Nate's Big Mistake.

[garybeck]

Nate Silver, 11/3/2012:

"we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him."

Nate is wrong.

If the polls indicate a clear Obama victory and Romney wins, one possibility is the polls are biased, but it is NOT the only possibility.

When polls don't match the election results, another possibility is fraud. It is extremely shortsighted to ignore the documented and organized voter intimidation. There is also the invisible unknown factor of the possible manipulation of the roughly 90% of votes that are cast on electronic voting machines.

We have seen multiple cases of voter registrations being destroyed systematically.

We have seen voter intimidation on billboards and postal mailings, designed to scare legal voters from voting.

We have seen long lines at the polls that can prevent people from voting who planned to.

We have seen countless computer security experts demonstrate how electronic voting machines (both the touchscreen and the optical scanners) can be used to alter election results. We have seen the Ohio Secretary of State install an allegedly unauthorized "patch" on the machines.

All these things would directly contribute to discrepancies between the polls and the "official" election results.


We have seen this before. In previous elections the polls differed from the official result. We were told the polls were skewed. We were told a huge wave of "evangelical christians" came out to vote unexpectedly.

Pollsters like Nate just don't get it. They believe in their polls, as they should. But when the rubber hits the road, and their polls are different from the election results, they whimp out and they say their polls were wrong.

It's a cop out to blame it on the polls and just say they were wrong (again).

When the polls are different from results, it's a red flag. It's a warning sign that something is wrong. When this happens we shouldn't just assume it was bad polling. We should look for possible reasons for the difference.

One possible reason is bad polling.

But another possible reason, which Nate Silver completely ignores, is election fraud.

In my book, if Romney wins, it won't indicate skewed polling. Election fraud is more likely the reason.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. I think we KNOW there IS fraud..the question is can they get away with enough?

Thinking that the polling indicates it would be tough for them...hoping, more like. But this shit has got to stop!

[garybeck]

2. Some of us do... but not enough of us... and

Nate Silver going on TV and saying the only reason the polls could be off is because of bad polling ISN'T HELPING!

[InsultComicDog]

3. Nate is not a pollster

He is a statistician. He takes published polls and puts them together to try to get the big picture.

I think there is always some probability that something is not right, either with accuracy of the polls or with the integrity of the process, or but Nate's model can only use the context of what is likely to happen based on what has happened before.

[garybeck]

6. Nate's title or job description is not the subject of this thread. Thanks though.

The entire country is listening to every word he says.

when he says that if the polls are wrong, it can only be because of bad polling, that is an inaccurate statement.

It doesn't matter if he's conducting the polls or reading them. What matters is that he's an expert on polls and he reads all of them and he is attempting to explain why the polls could be wrong, and frankly HE is wrong because he only gives one possible explanation as to why the polls could be wrong.

[amborin]

14. not to split hairs,

But the polls wouldn't be wrong if a Romney win occurred through fraud.

The polls could be wrong because they are systematically biased against Romney--which Nate Silver just said is further unlikely to be the case now that national polls also have Obama ahead-or because of the low response rate pollsters have been achieving (which could explain some of the bias).

Eta: there is ambiguity in the language. Nate Silver is correct that the polls can only be wrong due to systematic bias and low response rates.

You seem to be using the phrase 'the polls are wrong' to refer to any discrepancy between polling results and actual voting results.

It's true a discrepancy could result from other causes such as fraud, etc. But those are outside the purview of Nate's prediction model.

[garybeck]

15. "the polls wouldn't be wrong if a Romney win occurred through fraud"

yes they would.

if there is a discrepancy between independent polling and actual election results, one possibility is bad/skewed polling. another is fraud. that is how fraud would show up -- as a discrepancy between independent polling and official results. that's my point. Nate only offers one explanation for such a discrepancy, but there is more than one possible explanation.

[amborin]

16. sigh; no, they wouldn't;

if polling shows Obama ahead and actual election results show Romney wins, then there are two possibilities.
Bad polling, or fraud.

The point I keep trying to make is that if Romney wins due to fraud, this does not mean the polling was bad/skewed. It confirms that the polling was accurate/unbiased, but that fraud occurred during the voting process.

the point again is:

Romney win due to fraud = unbiased polling

Romney win not due to fraud = biased polling

[garybeck]

17. I think we're miscommunicating

you said

"if polling shows Obama ahead and actual election results show Romney wins, then there are two possibilities.
Bad polling, or fraud."

