IT WOULD BE NICE IF FEBBLE READ THIS...

[TruthIsAll]

AND STILL BELIEVED THAT RBR IS EVEN WORTHY OF DISCUSSION..


NATIONAL EXIT POLL ANALYSIS THREADS

CNN Final Exit Poll
2:05pm Nov.3 13660 Respondents

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

NEP/WP Preliminary Exit Poll
12:22am Nov. 3, 13047 Respondents
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=265121


CNN Preliminary Exit Poll
7:38pm Nov 2, 11027 Respondents
http://www.exitpollz.org/CNN_national2.htm

National Exit Poll Timeline:
11/2/04, 3:59pm 8349 respondents: Kerry 51-Bush 48
http://www.exitpollz.org/mitof4zone/US2004G_3737_PRES04_NONE_H_Data.pdf

11/2/04, 7:33pm 11027 respondents: Kerry 51-Bush 48
http://www.exitpollz.org/mitof4zone/US2004G_3798_PRES04_NONE_H_Data.pdf

11/3/04, 12:22am 13047 respondents: Kerry 51-Bush 48
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=265121

11/3/04, 1:25pm 13660 respondents: Kerry 48-Bush 51
http://www.exitpollz.org/mitof4zone/US2004G_3970_PRES04_NONE_H_Data.pdf

ELECTION 2004: THE COMPLETE GRAPHICAL REFERENCE

Edited on Sun Apr-03-05 01:57 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x352164

HOW KERRY WON OHIO BY 51-48%...
Edited on Fri Apr-29-05 10:37 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x364450

AT A GLANCE: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEP TIMELINE

Edited on Thu Apr-28-05 07:25 PM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x363938



THE 13047 NATIONAL EXIT POLL CONFIRMS THE STATE EXIT POLLS (WITHIN .06%) !

Edited on Sun Apr-24-05 11:44 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x362208

STATE / NATIONAL EXIT POLL ANALYSIS BY REGION

Edited on Sun Apr-24-05 03:10 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x362106


A TIA CHALLENGE: REFUTE THESE ODDS!

Edited on Sat Apr-23-05 06:16 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x361819

Prob( Bush Z >1 in 35 states): 1/4500 trillion; Pr (Kerry Z>1 in 5): 91%

Edited on Sat Apr-23-05 01:28 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x361736

Red Shift: Z-scores and Probabilities. Take a deep breath.

Edited on Sat Apr-23-05 03:26 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=361617&mesg_id=361617

The Exit Poll Gender Demographic: Another Smoking Gun?

Edited on Tue Apr-19-05 09:51 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359779

Truth: 0 to 13,047; Fiction: 13,048 - 13,660

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359789


The MoE Formula: Mitofsky agrees its under 1.0% for over 8000 respondents

Edited on Fri Apr-15-05 05:15 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=357345

Bush Exit Poll Job Approval: A smoking gun?

Edited on Tue Apr-19-05 02:07 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359320


TIMELINE

Edited on Tue Apr-19-05 02:30 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359332

U.S. General Election Poll-7:37pm,11/02/04: "Estimates NOT for on-air use"

Edited on Tue Apr-19-05 12:31 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=359287


This Jan 3 post on the IMPOSSIBLE Bush 43%/37% NEP weight is NOT from me!

Edited on Sun Apr-17-05 04:29 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=358194



The National Exit Poll: A Tragedy in Three Acts

Edited on Fri Apr-15-05 10:59 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=357758#357867

Ignore the RW spin. Calc the SAMPLE-SIZE for any MoE and confidence level

Edited on Thu Apr-14-05 09:53 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x356832

National Exit Poll Analysis: Using FACTUAL Historic Data

Edited on Mon Apr-11-05 10:58 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x355250



IS THIS ANALYSIS CLEAR? COMMENTS?

Edited on Sun Apr-10-05 12:09 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=354935#

NOW I'M REALLY CONFUSED. WAS THERE A (N)ATURAL (B)USH (R)ESPONDER?
Edited on Sun Apr-10-05 02:10 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x354894


COME ON GUYS, WHICH IS IT: RBR OR EBR ?

Edited on Sat Apr-09-05 09:35 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x354809




OK, MAYBE THERE WAS THIS BUSH "BANDWAGON" EFFECT...

Edited on Fri Apr-08-05 09:49 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x354407

RELUCTANT BUSH RESPONDER OR REINCARNATED BUSH RESPONDER?

Edited on Mon Apr-04-05 03:22 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x352359



Another National Exit Poll Mystery: The Gender Vote. Can you solve it?

Edited on Sun Apr-03-05 11:24 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x352276


Another Exit Poll Mystery: Party ID. Can you solve it?
Edited on Sat Apr-02-05 02:52 PM http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x352065

From Selection 2000 to 2004 (NEP): Voted, Died, Reborn, Did Not Vote

Edited on Fri Apr-01-05 09:46 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x351954


IF YOU BELIEVE THESE 5 IRREFUTABLE FACTS, THEN YOU MUST ALSO BELIEVE...

Edited on Fri Apr-01-05 12:58 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x351776


A 9TH GRADE ALGEBRAIC SMOKING GUN.

Edited on Fri Apr-01-05 01:42 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x351674


THE FINAL EXIT POLL MYSTERY: THE IMPOSSIBLE 43% Bush / 37% Gore MIX...

Edited on Wed Mar-30-05 11:13 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x350713


Tue Mar-29-05 08:35 PM

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: THE KERRY NATIONAL VOTE MARGIN OF VICTORY...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x350526




View the Mathematical FACTS for the TRUTH...

Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 10:38 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x350334


FASTEN SEAT BELTS. THIS IS THE CLINCHER.

Edited on Tue Mar-29-05 01:47 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x350225




PROOF WORTH REPEATING: FINAL NEP PADDED MINIMUM OF 3.85 MIL TO BUSH VOTE

Edited on Mon Mar-28-05 02:18 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x349796



KERRY WINS 57 OF 60 NEP SCENARIOS: NEW VOTERS VS. 2000 VOTER TURNOUT

Edited on Sat Mar-26-05 11:21 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x349444


THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO: KERRY WON BY 7 MILLION VOTES

Edited on Sat Mar-26-05 06:16 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x349275


Reluctant Bush Responder? Or Resurrected Bush Responder?

Edited on Fri Mar-25-05 05:43 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x348688




Part IV. To believe Bush won the election, you must also believe …

Edited on Thu Mar-24-05 12:01 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x348022


HOW TO RED-SHIFT THE NATIONAL EXIT POLL IN 6 EASY STEPS...

Edited on Thu Mar-24-05 11:44 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=348456#


BASED ON THE U.S. ANNUAL DEATH RATE OF 8.7 PER 1000...

Edited on Mon Mar-21-05 09:30 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x347144


100% ABSOLUTE PROOF: FINAL NEP OVERSTATED BUSH VOTE BY AT LEAST 2 MILLION VOTES

Edited on Mon Mar-21-05 02:01 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x346932



THE MAGIC 613 FINAL RESPONDENTS: FROM 13047 TO 13660

Edited on Mon Mar-21-05 10:26 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x346890

FOUR VERY RED FLAGS....

