You always make the same fundamental mistake of using the corrupt RECORDED VOTE as a baseline in all your misrepresentations of the data.
You should be using VOTES CAST. But you don't because it destroys your case.
TIA had to do it for you.
Fact: There were 110.8 miilion votes CAST in 2000; only 105.4 million recorded
Fact: There were 125.7 miilion votes CAST in 2004; only 122.3 million recorded,
Fact: Gore and Kerry had a 70-80% share of the uncounted votes.
SO YOUR PREMISE IS WRONG ON ITS FACE! FALSE RECALL IS JUST FALSE FROM THE GET-GO.
Just to bring DUers up to speed, Mr. Other:
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/DebunkingElectionMyths.pdfA Graphic Debunking of Election Myths
TruthIsAll
ELECTION MYTHS
1 The recorded (official) vote is sacrosanct and equal to the True Vote.
2 Bush 48% approval is not a valid indicator that the election was stolen.
3 2004 pre-election polls did not match the exit polls.
4 2004 Election model projection assumptions were wrong.
5 Bush led the 2004 pre-election polls.
6 Exit polls are not random samples.
7 Reluctant Bush Responder (rBr) explains the 2004 exit poll discrepancies.
8 Bush won by increasing his vote share in Democratic strongholds (Urban Legend).
9 Swing vs. Red-shift: No correlation "kills the fraud argument".
10 False Recall explains the 43/37 Bush/Gore returning voter mix in the Final NEP.
11 Exit poll discrepancies were not due to voting machines/methods.
12 Assumptions used in calculating the True Vote were invalid.
13 Bush won the late voters the early exit polls missed.
14 Mid-term Generic polls are not a good predictor.
15 Hillary and Obama split the popular vote in the primaries.
16 Obama won by 9.5 million votes with a 52.9% share.
Let's take a look at myth #10 - your favorite.
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/FalseRecallPetard.htmFalse Vote Recall
In “Too Many Bush Voters? False Vote Recall and the 2004 Exit Polls”, Mark Lindeman writes:
“False vote recall complicates our analysis of partisan dynamics, and challenges some unconscious assumptions. Political observers rarely profess surprise that some respondents wrongly claim to have voted, but some find it strange that millions of voters might misreport – indeed, might forget – whom they voted for four years ago. I have not presented (or uncovered) systematic evidence about the mechanism behind false vote recall, but mere forgetfulness is not a bad account for respondents who (e.g.) report in 2000 that they voted for Gore, then report four years later that they had voted for Bush in 2000 but for Kerry in 2004.
No spiral of silence this: more like a slow-drifting fog. I am reminded of Larry Bartels’ (1996) conclusion that presidential incumbents derive approximately a five-point advantage from “information effects” (or, one might say, non-information effects) in the electorate. False vote recall favoring the previous winner is one distinctive manifestation of this incumbency advantage, although its practical importance is difficult to gauge – especially given the confounding influence of differential turnout.
George W. Bush evidently won in 2004 not by turning out a higher proportion of his 2000 supporters, but (inter alia) by winning the votes of millions of people whom, if asked, would not have recalled that they did not vote for him the first time around. The fraud theorists were right to infer that the previous-election tabulation could not mean what it said, and their account of it – a desperate attempt to paper over the evidence of a stolen election – has evident narrative appeal. On the evidence presented here, however, retrospective Bush bandwagoning is what we should have expected all along”.
No, what we should have expected all along was that the media would go to any extreme to cover up the 2004 election theft. Otherwise, endemic fraud that has permeated our elections for many years might also be uncovered.
False recall was based on an NES 600-sample survey. It compared the respondent’s recall of their past vote to the recorded vote. But there are millions of uncounted votes in every election. And we know that votes were miscounted and ballots stuffed (see Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004). By not considering total votes cast, “false recall” is based on the false premise that the recorded vote is identical to the True vote and that elections are fraud-free.
False recall was advanced immediately after the reluctant Bush responder (rBr) theory was thoroughly debunked. The exit poll naysayers could not provide a rational explanation for the Final 2004 National Exit Poll’s impossible returning Bush voter anomaly; they had to come up with another explanation. It was the equivalent of a “Hail Mary” pass; there was no other way to rebut the analysis of countless researchers that the 2004 exit polls provide overwhelming evidence that the election was stolen. Even assuming the unlikely scenario that a significant percentage of voters forgot their past vote, that does not explain why Gore voters would forget or misreport their vote at a much higher rate than Bush voters.