I think we also agree that if the polls pick Obama and Romney wins, it could be biased polling, fraud, or both.

if so, we agree 100%.

The point I was trying to make is that Nate Silver is missing the boat if he says biased polling is the only possible explanation.

[K-Matt]

4. Agreed

but this time, let's not just accept it!

[garybeck]

7. got any ideas?

it's tough when the mainstream media portrays anyone who mentions election fraud as a whacko conspiracy theorist.

I really thought we had it covered in 2004. We had good reporting. We had lawsuits. We had affidavits of people who saw ballots being tampered. We had clear violation of law. But we didn't get very far.

I hope I'm wrong but this time I'm jaded. I'd love to see people take to the streets, but even if they do, how does that get the election results changed? I just don't see a path to right the wrong, once it's done.

[questionseverything]

20. president obama simply needs to hand count the votes

in 04 kerry gave up while peops were still waiting in line to vote...potus just needs to pull a 'FRANKEN" and hand count the ballots ,

NO MATTER WHAT!

[KharmaTrain]

5. It's Time Someone Gets Nailed...

With all the games and suppression going on out there...and with so many eyes watching you'd think someone would have been caught if there is tampering going on. Bottom line is if there's ever to be a serious actions taken to prevent this kind of fraud someone needs to be caught. Yes, plenty of smoke out there...but more is needed if this issue is to be taken more seriously...there needs to be someone indicted and convicted of tampering and the method exposed. Without it, those who do tamper can and will do so and those who claim the actions are going on will be dismissed as "tin foil" hatters.

[dreamnightwind]

8. Thanks for making this an OP

He should indeed allow that the election integrity could be compromised. The more we make people aware of that possibility, the easier it should be to get people on board for a verifiable voting system.

[ecstatic]

9. Exactly. The MSM has already started trying to

shame us into submission with their segments about how partisan Americans have become and how both sides refuse to accept the legitimacy of presidents from opposing parties.

Except, we had good reason to reject a guy who was handed the presidency in 2000 due to the Supreme Court, and then 4 years later, handed the presidency because of 8-hour-long lines in Ohio.

Repugs reject Obama due to his race and fantasies about him not being American.

[Overseas]

10. K&R. Well said.

Here's a link to the Conyers Report on when such anomalies occurred before.

http://www.iwantmyvote.com/lib/downloads/references/house_judiciary/final_status_report.pdf

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. Actually Nate,...it's just the opposite....

The polls favor REPUBLICANS. That's why they use land lines and talk about "likely voters". Gallup ADMITTED the "likely voter" model basically is where you ASSUME Democrats don't vote so you toss a certain number of responses by Democrats.

Then there are the media run polls. The media that makes money if the race is tight. The media that sells ad time to the candidates and tells them WHERE to spend it.

Then there are all the attempts to suppress voter turnout. Keep as many people from voting as possible IN THE CITIES. The country folk that vote Republican? No problem, walk in, say, "Hi" to your neighbor, get handed a ballot and go behind the curtain and vote for Jesus sake Amen....

Then there are the e-voting machines which you have to live under a rock if you haven't seen Homer get sucked into a tube. Come on Nate, you deal in elections and NOBODY ever sent you that?

What happened Nate? Did Romney threaten you with a haircut?

[defacto7]

12. It would make total sense

that the rw and main network polls skew the result as far as possible. That's a good way to cover up fraud from the git go. If the polls are all over the place there's less of an argument for tampering. That's especially true if you leave no room for the fraud argument itself.

[discopants]

13. similar threats in 2008

Obama won 365 electoral votes and popular vote was 69,456,897 (52.9%)
Nate's prediction was almost spot on.

How did the fraud and vote flipping fuck up so badly then?

[allrevvedup]

18. Hell yes he's wrong

and I find it VERY hard to believe doesn't know damn well what's going on. What's he's saying is, if they get away with it, he isn't squealing. Thank Nate, you're a real company man. That's always been my impression of his Gravis poll aggregations frankly. Can't figure out why he gets so much love.

Anyway it's going to be a rough couple of days because even though I know and you know that BO has been turning out record crowds this last month, and even I voted three weeks early which is a personal record, it's also going to be a record season for fraud and voter caging. I'm already hearing tales from PA, OH and of course FL. Wish it weren't so, wish we were more ready, wish those puke governors hadn't slithered into office in 2010, but, well, I guess it's time to pray.

[questionseverything]

19. i so agree garybeck

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/final-forecast-the-2012-true-vote-election-fraud-model/