Edited on Sat Mar-19-05 01:38 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x346284


THE NATIONAL EXIT POLL TIMELINE: THE FULL STORY IN 3 GRAPHS

Edited on Sat Mar-19-05 09:22 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=346481



PROBABILITY TABLE: Exit Poll Margin of Error vs. Vote Deviation

Edited on Thu Mar-17-05 12:37 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x345177


The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy: Explained

Edited on Tue Mar-15-05 01:23 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=344005




A SUMMARY EXIT POLL MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION

Edited on Mon Mar-14-05 10:54 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x343448



IF THIS PRELIMINARY NEP WEIGHT WAS CORRECT, WHY WAS IT CHANGED?

Edited on Sun Mar-13-05 04:53 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x343168


Lynn Landes, this is for you.

Edited on Sun Mar-13-05 06:24 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x343312


THIS EXIT POLL SIMULATION TEST BLOWS AWAY THE NEDERLAND "PROOF"

Edited on Sat Mar-12-05 12:51 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x342913




Nederland now agrees: The Recorded votes and Final Exit poll are bogus.

Edited on Fri Mar-11-05 10:29 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x342689



GRAPHS: 1988-2004 Prelim. Nat. Exit Poll to Vote - Trend reversal in 2004

Edited on Thu Mar-10-05 11:11 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x341940


A Mathematical proof: Preliminary Exit polls are accurate

Edited on Thu Mar-10-05 09:01 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x341540





The Nat Exit Poll Crime Line: 7:58pm(K) to 12:22am (K) to 2:04pm (B)

Edited on Mon Mar-07-05 11:55 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x340029


Check. Mate.

Edited on Sun Mar-06-05 04:03 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=339246






NATIONAL EXIT POLL: PRELIMINARY TO FINAL - WHAT HAPPENED?

Edited on Sat Feb-26-05 01:23 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x334949

MITOFSKY EXIT POLL CAVEAT: "FINAL PERCENTAGES MAY SHIFT SLIGHTLY"

Edited on Fri Feb-25-05 12:02 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=334152



SO IT COMES TO THIS: DO YOU BELIEVE 13,047 OR 13,660?

Edited on Mon Feb-21-05 09:40 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x331601


PRE-ELECTION STATE POLLS vs. EXIT POLLS vs. ACTUALS

Edited on Sat Feb-19-05 12:02 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=330449



BLOWN TO SMITHEREENS: MITOFSKY'S "RELUCTANT BUSH RESPONDER" THEORY

Edited on Sat Feb-12-05 12:46 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x325206


THE MOST DEVASTATING STATISTIC OF ALL: 17% OF THE VOTERS WERE NEW

Edited on Fri Feb-11-05 01:05 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=323939


1/23 UPDATE: NATIONAL EXIT POLL DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS

Edited on Sun Jan-23-05 01:50 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=301075


Bush probabilities for various Party-ID weights in the National Exit Poll

Edited on Sun Jan-16-05 04:29 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=287175

[autorank]

1. Well, now I know what I'll be doing all day Sunday!!!

Holy Shit! I was hoping you'd do one of these. Thanks!

TIA:yourock:

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:
& Recommend

[TruthIsAll]

11. AND HERE ARE TWO MORE..

FL Optiscans vs. Touchscreens:
Prob of 9.03% discrepancy-1 in 12.7 trillion
Edited on Mon Apr-18-05 02:42 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x358495



A PUZZLE FOR DUERS: NATIONAL VS. STATE GENDER DEMOGRAPHIC MATCH-UP
Edited on Sat Apr-30-05 01:22 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x364702

[MontageOfFreedom]

2. I don't know......It could have been for people of faith.

Maybe to people of faith, that many exit poll respondents magically appearing out from the void is some kind of new prophecy.

[ccarter84]

3. Oh I wish I had that much time..... n/t

[kster]

4. Keep up the Great

work,this is good,in the words of my kids "I'm down with this like a car with four flat tires.

[kster]

6. Kick.n/t

[vince3]

5. Kick n/t

[Donailin]

7. I salute you, TIA

and kicking for the weekend crowd

[slay]

8. Thanks for all the hard work TIA!!!

I'm in hopes that one day people will actually care about stolen elections. I guess unless CNN says it it's not true huh? My opinion of the average american has never been so low. Wake up and give a shit people!! :(

[Vektor]

9. Kick - Thanks, TIA!

Great work as usual.

[torque]

10. Extraordinary! Thanks TIA!!! n/t

[MontageOfFreedom]

12. This should be examined again. n/t

[Febble]

13. I have not read all these

But I've sampled a few. Thanks.

Let me clear up a few things.

Firstly, what I am not saying.

I am not saying "reluctant Bush responders" are the reason exit polls were wrong. I think it is likely, but it is not what I am saying in my paper. I will return to this.

My paper addresses two issues. One is a very specific claim in the USCV report that the evidence points to "Bush strongholds have more vote-corruption". My piece says this is not a valid inference. I think "vote-corruption was widespread and found in all types of precincts" is more valid, although I happen to think, for reasons given below that "reluctant Bush responders were widespread and found in all types of precincts" not only as valid but more likely.

The second issue, which was actually the main issue, is the nature of the variable that was analysed, which is the within-precinct error (WPE).



It is completely clear that the polls over-estimated Kerry's share of the vote by a margin that was way outside the "margin of error". This scarcely needs re-stating, but I'll restate it. It is a point made in many of your links. The polls were wrong. The were not randomly wrong, but systematically wrong. They overestimated Kerry's vote.

The big question is: which was wrong, polls or count?

Edison-Mitofsky, in their published evaluation, do not dispute that the polls were wrong. They show that the error occurred not in the way they selected the precincts, but at the level of the sampling of the voters as they left the precinct. There are three ways this could have occurred, two fraudulent. The innocent way is that for some reason Bush voters were more inclined to refuse to be interviewed, or even to escape being approached. The two fraudulent ways are that Kerry votes were lost or spoiled (in other words Kerry voters who were interviewed were "phantom voters" without a real vote) or that Bush votes were added (ballot stuffing) to the count (in other words the reason Bush voters did not respond is that they did not exist).

Any of these would have resulted in Kerry over-estimates of the WPE.

However, there is a problem with the WPE as a measure. For a given amount of bias (whether in voter sampling or vote counting) the effect will be larger for precincts in which there are roughly the same number of votes for each candidate, than in precincts which are highly partisan. This is just a mathematical quirk. But it means that all analyses using the WPE are suspect, because the quirk contaminates the data.

It particularly contaminates any analysis of bias by precinct partisanship, and the hairy mathematical parts of my paper are there to demonstrate that the USCV conclusion probably isn't warranted.

It will be less of a contaminant of analyses of bias by things like interviewer training, precinct size, etc, although it may still affect these, if younger, less experienced interviewer were allocated to less partisan precincts for some reason.

