Paper ballots and Hand counts NOW!!! Statistical tools everyone can use!

[In Truth We Trust]

The following is a repost with permission from Autorank. Thanks Michael- keep up the good work!


Kerry Won!!! Statistical Tools Everyone Can Use
Sunday, 25 December 2005, 7:43 am
Opinion: Michael Collins

Kerry Won!!! Statistical Tools Everyone Can Use

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 Media
from Washington DC
Michael Collins
Dec. 21, 2005

USEFUL RELATED LINKS:

The Law of Large Numbers & Central Limit Theorem: A Polling Simulation

Excel Polling Simulation Model

2004 Election Model Projection; Exit Poll Collection; Excel Interactive Election Simulation; Other links.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.
link:

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

1. just for the record

I invite anyone -- anyone whatsoever -- to defend these statistical tools on the merits. People who purport to be convinced by scientific evidence ought to be able to explain why, IMO.

[In Truth We Trust]

2. I invite you to disprove the accuracy. I take it that you're ok with the

use of sourcecode when it comes to voting and counting?

[Febble]

4. Can you supply

a logical link between OTOH's post and your inference?

Would it not be more logical to infer from OTOH's post that as he appears to be question the validity of using statistical software unless users can defend their conclusions, that he might similarly demand transparency in voting and counting software?

Speaking for myself, I don't trust any software unless I understand what it is doing. That goes for TIA's software as much as for vote-counting software.

TIA's may be open source, but that isn't much use unless you know what you are doing with it.

[autorank]

121. I'm late with this;) "Argumentation 101 from Election Fraud Deniers"

Argumentation 101 from Election Fraud Deniers of the Left

Link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0606/S00193.htm
(Kennedy's Challenge: Salon, Mother Jones & the Tortured Dialog)

What can we anticipate from election fraud deniers of the left and others based on the arguments from Salon and Mother Jones?

1) Characterize those who claim 2004 was a stolen as being under the influence of “loose with the truth” fanatics. Hertsgaard did it in Mother Jones when he claimed that Congressman Conyers and the other Democrats who investigated Ohio and Miller were under the influence of the powerful Bob Fitrakis and The Free Press organization. Manjoo did the same when he varied the theme and claimed that Kennedy is now under the influence of DemocraticUnderground and Mark Crispin Miller, If we view Mother Jones and Salon as a composite work, we now have Kennedy under the sole influence Democratic Underground and Bob Fitrakis since Hertsgaard established Fitrakis’ dominance over Miller. This is simply beyond the pale.

2) Diminish the value of the exit polls at all costs. (a) Invoke exit poll leader Warren Mitofsky’s self deprecation strategy. Have you ever heard of a major researcher suddenly diminishing his own work at the end of a long career? (b) Also resuscitate discredited explanations for the exit polls like “reluctant Bush responders” and offer those up as proof by simply saying “it’s possible” that Bush supporters were reluctant. (c) By all means, do not evaluate or interview those who have done extensive analysis on the exit polls. Simply dismiss them as “legions of activists, academics, bloggers and others who've devoted their post-Nov. 2 lives to unearthing every morsel of data that might suggest the vote was rigged…” without bothering to evaluate or mention their evidence.

3) Offer up your own evidence that ranges from questionable to incredible. Claim that the popular Ohio Supreme Court incumbent Judge Resnick’s performance in the 2000 election compared to Gore is a valid comparison to the obscure Judge Connelly’s performance compared to Kerry. Also use soundbites like that from Democratic counsel O’Grady that simply make no sense at all.

4) And finally, always demand that those making a serious case “prove” that the election was stolen by simply ignoring that proof is established through an in depth investigation. Ignore the fact that there has been no official investigation. But don’t demand an investigation yourself. That would not be prudent.

With friends like Salon and Mother Jones on the left, who needs Republicans?

*** END ***


© Copyright notice: Please copy this article and distribute it freely with attribution to Michael Collins and “Scoop” Independent News to anyone wishing to understand the reality we must confront to restore fair and open elections and democracy in the United States.

[OnTheOtherHand]

129. reality check

Since most of it is irrelevant to the thread, I won't try to take it on point by point.

I am still waiting for someone who believes that the exit polls were accurate to explain how Kerry outperformed the pre-election polls by around 12 percentage points (or more) in New York state, only to have Bush steal those 12 points right back. I've heard lots of bluster about "discredited explanations," but I haven't seen any explanation for that. Someone? anyone?

