/NY but not Ohio? And those were TIA's best arguments:

But how do they explain the pre-election polls?

The majority of pre-election polls had * winning, but TIA cherrypicked the Kerry-leaning polls:

There has been misinformation put out by a number of sources
(AP, MSNBC, FOX, CNN) regarding Kerry's current poll numbers
and his prospects of winning.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2060158

No, I leave them out because they are BIASED for Bush.
Why include them if they skew the averages against Kerry?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1998204#1998844

Answer to rhetorical question: because a) it's ethical, and b) you don't need to devise a huge conspiracy to explain away "media, politicians, Democratic bloggers and professional naysayers", all for a fictional rendering of statistics:

I have also used this method to calculate the probability that
1- at least 15 JFK witnesses would meet unnatural deaths in the year following the assasination.
2- at least 16 world-class microbiologists would meet unnatural deaths in a 4 month period following 9/11.
3- The probability that at least a certain number of people would suffer from mad cows disease in a specific geographic area in a given year.

In each case, the probabilities were close to zero.

In the 2002 election, the odds are less than 1 out of 43,000 that the results were due to chance.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4057474#4062833

[jasop]

41. What does this post mean? What hoax? n/t

[foo_bar]

42. "John Kerry has a 99.8% probability of winning an electoral vote majority"

- http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/

The problem is, he had it planned out two months in advance:

If Kerry has a 52.22% poll avg on 11/1, he'll have a 99.999997% win prob.

The results of 15 national polls of 1000 people from a
population of 150 million registered voters is equivalent to
ONE poll of 15,000 reg. voters.

If Bush steals it with those odds against him, it would be oh
sooooo obvious.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x611036

As luck would have it:

Think Kerry will make it to 99.9999% by Tuesday?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1232743

And so on. Some DUers suggested it wasn't the best idea to preach certain victory before the election, especially since this 99+% certainty was achieved by "minimizing" and "ignoring" the polls with bad news:

But there are many here at DU who do not fully appreciate the fact that there are outliers like CNN and FOX and NBC and AP who attempt to mislead voters into thinking that Kerry received no bounce.

The POINT of this and similar posts is just this:

DON'T BELIEVE ONE OR TWO POLLS. LOOK AT ALL THE POLLS. MINIMIZE THE THE EFFECTS OF BIASED POLLS OR JUST IGNORE THE THEM.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x611036

DILUTE! Wet Skin Well! OK! Anyway, TIA changed gears from prophecy to hindsight, blaming the missing 7 million votes or so (?) from his Ivory Soap model on places like Vermont and Massachusetts ("THE EAST was the BEAST"), and making claims that didn't withstand general scrutiny. I wish the human being behind TIA the best, but his internet presence hasn't helped science or Dem turnout.

[jasop]

43. I understand what you are saying but ...

It seems as though he actually was right. Especially if you put it into numbers. The probability was 99% with the poll numbers and with a fair popular vote election without tampering Kerry would have won.

Sometimes outlandish statements are quite grounded...

[DrDebug]

10. If my work has in some small measure helped to raise awareness

TruthIsAll is too modest as usual. Very rarely is "smoking gun" kind of evidence discovered. Even rarer is it to do it on the internet. Once the annals of the online-Bush-resistence are written there will be the naming of heros. TruthIsAll will be one of them because he proved beyond reasonable doubt that the 2004 Elections were stolen. This is an oustanding achievement and it is so rare that somebody has the ability and guts to do it, that TruthIsAll will be named of the greatest online heroes of the online-Bush-resistence.

So what is a hero. A hero is a kind man like so many others. Somebody who doesn't do it for glory or fame, but in persuit of the truth. That's what makes somebody truly great.

Just a friend of mine.

[autorank]

18. See DrDebug's outstanding TruthIsAll 2004 Election Collection

SeeDrDebugs TRUTHIS ALL 2004 ELECTION COLLECTION…easily a..