So I think the E-M conclusions need to be treated with caution. However, they report a strong finding, which supports the rBr hypothesis. If the hypothesis is true, which is that Bush voters were more reluctant to respond to pollsters, you would predict that the greater the opportunity they were given to avoid responding, the more they would take that opportunity, and the more Kerry's vote would be overestimated. And this was what they found. The worse their sampling protocol, the greater the over-estimate of Kerry's vote. This is not saying that poor sampling protocol caused the over-estimate, any more than poor sampling protocol could have caused fraud. But unless they are lying, if they found that poor sampling protocol was a significant predictor of WPE, then it follows that poor sampling protocol was enabling an underlying variable to be expressed.

To quote part of a comment I made on a DailyKos post:

<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/29/161938/921#309>

"People without HIV AIDs get infections. But people with AIDs get more. That doesn't mean that HIV AIDS causes infections. It means that infective agents cause infections, which are not always defeated even by a healthy immune system, and if your immune system is compromised you get more infections. If we had known about immunity before we knew about infective agents, we could have inferred the existence of infective agents from the correlation between immunity and infections. Widespread witchcraft would not have been supported as an explanation.

Nonetheless the finding would not have ruled out the odd hex"

For more details of my position, read this Daily Kos diary:

<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/6/8028/83645>

And for a slightly more user-friendly version of my paper try this diary:

<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/19/81031/0928>

I hope that Edison-Mitofsky will re-do their analyses, using my variable. It should also be a better variable with which to test fraud hypotheses, of which I have several.

Such as whether bias was greater in swing states. As yet, we don't know.

Lizzie (Febble)

[TruthIsAll]

14. FEBBLE, I NEVER SAID THE EXIT POLLS WERE WRONG.

First of all, a caveat. I deal in numbers only - not theory. I will assume that you will not get into theoretical "what-if" analysis to justify your position on RBR. Only numbers will suffice. If you read my posts, you will see that I focus on verifiable NUMBERS, not OPINIONS.

You say: "I am not saying "reluctant Bush responders" are the reason exit polls were wrong. I think it is likely, but it is not what I am saying in my paper."

ME:
No, Febble, the exit polls were NOT wrong. The vote counts were. See below.

You also say:
"It is completely clear that the polls over-estimated Kerry's share of the vote by a margin that was way outside the "margin of error". This scarcely needs re-stating, but I'll restate it. It is a point made in many of your links. The polls were wrong. The were not randomly wrong, but systematically wrong. They overestimated Kerry's vote".

ME:
Quite the contrary. My posts say just the opposite. I believe that the exit polls were RIGHT - UP UNTIL THE MASSAGED 13660 NEP FINAL (see below). The vote counts were WRONG.

The calculations show that the National Exit Poll AND the weighted State Exit Polls are in COMPLETE confirmation.

THE NATIONAL EXIT POLL OF 13047 RESPONDENTS HAD KERRY LEADING BY 51-48%. THE FINAL 613 RESPONDENTS IN THE PUBLISHED NATIONAL EXIT POLL OF 13660 WAS MATCHED TO A CORRUPTED VOTE COUNT.

NATIONAL EXIT POLL (FIRST 13047 RESPONDENTS):
AVERAGE OF 12 DEMOGRAPHIC CATEGORIES: KERRY 50.80%
GENDER DEMOGRAPHIC CATEGORY: KERRY 50.78%

51 STATE EXIT POLLS (WEIGHTED GENDER DEMOGRAPHIC): KERRY 50.82%

As far as your paper is concerned, I understand that Bruce O'Dell has already responded to your analysis, so I will not attempt to critique your efforts in that regard. I leave that to the professionals at USCV.

But I would like you to respond to these TWO facts:

1) You claim RBR is the major reason for the exit poll discrepancies.
Please reconcile that with the FINAL 13660 exit poll demographic:
HOW VOTED in 2000.

According the NEP, Bush 2000 voters comprised 43% of the 122.26 million who voted in 2004, but only 37% were Gore voters.

Now 43% of 122.26 million = 52.57 million. Bush only got 50.456 million votes in 2000. And annual U.S. death rates of 0.87% =indicate that 3.5% (1.77 million) died.

That means the absolute maximum Bush 2000 voter percentage of the 2004 total votes = 48.69/122.26 = 39.82%.

THAT DOES NOT QUITE SYNC WITH RBR, DOES IT?

2) The FINAL pre-election polls, both state and national (average of 18), had Kerry tied or leading by 48-47%. Now historically, it is a fact that 2/3 of the undecided vote goes to the challenger. Assuming 1% to third parties, that leaves 4%, and 2/3* 4 = 2.67.

Adding this to Kerry's total: 48+2.67 = 50.67%, which is in agreement with the National and State exit polls.

So the pre-election polls confirm the exit polls and vice-versa.

DO YOU ALSO CLAIM THAT THE PRE-ELECTION POLL ARE INCORRECT DUE TO RBR AS WELL?

[Febble]

16. Did you actually read my post?

the bit where I ask:

"The big question is: which was wrong, polls or count?

"Edison-Mitofsky, in their published evaluation, do not dispute that the polls were wrong. They show that the error occurred not in the way they selected the precincts, but at the level of the sampling of the voters as they left the precinct. There are three ways this could have occurred, two fraudulent. The innocent way is that for some reason Bush voters were more inclined to refuse to be interviewed, or even to escape being approached. The two fraudulent ways are that Kerry votes were lost or spoiled (in other words Kerry voters who were interviewed were "phantom voters" without a real vote) or that Bush votes were added (ballot stuffing) to the count (in other words the reason Bush voters did not respond is that they did not exist)."

Like you I deal in numbers, not theory. By "polls were wrong" I mean that they did not match the count. That is all. They were wrong. Why were they wrong? Was it because the count did not reflect people's votes? Or was it because the poll did not reflect people's votes?

Please read my post again. And my paper if you can download it.

I do have reasons for believing that reluctant Bush responders was at least part of the picture, but I think the conclusions in E-M in this regard should be treated with caution because of the variable (the WPE) they used.

I hope they will re-do their analysis. My analysis is fraud-neutral. All I am saying, contrary to the USCV, is that whatever went wrong with the exit polls (whether it was fraud in the count or sampling bias in the poll) was not greater in "high Bush" precincts. So we cannot conclude fraud on that basis.

That is all.

[TruthIsAll]

22. Why do you keep repeating: "the polls were wrong" if you don't mean it?

You say:
By "polls were wrong" I mean that they did not match the count. That is all. They were wrong. Why were they wrong? Was it because the count did not reflect people's votes? Or was it because the poll did not reflect people's votes?

Me:
Why don't you say "the votes were wrong"?

Better still: why don't you just say "the discrepancy between the vote count and the polls"?

I have read your paper. I hope you have read my posts. Although you claim not to know whether or not RBR is a reality, you also say that you strongly believe it is. I have seen no factual basis for that belief.