False recall was proposed to call into question the 2004 unadjusted and preliminary exit poll results. The media fiction was that Bush won the election fairly; it had to be maintained that the recorded vote sacrosanct. Of course they must have also considered that the discrepancy was due to massive fraud – but never dared mention it. Therefore, they had to claim that the unadjusted (unweighted) exit polls were “bad” since they differed from the “actuals” - the official recorded vote.
The mathematically impossible Final National Exit Poll 43/37% returning Bush/Gore voter mix refuted rBr. The Hobson’s choice was to either accept a mathematically impossible Final Exit Poll or claim that exit poll responders misstated their 2000 vote due to “false recall”. They were forced to choose the latter.
But just 3200 of 13,000 NEP respondents were asked whom they voted for in 2000. What about the other 10,000 who weren’t asked the question? Surely a “slow-drifting fog” would not cause them to forget that they just voted for Kerry. So the only other explanation was that they intentionally misrepresented their vote. If so, what was their motive? Was it to jump on a four-year retrospective Bush bandwagon? What bandwagon? He had a 48% approval rating!
Why “false recall” was even suggested as an explanation is a mystery. Apparently, Lindeman never considered that NES would confirm the True Vote model - not refute it. His analysis was predicated on the premise that it was correct to use the recorded vote as a baseline (i.e. assume the election was fraud-free). In other words, a fraudulent recorded vote was assumed in concluding that the Final 2004 National Exit Poll 43/37 split was due to substantially more Gore than Bush voters misrepresenting their 2000 vote. That is a circular argument.
So which is it? Slow-drifting fog? Mere forgetfulness? Retrospective bandwagon? The answer is: None of the above!
The NES responders told the truth about their vote!!!
Comparing the average True Vote margin to the average NES margin for all 11 elections from 1968-2008 actually debunks “false recall”. The analysis confirms that election fraud is endemic; it always reduces the Democratic True vote! The average Democratic True Vote margin was 49.2-45.4%. In 8 of the 11 elections, the Democratic True Vote share fell within the NES 4% margin of error.
The average absolute NES/ True vote deviation for the 11 elections was -0.40%. Where’s the beef? The True Vote shares were within 1% of NES!
The average NES winning margin was 11.4%.
The average Democratic True Vote winning margin was 10.0%
The average Republican True Vote winning margin was 12.4%
NES vs. True Vote Share (1968-2008)
The average absolute deviation for the 11 elections was -0.40%.
The average Democratic absolute deviation was -0.70%.
The average Republican deviation was 0.46%.
NES vs. Recorded Vote (1968-2008)
The average absolute vote share deviation was -1.75%.
The average Democratic absolute deviation was -3.30%.
The average Republican deviation was -0.46%.
The “confounding influence of differential turnout” is just fancy jargon to impress the unwashed. A robust sensitivity analysis (see below) of varying Gore and Bush voter turnout based on total votes cast indicates that Kerry would have won the True vote by 7 million - even assuming an implausible Bush/Gore voter differential turnout of 98/90% in 2004. He wins by 10.2 million assuming equal 98% turnout!
Differential turnout is not a confounding variable after all.
The exit poll debate was transformed into pseudo-psychological “false recall” conjecture. As a “spreadsheet-wielding Internet blogger” dealing with factual data, I never thought I would have to become an armchair psychologist. Let’s stipulate that humans tend to bury past transgressions into their unconscious.
It’s extremely unlikely that Gore voters would forget that the election was stolen from them in broad daylight; after all, they were the ones who were wronged. They would have no incentive, conscious or otherwise, to misrepresent their vote. Gore voters had nothing to be ashamed of. On the other hand, voting for Bush in 2000 was an act regretted by many (he had 48% approval on Election Day 2004). It’s more plausible that returning Bush voters would have regretted their past vote and tell the exit pollsters that they voted for Gore in 2000 – and that they just voted for Kerry.
Let’s not forget the 114,000 state exit poll respondents. Kerry won the unadjusted exit poll aggregate by 52-47% - a 6 million margin. Lindeman never discussed the state exit polls in his false recall argument. Rather, he wants us to believe that a 600 sample retrospective survey taken four years after the election renders null and void 18 national pre-election polls (27,000 total respondents); 50 state pre-election polls (40,000); 50 state exit polls (70,000) and the 12:22am National Exit Poll (13,047).
The simple fact is that in every election millions of votes are uncounted, therefore the recorded vote cannot represent the True Vote. The analysis presented by Lindeman implicitly assumes that the recorded vote is equal to the True Vote. But knowing the True Vote is what the exit poll debate is all about. Given the faulty premise, why even bother to continue to proceed further and refute his paper point by point?