Five Star Rated Election Resource


TruthIsAll was modest about his role but passionate about his work. On a personal level, he was erudite, clever, and supportive. I did an extended article on Paul Hackett’s loss in the Ohio 2nd 2005 special election. It was inspired, in part, by TIA’s ERD discussion on anomalies in the vote totals. After it was complete, he said “Why would take the time to write an extended piece like that?” He knew I’d gotten the election honesty bug, largely due to his work…encouragement and “see I told you so” at the same time.

[goclark]

20. YEA for TRUTHISALL !!!!!

I love to see his work ~ it caused me to have hope and be inspired because his mind is a work of art.


Get well soon TIAll!

[DrDebug]

23. That Paul Hackett article is some story alright

The completeness and detailed evaluation is what is required. The biggest mistake which has to be learned from all this, is that elections are such a vital and important part that there cannot be any short-cuts.

Initially voting machines were probably a good idea, because society wants quick answers. Waiting a couple of seconds for a computer is too much already or complaining that site only gives you a download of 40Kb/s. Elections however are the essence of democracy since it is one of the few times that the people can slightly influence the world.

Echternach Procession

Therefore it has to be transparant, clear and verifiable. Innovations are not what is needed and waiting a day for the result and several days for the final results should become part of the routine once more.

Also there needs to be a clear and open system to validate and verify an election and ironically it is no issue since there are many days between the election and when the people are inaugurated. The slow speeds of the horse and carriage two centuries ago gives the freedom which is needed in a century of broadband and airlines.

There is hope because the wheels are finally start to turn backwards again and that means that democracy is moving forwards. Democracy is like an Echternach-procession. Two steps forwards and one step back.

[wtmusic]

11. TIA's penchant for drama doesn't help his cred

and posts with titles like (paraphrasing) 98.458739% CHANCE OF KERRY VICTORY, months before the election when anything could still happen, were just silly.

All they accomplished was to help create a sense of complacency.

[tinrobot]

13. Ummmm.... Kerry did win...

...but it was stolen from him.

So, TIA was right and I don't see any reason for him to have posted otherwise.

[wtmusic]

15. To have said so months before the election

is meaningless. Anything can happen.

[deaniac21]

16. Not 'chance' it was 'PROBABILITY'.

[wtmusic]

17. Chance:

probability: a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur; a number expressing the ratio of favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible; "the probability that an unbiased coin will fall with the head up is 0.5"

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+chance&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0

[stellanoir]

12. My cat told me

that you'd never get this posted by 9 am :)

Great interview for someone who hangs up on damsels in distress.

Hurrrrrrummmmphhhhhhh.

Kidding

I only wanted your take on the RS article.

[autorank]

25. Rolling Stone Article -- Way At RFK Jr. Turn up the heat...

A lot of stuff we've know around here for along time and needs to get a broader audience, a few new gems. and Louis Harris, a preeminent pollster kicking it in on the very level that TIA operated.

(ps. You make me sound like George Sanders;) sweet!)

[In Truth We Trust]

14. K&R Paper ballots and HAND COUNTS NOW!!!

[bleever]

19. Kick, kick, kick.

:kick:

[autorank]

21. Denying Stolen Election 2004 now is like Denying Global Warming

77% of Democrats surveyed in a recent Zogby Poll believe that Election 2004 was stolen.
It's mainstream Democrat to believe that the 2004 election was stolen...mainstream. Not
a fringe argument, we can speak out proudly and say...* is not a legitimate leader, in the most
technical sense of the word!!! I'm PROUD of my PARTY and it's membership. They face reality and
speak the truth in near unison.

Significant numbers of independents and and even Republicans believe Election 2004 was stolen.

Why not? Reality-based humans to the unaware or uninformed:

"You CAN'T STAND the TRUTH Is All."

Let the intellectually lazy CM lounge in their fantasy land oblivious to the reality that 40% of Americans understand...2004 WAS STOLEN.