[Febble]

23. I've stopped saying it.

because it clearly winds you up.

And I frequently do say "the disrepancy between yadda yadda". Sometimes my fingers get tired. I am analysing something called "ERROR". In stats it is not a loaded term, on DU it clearly is. I'm learning.

Of course I don't know whether rBr is a reality. It's a hypothesis, like fraud. I'm a scientist. I test hypotheses.

E-M tested rBr. The hypothesis was supported. They produced evidence.

But they need to redo their analyses because they used a poor variable. I will wait and see before I believe it. But I have good reason to believe that the relevant evidence was unlikely to be greatly affected by the WPE problem as there is no reason to suppose that the relevant precinct characteristics were confounded with vote margin. If they are, reanalysis may come up with a different answer. If I had to back a hunch, I'd say that the odds are that the answer will be the same. But I'm happy to wait. A slightly flawed analysis supports rBr. A less flawed analysis may not, but probably will.

Thankyou for reading my paper. I have not followed all your links. but I have read your posts.

[TruthIsAll]

15. FEBBLE, AS FOR THOSE FINAL PRE-ELECTION POLLS....

You may want to look at this simulation..
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/

[tunesmith]

17. election model

There are lots of election models. They all say different things. Most of the wrong ones depend on the "undecideds break towards challenger" thing. They didn't this time, because of the cultural hot button issues and the fear/war stuff.

I ran a model myself. It uses ALL the polls from electoral-vote.com, for the last two months of the campaign. They used registered-voter numbers only (not "likely voters"). It split them out by state. It calculated how much support each candidate had in each state, in terms of the electoral votes for that state. It approximated each candidate's raw electoral power. I supported Dean, then Clark, then Edwards, then Kerry. I worked hard for Democrats. So I'm not some GOP plant coming in running interference. But when I ran the numbers (unfortunately only in hindsight) I saw that Bush had the advantage. He just had more support. Kerry came close during the debates, but it all fell away when the debates were over.

It's hard to explain, but here it is in short: Kerry's strategy was to get most of the swing states. Swing states are, by definition, close states. When they're close enough, they're basically 50/50. When something's 50/50, its outcome is determined by pretty crazy factors. Anything can make it go one way or the other. The weather, a small flu outbreak, some small potatoes operative trying to game the system (like in Ohio). It's basically random. So when you've got something that is random, pinning your strategy on getting more than half of them is pretty stupid. As it turned out, Kerry actually beat the odds. He got six out of the top ten swing states. If he had gotten Ohio, he would have had seven out of ten. He almost got lightning to strike, but it wasn't quite enough.

I respect people trying to dig into the whole fraud and suppression angles. We need major improvement. But we can't get so wrapped up in this that we neglect doing work to build liberal/progressive values and creating more Democrats. The truth is that in 2004, we honestly did not have enough people intending to vote for us. Not even close. Kerry winning from a flip of 60,000 voters in Ohio would have been a statistical fluke. The national support levels were very weighted towards Bush, by millions. If you want to believe fraud explains *that* large of a gap, I can't stop you, but there's no way we'd be able to fix *that* much by 2004. We simply need more Democrats.

[Bill Bored]

18. IA, NM and NV were decided by less than 40,000 votes total.

The EC would have been a tie if Kerry had won those 3 states. That's only a 20,000 vote swing. Fraud could have easily been perpetrated in states that close. Even some small errors in the machine configurations or the voting instructions could have affected the outcomes there.

[tunesmith]

19. Sure, but...

Wisconsin and New Hampshire were decided by just over 20,000 votes. A 10,000 vote swing would have been enough for Bush to win them.

Anyway, the point of my model was that tiny vote swings of less than 100,000 votes don't change the fact that Bush had a lot more sincere support than Kerry did. To get Iowa, NM, and NV means that Kerry would have gotten something like nine of the ten closest states.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tunesmith]

24. what?

I don't actually understand your comment. My model has nothing to do with exit polls. It has to do with the hundreds of telephone polls taken in various states the two months before the election. I sorted them by the day the questions were being asked. I see your graph, but I don't see the numbers it is based off of. I simply took all state polls that were included on electoral-vote.com . Using that, Bush had a consistent lead of "raw electoral power".

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

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[tunesmith]

27. I just got tsked.

No, seriously, I understand that. I just don't see the relevance to what I was writing about. I wasn't talking about exit polls at all. I analyze pre-election polls (not exit polls), determine likely EV outcome, and it turned out that the election result basically tracked with what the polls said. We're probably arguing apples and oranges here.

[tunesmith]

28. by the way

I'm more curious where his pre-11/2 polling numbers come from. If he's using *national* poll numbers, I don't see how he can properly weight them by state. I actually used state polls. (See my below comment.)

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tunesmith]

32. relevance

The relevant part of my point is: You can't fix the pre-election "registered voter" polls, not all of them. So, if the final election results correspond to what the pre-election polls say, then there's less reason to see the final election results as being out of whack. The final election results did correspond to what the pre-election polls said. So, the odd man out is the exit polls. No, I'm not claiming to prove that the exit polls were wrong. But it does prove that it's not true that all evidence points to the exit polls being RIGHT and the vote count WRONG. So someone else's per-state model based off of exit polls doesn't really prove anything if it's based off of wrong exit polls. Anyway, the main reason I jumped in is because someone mentioned a per-state electoral vote model, and I wanted to make the point that there were a lot of those things. If his is the only one that is based off the exit polls, then... that's interesting, but it doesn't really show anything other than another way to illustrate how much the exit poll data didn't match up to the final result. It doesn't necessarily suggest vote fraud.

The corollary to *my* point is that if you went by straight democratic intent, I think more "electoral votes worth of people" (people weighted by their electoral power) intended to vote for Bush. It very well could have been possible that Kerry might have won in a clean election, due to a statistical fluke with how the E.C. was set up, but it still would have been a fluke. A welcome fluke, but a fluke. Not something to count on for future elections.

Anyway, I don't say that to be a troll. My main agenda is simply to remind folks that we need more Democrats. The vote reform stuff is worthwhile, but it's not sufficient to win future elections by itself.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tunesmith]

39. hopeless

If I can't figure out what that means, maybe the problem is that you're being incoherent. 13,047? 13,660? WTF? What kind of numerology is that?

As for the polls, I took all the polls from electoral-vote.com and sorted them by the day the questions were being asked. State polls. National polls were irrelevant to me because there isn't a reliable way to weigh them by state. And what can I say, when I did that for *all* the state polls, I had Bush with more raw support. Now, it's possible that in the last couple of days, the polls might have had Kerry ahead just a tiny tiny amount in the vast majority of the swing states. But they were going back and forth all over the place. If you'd like, give me a state and I'll tell you what the various polls said for that state over the last couple of days before the election.

Yeah, I understand there were pre-weighted exit polls that don't match the final count, and post-weighted exit polls that do match the final count, and that the pre-weighted exit polls don't match the post-weighted exit polls. I'm saying that from what I saw, the survey polling (not the exit polling) suggested a general level of support for Bush and Kerry that was reflected in the election result.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

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[tunesmith]

44. hmmm

huh. I wonder what that was all about. I didn't read it in time.