[Peace Patriot]

3. "just for the record" I invite anyone--anyone whomsoever--to prove

to me that Bush won. Show me the ballots or prove that they exist. Explain how the votes were cast and how they were counted. Convince me that the vote was transparent and verifiable. People who purport to be convinced that Bush won ought to be able to explain why they trust the result.

[In Truth We Trust]

5. Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner. Thank you Peace Patriot. That is after

-all the ultimate "just for the record" question that must be addressed.

[Febble]

6. I cannot prove that Bush won.

That is the problem.

I can, however, compute the probability that he won, which is high.

But elections should not be a matter of statistical inference. They should be a matter of certainty.

You do not have to consider it improbable that Bush won to consider it appalling that it cannot be definitively proven. Nor do you have to consider it improbable that Bush won to consider it appalling that so many voters, especially ethnic minority voters, were disenfranchised.

But the idea that believing that it is probable that Bush won is tantamount to believing that there is nothing wrong with American democracy is a myth.

edited to correct nonsense

[Joe Chi Minh]

54. Still changing your postions at every twist and turn, eh, prebble?

Not so long ago, you were assuring me that Kerry may very well have won, and that there had been a lot of things going that didn't look at all good. It was just proving that the polling and implicitly the voting machines were bent, that you thought were a lost cause for Democrats. In particular, you cited voter suppression as liable to "swing" the vote. Senior moments can be a beggar, I'm sure...

[Febble]

63. No, please read my posts

I said I believed it was possible (though not probable) that voter suppression may have cost Kerry Ohio, and therefore the presidency.

I think it is vanishingly unlikely that Kerry won the popular vote, then had it stolen by vote-switching fraud. I think it may be you who is having a senior moment.

[Joe Chi Minh]

97. "No, please read my posts".

Don't be silly, Miss. You need to learn the most elementary common sense from us. You could need it at an airport some time, should you be carrying some pharmaceutical drug containing a narcotic. "No, you can't see my vicodin pills!"

More importantly, here, the most elementary common sense is the most basic requirement for engaging anyone's interest in debating. You two are still peddling your old "Loony Toons" cod erudition.

[Febble]

98. And your point is? n/t

[Name removed]

99. Deleted message

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

[Febble]

100. Will you please say what your argument actually is?

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

[eomer]

103. Sorry to interrupt such an enlightening conversation but...

Febble, occasionally you say you think it is probable that Bush won or improbable that Kerry won, as you did in #63:

I said I believed it was possible (though not probable) that voter suppression may have cost Kerry Ohio, and therefore the presidency.

Are you sure you can say that a Kerry win in Ohio is not probable? It seems to me that establishing a probability for who won Ohio is quite a stretch. Isn't a wild-assed guess even pretty difficult? We talked about this a couple of weeks ago and I asked you (and OTOH too I think) how many votes you thought were in play case by case for each of the different Ohio irregularities. I believe that both of you answered that you don't know and that you're unaware of any paper that you would want to point to that has done a creditable job of it. If you ask me, enough questions have been raised about Ohio that I just don't see how anyone can say that Bush probably won. For example, just in Warren County where they apparently used the terror alert to avoid scrutiny and where there is an allegation that ballots were taken to an unauthorized location and handled in ways that were unauthorized, how the heck can we say what the probability is that they stole it right then and there, even ignoring all the other dozens of issues? And how about the stickers on the opscan ballots in (which county was it)? We know there were some because eyewitnesses saw them but how would we have any idea how many there really were? And the punch cards in some other county that appeared to have been counted in the wrong precinct. How many of those were there? Sorry, but I'm just not getting it. How do you know?

[Febble]

I don't know

You are right. And I do not claim to know. My reading of the numbers and literature does not make me hopeful that Kerry won Ohio, but I quite agree that we do not know. It is in that sense that I think it is improbable. But I am more than willing to be persuaded.

So I should indeed qualify (as I'm sure I did) that I do not know whether Kerry won the electoral college vote, and thus the presidency.

It is the inference that the exit polls represent the actual vote count (in other words multi-million vote theft) that I dispute. I think it is extremely improbable, in the statistical sense, that Kerry won the popular vote, let alone a margin over Bush equal to Bush's margin over Kerry in the count.

That is my problem with the OP.

[eomer]

107. OK, thanks.

I think the question of whether the exit poll proves the election was stolen often gets conflated with the question of whether the election was stolen. I agree they are two different questions and think it's important to keep clear on which one we're discussing.