How would they know that. Well, lets see...lies about tax cuts; lies about 911; lies about Iraq; big fat lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction; lies about climate change; cultural genocide in New Orleans; and, oh, btw, many suffering and dead due to atavistic mythology regarding stem cell research. THAT'S WHAT THE PUBLIC STARTS WITH. How hard is it to conclude that there ARE LIES ABOUT 2004-IT WAS STOLEN!!!

I'll stand with John Q. Citizen whose relentless hunger for truth does not rely on the Corporate Media. CM is really nothing more than a separate but entirely owned business unit of the extremist neocon - know nothing faction of the Republican Party.

There will be change and soon. The winds are shifting and the scoundrels are about to inherit the whirlwind.

From every Monday and Tuesday news thread:

Never forget the pursuit of Truth.
Only the deluded & complicit accept election results on blind faith.
Denying that 2004 was stolen is like denying global warming.

Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News May 23, 2006

[Usrename]

22. K&R

Despite the objections of a few, the realities of our situation are becoming widely known and well documented.

In TIA’s own words: “I firmly believe a few have a clear agenda to debunk the exit polls. But how do they explain the pre-election polls? Others are in denial. They can’t accept that their votes don’t count. Many are math-phobic and miss the essential analysis. Others feel the need to impress colleagues with their conservative credentials by knocking a spread-sheet blogger. Others just think I’m just an arrogant wise-ass.”

I often wonder where they would rank themselves among those critical of his work. I think there may be a whole other class of critics that he failed to mention.

[bloom]

24. TIA et al. deserve much credit

for their efforts.

[DemReadingDU]

26. TIA was so ahead of everyone with election statistics

How is he doing? He was sick and haven't heard anything recently about his health.

[autorank]

27. Yo are do right. There was a tight crew, TIA, Alastair (althecat on DU)

Thompson of "Scoop", Jonathan Simon (who actually grabbed the exit poll material released by mistake off of CNN) and a very few others, who saw immediately what was going on. Remarkable individuals and patriotic Americans!

The last word on TIA that I know of was the message from TIA'sSister (briefly on DU) saying he was recovering form a serious illness and needed our good thoughts. Prior to that, I'd received messages from TIA's wife. Since his sister's post here, there has been no word. Perhaps a post will show up somewhere (last time it was on the Solarbus.Org Election Justice forum of DUer Garybeck. Just showed up there one day in 9/05 and said a few kind words. We can hope...

[mom cat]

40. As the evidence swells, I hope that TIA is able to enjoy the

growing vindication of his work!

[kpete]

28. I do not know you...

but I wish I did...

[DemExpat]

30. Kick for TIA.

:kick:

DemEx

[Kurovski]

32. K&R(nt)

[arwalden]

33. Okay... So Now What?

What do we do with this information?

[autorank]

36. Excellent question.

Read it, get the general picture, you don't need to be a stat expert and send the links out, certainly to your state and local Democratic committee and ask what they are doing to about the next set of the we stolen election (we must never forget 2000 which was stolen outright). Also watch DU over weekend. I'm releasing a 20 page position paper on election issues aimed at our concerns as a party. This can be used electronically or in hard copy form in any way you wish (it's yours in other words). That must go to the Democrats. It lays it on the line and does so with ample quotations and sourcing. Then watch DU also for a web site that has a boat load of information on stolen elections, disenfranchisement, and e-voting/machine issues along with much more. Take a look and use and share that material. It's primo.

Thanks for asking.

[LibertyorDeath]

34. Thanks autorank !!

"then it’s all been worth it"

Indeed!

Recommend!!

[autorank]

38. Very Welcome!!...it has been and it is worth it...

The truth is a powerful medicine...helps the immune system fend of viruses and malicious code;)

[BrklynLiberal]

35. kicked and recommended. ..happily

Hope TIA is well.

[Kip Humphrey]

37. TIA is a selfless patriot of the highest order!

[understandinglife]

39. K&R.

Not One Line Of Software Between A Voter And A Valid Election