[TruthIsAll]

53. 13047 and 13660 are incoherent to you because you have not

a clue about the National Exit Poll Timeline:

Nov 3:
12:22am 13047 respondents: Kerry leading 51-48
1:25pm final 13660 respondents: Bush 51-48.

How do you go from 51%-48% of 13047 to 48%-51% after just 613 additional respondents?

Go ahead, tune.
Do the math.

We already know you are uninformed.
But we will assume you passed 9th grade algebra.

How many of the final 613 did Bush need to go from 48% to 51%?

[tunesmith]

56. that doesn't mean what you think it means.

The 13,047 respondents are not guaranteed to be perfectly representative of the voting population as a whole. I would assume your second number is after the exit poll numbers were properly reweighted by the actual vote totals.

When they say that 13,047 respondents imply Kerry leading 51-48, that does not literally mean that 51% of the 13,047 respondents said "Kerry!" and that later on 48% of the 13,660 respondents said "Kerry!" The switch does not literally mean that 613 additional respondents all said "Bush!" and that another ~100 respondents mysteriously had their answers fraudulently switched. This is not like telephone surveys. You do understand that the final exit poll numbers are *supposed* to be corrected by the vote results, don't you?

Again, look at the laugh test. You're saying that in the national result, 51% of the people intended to vote for Kerry, but that the final results had him only getting 48% of the vote. That is a fraud of millions of votes. Do you really expect to make the case that there were around four million votes fraudulently switched, with *no* smoking guns or proof or witnesses?

You've definitely uncovered a real gem of a stat that illustrates a problem. Unfortunately, it's only an illustration of how much you don't understand the subject material.

Now, I'm not as much of an expert as Febble and the others. But I know that you're focusing on some pretty silly assumptions. If you want to get educated, go hang out at mysterypollster and try to follow along.

[TruthIsAll]

57. It is a waste of time to respond further to you. You will not find ONE

DUer who will agree with your post.

KNOW THIS: FEBBLE SAID SHE AGREES WITH MY ANALYSIS.

NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?

[Febble]

59. Which analysis?

I agree that the final numbers represent a re-weighting.

Even if I didn't know they did, it is obvious from the math. If they represented new samples the between sample variance would swamp the within sample variance, and the MoE would go through the roof. But I think this is what Tunesmith was saying.

I also agree that discrepancy between the exit polls and the count was massive and signifant (and massively significant).

[TruthIsAll]

60. See post # 58

/

[TruthIsAll]

62. Febble, would you comment on these two issues?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x366334

and this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x365678

[tunesmith]

64. sure

Sure, I'd agree with that. (Hi Febble!)

[TruthIsAll]

58. About the 13047, I never claimed it was a literal 51-48%

The various demographics are weighted and produce virtually identical 51-48% results.

Read this about regional/state weighting:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x362106

Read this about Ohio exit poll weighting:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x364450


Read this about gender weighting:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x364702

[TruthIsAll]

61. When I posted about the additional 613 of course

I knew that they were not just added 100% for Bush. I was trying to make a point, you took it the wrong way.

I have pointed out numerous times in my posts that the weights were changed dramatically from the 13047 respondents to the 13660 Final.

You have not been paying attention.

For example, Party ID:
The 13047 respondent mix was 38% Dem/35% Rep/27% Ind. It became 37/37/26 in the Final 13660. Do you believe that?

The weights were 39/35/26 in the prior three elections. I suppose you will say that there were all these new Rep voters, right? Wrong. The Exit polls said 57%-41% of new voters went for Kerry.
Do the math: Kerry 51-48%

The most prominent weighting: How voted in 2000.
Bush went from 41% to 43%. Do you believe that?

If you do, you also must believe that there were 2 million phantom Bush voters since he had 50.456 mm votes in 2000- and 43% would mean he had 52.57mm. And don't forget the 1.75mm Bush 2000 voters who died.

So as I have said many times before, the Bush weight had to be under 39.8%, which means the Gore weight was 40%, which means that Kerry won by better than 52-47% or 6+ million votes.

Would you care to do the math? I did check the post.

Finally, the Gender weights:
Stayed constant at 54% Female/46% male. But Kerry's Female vote went from 54% to 51%. You believe that?

Do the math.

Kerry = .54*.54+.47*.46 =50.78%
Bush =.46*.54+.52*.46 = 48.76%

[tunesmith]

65. bush voters

Why do you discount the possibility of the "phantom" Bush voters? Sounds like your entire theory depends on the "phantom" bush voters being an absurd proposition. When actually, it's common knowledge that Bush turnout in 2000 was very poor, that the GOP turnout gains were dramatic for 2004, and that there were a *huge* amount of Bush voters that were long-registered as Republican but did not vote in 2000. Those voters would not have been counted as "new" voters. It's his evangelical base, there were a ton of them.

By the way, are you saying that *Gore's* female vote was 54% and Kerry's was 51%? I'd buy that, 9/11 freaked out a lot of soccer moms.

We could probably have a much more responsible debate without all your snide comments. Do you have any idea how that really comes across? Do you actually think it humiliates me or something? Sorry for flustering you so much, but enough time has passed since the election that you really should go back and take a more sober look at everything. You'll see that you're mostly on the right track with the evidence you've gathered, and that it's just your conclusions that are out of whack. Yes, the final count and the exit polls did not align with each other. But we have no clue how much exit poll error accounted for that. Febble came up with a way to test that if it were applied to the raw data, which we don't have access to. Once that's tested, we'll have an indication of how much variance is left over, and we'll have a better idea of if that variance actually suggests fraud.

(That's how I take it, anyway - Febble, sorry if I'm grossly mischaracterizing your efforts. Like I said, I'm not an expert compared to you.)

[Febble]

66. You are doing just great, Tunesmith

That is exactly what I am proposing.

And a side note: we had our general election yesterday. The exit polls were pretty spot on. We have a very transparent and accuarate counting system and no history of fraud. The count is publicly scrutinised, the results are agreed by all candidates before being announced, and the Returning Officer lists every candidate's vote numbers, and every single spoiled or rejected vote (very few - a handful).

Now, before TIA jumps on this as evidence that polls are accurate when counts are accurate, note this:

Up until 1992 exit polls were not accurate. They tended to substantially overstate the Labour vote. Because there is absolutely no evidence for anything other than the most trivial fraud (and that is mainly students voting both at home and at uni, which is difficult as students tend to go away to school, and in any case it is likely to inflate the Labour vote rather than the Labour poll, students in general being a Labour demographic) it was simply assumed that this was because of "shy conservatives". Finally, in 1992 we had our "2004". Exit polls were substantially wrong, predicting a Labour majority in a hung parliament. In fact the Tories got a small working majority.

Since then pollsters have included a weighting to compensate for the tendency of conservatives to refuse to participate (or to lie). And since then the polls have been pretty well spot on.

