The Akron Beacon Journal reports today that a group called US Count Votes has done a statistical analysis of the election results and compared them to the exit polls. They conclude that the odds of the exit polls being as wrong as they were are 959,000 to 1.
From the article:
Exit polls in the November election showed Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., winning by 3 percent, but President George W. Bush won the vote count by 2.5 percent.
The explanation for the discrepancy that was offered by the exit polling firm -- that Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polling -- is an ``implausible theory,'' according to the report issued Thursday by US Count Votes, a group that claims it's made up of about two dozen statisticians.
The report dismisses chance and inaccurate exit polling as the reasons for their discrepancy with the results.
They found that the one hypothesis that can't be ruled out is inaccurate election results
``All voting equipment technologies except paper ballots were associated with large unexplained exit poll discrepancies all favoring the same party, (which) certainly warrants further inquiry,'' the report concludes.
SO what does the Secretary of States office have to say? Carlo LoParo, a spokesman from Blackwell's office responds:
``These (Bush) voters have been much maligned by outside political forces who didn't like the way they voted,'' he said. ``The weather's turning nice. There are more interesting things to do than beat a dead horse.''
Here's the entire article:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/11284237.htm