Whether you can generalise from the UK to the US may be moot, but you can't take the accuracy of UK exit polls as evidence that shy conservatives don't exist. It's because the pollsters now allow for their existence that our polls now tend to match the count.

[TruthIsAll]

30. Obviously, you did not view the site. If you did, you would

see that there are two models - a National Popular Vote Model based on 18 National Polls and a State Popular/Electoral Vote Model based on final state polls (Monte Carlo simulation).

They both projected that Kerry would win with 51-52% of the vote.

Now go back and view the FULL analysis.

[tunesmith]

31. where?

seriously. I went to both links and I see no mention of "monte carlo". There's the home page, and then the link to the cnn exit polls.

[TruthIsAll]

34. Here

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

[tunesmith]

41. ok

Ok, thanks.

You don't make your data set available for the state polls. And, the undecideds didn't break for Kerry. That thing about undecideds going for the challenger is just a rule of thumb, not a physical rule. There haven't been many presidential elections - the sample size is small. And presidential election rules are different than for other offices. Part of the reason people break for challengers is because they are the unknown, which sounds better than the known they don't like. But in presidential elections, they're both pretty known by election day. Plus, we were in wartime (Kerry didn't contest that), Bush was playing the fear card, Bush was playing the cultural hot button "icky gays" card. It's reasonable to conclude that all that combined was enough to invalidate the "undecideds break for challenger" rule.

I think the Monte Carlo technique is pretty nifty - you put in a bunch of probabilities, run a scenario many times, and see how many times certain results come out. I doubt there's a problem with how you coded up the simulation. But there's a lot of room for there to be problems with your inputs (the probability of Kerry winning each state as of 11/2). Did you only pick certain polls for each state?

Here's something I found regarding the polls. The Kerry friendly polls would often report their results very quickly. And then a couple of days later, other polls would be released - for the same questioning period - showing a tighter result, or Bush ahead. So this means that the "freshest polls" - the ones that just came out for a very recent time period - tended to show Kerry ahead. I don't know why, but I saw that pattern a lot. That's just to say that it was very possible to unwittingly cherry-pick data, as electoral-vote.com did in its analysis. If the input data is cherry-picked, then the input data is flawed, which basically makes the whole rest of the analysis invalid.

I'm not a stats expert like Febble so I'm not going to tear apart your site on statistical grounds. But my god, a 99.8% probability of winning a 51.8% popular vote? That just doesn't even pass the laugh test. That's basically saying that 3.7 million Kerry voters had their votes switched to Bush. When I'm faced with the choice between concluding that 3.7 million Kerry voters had their votes switched, and concluding that your analysis might be "off" somewhere, I'm sorry, but I'm going to think the faulty analysis is more likely.

[TruthIsAll]

21. Your argument is totally bogus. You have no clue about the numbers.

"So I'm not some GOP plant coming in running interference. But when I ran the numbers (unfortunately only in hindsight) I saw that Bush had the advantage. He just had more support. Kerry came close during the debates, but it all fell away when the debates were over".

"He just had more support. Kerry came close during the debates, but it all fell away when the debates were over".

If you worked so hard for Kerry, you would know that there were 22 million new voters, and 13 million were Kerry voters. You would also know that of the 3 million Nader 2000 voters, Kerry got over 70%.

If you knew about the pre-election polls matching the exit polls, you would know a lot more than you do now. Or do you already know?

You claim to be a Democrat?

Right. Like I'm a Neocon.

[tunesmith]

26. heh

I'm tunesmith over on dailykos, go check my diaries. Democrat. I love how you call me a plant just because I don't write what you want.

So, tell me about the "pre-election polls matching the exit polls". What do you mean by that? I'm just saying that the pre-election polls show a large electoral college advantage for Bush by election day.

If by "new voters" you mean new registered voters, your numbers sound about right. But it doesn't account for the millions of previously registered Republicans who had not voted in previous elections, but turned out in force for Bush.

My theory is basically this. If you take each candidate's percentage support in each state, and award the electoral votes *proportionally*, you get an idea of how much raw electoral power each candidate has nationwide.

That's of course not how the electoral college works. The differences are that most of the states are winner-take-all, and that a loser's turnout can be depressed in "safe" states. Those are the inequities of the E.C. system.

But on average, the E.C. would approach the proportional results. It turns out that in close elections, those inequities pretty much cancel out. It happens for both candidates. In both 2000 and 2004 (I haven't done it for other elections), the "proportional" EVs are pretty darn close to the actual result.

If there is a bias to the proportional model, it's actually a Democratic bias, because the small states give Republicans a built-in inequity bias.

So, what happened was that before election day, Bush had about 263 solid "raw electoral votes", and Kerry had about 247. Kerry could have won by having the E.C. inequities break in his favor (winning almost all the winner-take-all close states), or by having the undecideds break for him by a *lot*, which didn't happen.

Kerry actually *did* beat the system a bit - he got six out of the ten closest states. He just needed to get more than that.

I don't think that *all* the state polls would have been fixed.

[autorank]

35. tunesmith, Could you answer a few questions. It's like a poll.

How about commenting on these to give us an idea of where you stand on the issue of election fraud:
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is my indisputable series of proofs regarding election fraud.

If there were no tricks with the National Exit Polls, why isn't the raw data revealed for comprehensive examination. (The dada has not been made available.)

Comment:
---
If there were no fraudulent acts in Ohio, the entire process would have been made transparent from pre election planning, election procedures, and post election analysis. (The Secretary of State and other officials fight supponeas from their state courts and nobody gives much of anything up with out a fight.)

Comment:
---
If there were no problems with voting machines, tabulators, etc., the software and procedures, the personnel involved, and the entire process would be open to all for examination.

Comment:
---
And, if a real recount could clear our suspicions, then the odious Gov. Richardson of the small state of New Mexico would not have squashed the recount there by trying to extort a $1.5 million fee from those requesting the recount. (WTF?)

Comment:

This is all you need to know that the election was stolen through fraud.

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

You don't have to say what I want to hear to establish bona fides on electoin fraud, just give me an idea where you stand on these questions. I think that they are essential.

This election was rotten from the minute the Republicans started their push in Ohio. Something has to be done about it. The statistical proofs offered here by TIA and those of others are a critical step. There are other questions like these. Democrats don't stand a chance unless the get off their asses and fight back.
:hi:

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[autorank]

37. Thanks!!!I'll incorporate that into my lithiums test. & check the thread.

[tunesmith]

40. yeah

things were all kinds of messed up in Ohio. We basically were at a huge disadvantage in Ohio the minute the Dem leadership decided not to press the issue, before the election, regarding the per-precinct (versus per-county) counting of the provisionals. What's sad is that I think a lot of the screaming about the exit poll stuff actually took oxygen away from protesting the vote suppression stuff in Ohio. There should have been widespread visible protests about it, starting on election day. The recount was a sham, too. And I don't know for sure but I think they kept the ballots from being preserved so they couldn't be impartially examined later (like they did with the florida 2000 ballots).

[tunesmith]

38. answer

<i>If there were no tricks with the National Exit Polls, why isn't the raw data revealed for comprehensive examination. (The data has not been made available.)</i>

I actually have an answer to this. The reason some of their methodology is private and proprietary is because if they made it public, it would make it easier for political operatives to game the precincts in future elections, corrupting the exit polling results further. In other words, it's sort of security through obfuscation - part of the validity of their techniques depend on people not knowing what their techniques are.

That's what they say. I'm sure most of you think it's bull. I don't know if it's bull or not. I just feel like the cat's out of the bag already, the damage has been done. I'd like them to release the data anyway.

[autorank]

43. My response to your answer; remaining three questions.

I askedIf there were no tricks with the National Exit Polls, why isn't the raw data revealed for comprehensive examination. (The data has not been made available.)</i>

You responded: I actually have an answer to this. The reason some of their methodology is private and proprietary is because if they made it public, it would make it easier for political operatives to game the precincts in future elections, corrupting the exit polling results further.

Well, the NEP's are pretty important data. There is an over riding public interest to have professionals selected by the candidates and perhaps a court master examine this data because there is a prima fascia case for fraud period. Stealing proprietary secrets to game future elections does not answer the gaming of this election! This issue is what happened now to the nation, not what might be done. I further suggest that knowing the techniques would provide more protection since people would know how it could be gamed, a few people, not everybody. This is an answer that fails to address now--what happened in 2004, therefore it begs the question.

Additionally, let me say one word UKRAINE. What if the pollsters said, oh, we can't reveal what we did because people might steal an election in the future. People would have been furious. If exit polls can be used to discover fraud in the Ukraine, why not here? Because the fraud would be discovered, I assert.
----------------------

What about my other three questions. They're not numbers questions, just serious issues that all point to election fraud on a national scale.. If question 1 can be examined and answered and the other three as well, plus the TIA challenges, then we're partially on the way to accepting the outcome.

The fact that nobody is trying to answer these questions or that the answers are entirely inadequate (protecting future elections by forgoing the analysis of this one as you answered) makes me convinced that this election stinks to high heaven.


Remaining questions

If there were no fraudulent acts in Ohio, the entire process would have been made transparent from pre election planning, election procedures, and post election analysis. (The Secretary of State and other officials fight subpoenas from their state courts and nobody gives much of anything up with out a fight.)

---
If there were no problems with voting machines, tabulators, etc., the software and procedures, the personnel involved, and the entire process would be open to all for examination.

---
And, if a real recount could clear our suspicions, then the odious Gov. Richardson of the small state of New Mexico would not have squashed the recount there by trying to extort a $1.5 million fee from those requesting the recount. (WTF?)

[tunesmith]

45. answers

I didn't answer immediately because they weren't really questions. I guess you could phrase them as questions like:

1. Are there any reasons other than fraud to have election planning, procedures, and analysis be other than entirely transparent?

2. Are there any reasons other than "hiding problems" for vote machines, tabulators, software, procedures, personnel, and process to not be open for examination to all?

3. Was there any reason other than protecting a conspiracy for Gov. Richardson to require $1.5 million from those requesting a recount?

So, answers:

1. Yeah, I think there are plenty of other reasons - people probably want to cover up various embarrassing or incompetent misbehavior that might not have risen to the level of fraud. Or it could just be cultural - resistance to change. The way they've always done things. Etc, etc. Some of it might be wanting to protect honest election workers from the hysteria of people who are convinced there is a problem where there isn't one. And, in some cases, I'm sure that they are trying to cover up fraud. All in all, I'm in favor of greater transparency. I don't believe that opaque procedures prove fraud though. Sometimes, where there's smoke, there's just a guy smoking a pipe.

2. This one is more aligned with how I think. I definitely think all voting machines should have their code, implementation, and innards available for public inspection. Certain companies supplying vote technology might have intellectual property reasons to keep their functionality proprietary and trade-secret, the answer there is to NOT USE THEM FOR PUBLIC ELECTIONS. I think that there should be a national website up to track elections of sec-of-state offices, and keep them democratic.

3. I don't know much about NM. I do know that overturning the NM results would not have changed the E.C. results. Those that are overly pragmatic could have used that as justification to not use 1.5 million of state funds. I disagree with it, because I think the principle is more important in this case. But I don't think that it's proof of fraud. It might just be proof of someone having the wrong priorities and being a weak leader. I do think there was some pretty wacky stuff going on in NM though.

[autorank]

49. Now we're getting somewhere. Finally, someone answers the ?'s

Allrighty then...my comment on your comments...

1. Yeah, I think there are plenty of other reasons - people probably want to cover up various embarrassing or incompetent misbehavior that might not have risen to the level of fraud.Or illegal behavior that was fraud. Or it could just be cultural - resistance to change. The way they've always done things.Like declaring a national security emergency in that rural county when Homeland/FBI had no awareness of it. People are more than happy to defend their customs, even if they're deplorable to others. Etc, etc. Some of it might be wanting to protect honest election workers from the hysteria of people who are convinced there is a problem where there isn't one.Nah And, in some cases, I'm sure that they are trying to cover up fraud.Exactly my point! All in all, I'm in favor of greater transparency. I don't believe that opaque procedures prove fraud though.Neither do I, however, it's more than opaque procedures. The pattern of opaque procedures justifies an investigation, robust, of fraud. Sometimes, where there's smoke, there's just a guy smoking a pipe.Right and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar BUT Ohio, on it's own, was so replete with questionable dealings, it alone justifies suspicion leading to an investigation.

2. This one is more aligned with how I think. I definitely think all voting machines should have their code, implementation, and innards available for public inspection. Certain companies supplying vote technology might have intellectual property reasons to keep their functionality proprietary and trade-secret, the answer there is to NOT USE THEM FOR PUBLIC ELECTIONS. I think that there should be a national website up to track elections of sec-of-state offices, and keep them democratic.Amen to all of that...one more thing, PAPER BALLOTS. If it's good enough for Canada, it's good enough for us...and it's a written record.

3. I don't know much about NM. I do know that overturning the NM results would not have changed the E.C. results. Those that are overly pragmatic could have used that as justification to not use 1.5 million of state funds. I disagree with it, because I think the principle is more important in this case. But I don't think that it's proof of fraud. It might just be proof of someone having the wrong priorities and being a weak leader. I do think there was some pretty wacky stuff going on in NM though.Bear with me on this. These are good speculations in the absence of knowledge of the situation. I spoke to and heard speak NM voting rights advocates at the 1/6/2005 Rally and march on the Senate. There were compelling reasons to look into this, very seriously, and a recount would have settled many questions. Richardson shut this down quickly and forcefully in the face of strong reasons to pursue it. How? $1.5 million. He should never be our candidate for anything as he opposes the search for truth and is intellectually dishonest. I'll find you some links and send them to you. This was stunning.

And, then there is the Ukraine...Lugar and other US representatives were there screaming about election fraud based on the EXIT POLLS. Donnez moi a break Lugar et al! This is a variation on "The Dog that Didn't Bark!" Exit polling is the dog. It barked viciously in the Ukraine but nary a whimper in the US of A. I'm happy for the Ukraine but this is where we live. Let's do some barking

[FogerRox]

47. I almost forgot the Ukraine

Who did the exit polling in the ukraine? same guy that did the USA 04 pres. election exit polling >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm ok.

[FogerRox]

46. I have had conversations with 2 in the Kerry Edwards field operations

And what you are saying: I cannot agree with.
ANd David Navarro
ANd Ted Carter. Dont either.

In sept--fraud was the #1 ONE concern of a certain unamed Individual, who recruited me for Broward county.

[autorank]

48. Good for you. Thanks for bringing this up!

[FogerRox]

50. Hey I was just a lowly assistant field coordinator

at 6317 Miramar Pkwy, Miramar FLorida.

I drive a taxi here in NJ. I drove this guy from Seton hall U to the local AMtrack station. 20 minute drive --we talk-- he gives me his cell # tells me to come down and work for him in FL.

LOL SO I did. The last thing we talked about was the legal contigency fund. His last comment to me was--"If its a fair election"

[autorank]

52. Great story, I'm even more impressed!

[FogerRox]

54. thanks--and now its gets freaky

I spent 13 years in the golf course bizz--Rutgers grad turf management--I'm no longer in that field but

1992--I'm at a CLinton $100 a plate dinner----room is full of Law students--law professors and lawyers.

A conversation is started about the B-1 Bomber and Military spending. This is a topic where I know my shit--

SO I explain "why" the B-1 SUCKS wind and crashes in a 15 minute disseration. Most of the room starts to listen--the circle of folks grows to be 4-5 deep--I start using a louder voice-- a stage voice.

They suck it up-- after wards 15 peole came up to me and asked me "SO what firm are you with?" LOL-- I work on a golf course----LOL. Any way this guy talks to me about- would consider a life in Politics? I say no--I'm in the maintenence end of the GOlf Course bizz.

NOw ---12 years later --i'm driving a cab---he gets into my cab--

We talk and offers me a job in FL---in the Kerry campaign--

HOw many times in life does a person get that 2nd chance---12 years later. Needless to say This time I took him up on the offer.---LOL

By the way that guy was Clinton's National director of field operations in the 96 campaign.

[mgr]

51. Kerry personally addressed the undecided movement

I can't give the source, but it was to the tune of our polling was showing movement until it went flat with the OBL rant was released.

Mike

[Peace Patriot]

55. There MIGHT HAVE BEEN RBRs, but there MIGHT ALSO have been RRRKs...

...RRRKs = Reluctant Republican Responders who voted for Kerry.

I've been working on Calif. election numbers and have found a bizarre discrepancy between the vote for liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer (for senate) and the vote for Kerry--favoring Boxer-- and concentrated in the most conservative areas of the state (very rightwing rural Republican counties, and all majority Republican counties). Boxer did much better than Kerry in these Republican strongholds. It makes no political sense.

But what DOES make sense is that Bush Cartel election fraudsters would feel safest stealing votes from Kerry in Republican strongholds, to help pad Bush's national popular majority, AND that Republicans and others voting for Kerry in these Calif counties where the rightwing, white, "Christian," gun-nut minority has seized control, would be reluctant to admit such a vote to anyone.

I had a friend in close contact with a bunch of wealthy elderly retirees in San Diego (typical Republicans) before the election. They all thought Bush was "nuts" (their word). And they totally opposed the Iraq war. Anecdotal--but still, evidence that California's traditionally centrist Republicans were not at all happy with Bush. I don't know how they voted, nor whether or not they were RRRKs. I'm just saying that their opinions surprised the hell out of me. Looking at it from the outside, I would have picked that San Diego rich Republican condo complex as a Bush haven, and it was very decidedly not.

I believe that Arnebeck has evidence of vote stealing from Kerry in Republican areas in Ohio. I heard him mention it in a radio interview. He is a Republican himself. I believe he also said that Republican precincts would be the easiest places (least noticeable) to steal Kerry votes.

I think the most important fact about the exit polls, however, is that the TV networks withheld the true result from the American people--and in fact gave them DOCTORED information--late in the day, they "adjusted" the exit polls to fit the official result. They thus denied the American people major evidence of election fraud.

Perhaps equally important is that the official result was skewed to Bush in very weird ways, vs. the exit polls (from east to west, and most prominent in the battleground states he needed to win). And, in ADDITION, Kerry won the exit polls overall. If there were something wrong with the exit polls--a bias to Kerry--why wouldn't it show up more or less evenly across the nation? Why would there be these lumps in the chart, with the vote veering off toward Bush just where and when he needed it to?

That's the red flag, it seems to me--along with the TV networks CHANGING the data to fit a Bush result (and then backfilling and lying and inventing theories, and STILL, to this day, withholding the raw polling data).

One final nail in the Bush Cartel's election fraud coffin is that they deliberately SET UP an extremely insecure, hackable, fraud-prone election SYSTEM. They and their electronic voting machine company donors fought every verification measure.

If they had wanted a transparent election, why didn't we have one?

The fact that we cannot recount one third of the nation's vote (no paper trail), and that the Bush Cartel was singularly responsible for this lack of verifiability, should tell you something.

AND Kerry won the exit polls. AND the Bush lapdog news monopolies ALTERED the exit polls to match the supposed official results in a way that is impossible. AND Bush Cartel operatives (showing their intent to defraud) committed major violations of the Voting Rights Act against minority and other Democratic voters in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere.

The exit polls and the various analyses of the exit polls do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in a context of massive lying, massive theft and mass murder in Iraq. They also exist in a context of massive and growing evidence that Bush does not represent a majority of Americans (numerous opinion polls showing disapproval of all major Bush policies, foreign and domestic, up in the 60% to 70% range--and unprecedented lack of approval for Bush himself).

I've read all of the exit poll analyses--pro and con--and I think TIA presents irrefutable arguments that the official tally was wrong and the exit polls were right (Kerry won). And when you add up all the evidence (including, for instance, the Democratic success in new voter registration in 2004--nearly 60/40), I think he won big.

But that is not my main point here. My point is that the exit polls merely TEND TO CONFIRM a mountain of other evidence that the will of the majority of Americans is not being done, and has been, and is being, quite deliberately thwarted. And I think that the intent to defraud, and the likelihood of fraud, must be brought into this discussion. The exit polls are merely one inferential tool, used worldwide to detect election fraud especially in situations in which the powers-that-be control the election machinery.

Well, look at this election, and ask, who controlled the vote count? And then ask why a major tool for gathering inferential evidence of fraud was deliberately polluted with the official data to make the official data SEEM right.

That's where you have to start--not with one inferential tool but rather with the preponderance of the evidence.

[autorank]

63. "Reading" does not equal understanding.