One of the things I feel strongly about (and I think you agree with) is that the election system has a responsibility to be transparent and verifiable enough to convince the official loser that he or she was the actual loser. And to convince the official loser's supporters (that's me) of the same. I think that Ohio is miserably far from fulfulling that responsibility and am most definitely not convinced that Kerry lost or that he probably lost.

Maybe we should go through the exercise sometime (another time as I'm headed out in a few minutes) of listing the irregularities (say Bobby Kennedy's list) and each of us putting our best estimate as to how many votes were stolen, item by item in Ohio.

[Febble]

108. Good idea.

But you are right, it is part of the contract inherent in a democracy that the loser's voters should know for sure that their candidate lost. I couldn't agree more, and regardless of what I think about Ohio, the fact that there is serious doubt - actually even if there weren't - the fact that the SoS was not impartial - means that Kerry's voters cannot be sure he lost the electoral college vote.

The reason I think the popular vote issue is important, though, are these:

1. If widespread digital fraud is still difficult, as I believe 2004 indicates it was, then it means there is much more hope for November this year - and that Democrats should not be discouraged from voting. I think the sense of despair that the belief that millions of votes were stolen in 2004 engenders is itself a problem for democracy, even were it to be well-founded, and of course I think it is not.
   
   
2. As I think that the millions-of-stolen votes argument is demonstrably hollow, I think it is shooting ourselves in the foot to be seen to be arguing against digital voting systems because of election theft, as it makes it too easy to dismiss the argument. I think the argument against digital voting systems (at least against the flawed ones you have) is independent of what actually happened in 2004, and needs to be seen to be independent. Quite apart from anything else it should increase its chances of bipartisan support.
   
   
3. I think if American democracy is to be restored, the problem needs to be precisely defined. There were certainly terrible abuses in 2004 (as there were in 2000) but as I see it, the most egregious ones were the old-fashioned ones, and I fear the emphasis on digital vote theft, though serious as a threat, remains a threat, whereas voter suppression and high residual vote rates in Democratic precincts are here now and are endemic.

Cheers

Lizzie

[BeFree]

110. Too bad you don't have any proof of that...

...because it sure would make me feel better knowing that digital theft is not something to be concerned about.

"I fear the emphasis on digital vote theft, though serious as a threat, remains a threat,"

Remains a threat?

"I think it is shooting ourselves in the foot to be seen to be arguing against digital voting systems

You aren't arguing against the threat, but we are. Were do you get off telling us we shouldn't argue against machine theft?

"If widespread digital fraud is still difficult, as I believe 2004 indicates it was,

Hell, the least wise knows that digital theft is as easy as clicking a mouse. And you still consider it difficult? Where is your proof that digital theft is: Just a threat, still difficult, and is wrong to alert people to the idea?

Where is your proof?

[Febble]

111. OK, I've spelled it out before, but here it is again:

First of all: I think it is perfectly possible - indeed probable, given the other stuff that went on, and the vulnerability of the systems, that votes were stolen, digitally, in 2004.

It is the scale of the theft that I dispute. And the reason I dispute it is the exit poll data. If you look at the math thread you started, I explained it there, but I will explain it here too.

When votes are switched to Bush in a precinct, more votes will be counted for Bush than were cast. Clearly.

This will result in extra "swing" to Bush, over and above any "swing", if any, he would have had without the fraud.
If the precinct is an NEP precinct, it will also tend to result in "redshift" in the exit poll.

So the exit poll data offers an opportunity to figure out whether vote switching occurred. If vote switching occurred, then the degree of "swing" in the count will tend to be positively correlated with the degree of "redshift" in the poll. In plain English, where the exit polls look most fishy (largest redshift), those are the precincts where we will tend to find the largest swings to Bush. Where the precincts look fairly innocent (small redshift, no redshift, blueshift) - in those precincts we should find Bush doing rather worse (he's not getting any help from fraud).

But if there is not much vote-switching going on, the two things will not show up as a positive correlation. The two things, redshift and swing, will vary independently, because, indeed, they will be independent.

And when we look at the data, we find that there is no positive correlation. In fact, although the correlation is statistically non-significant, it is slightly negative.

Now, eomer cleverly argued that one way in which widespread fraud might occur, and not show up as a positive correlation between redshift and swing would be if fraud was almost universal and uniform. Unfortunately it would have to be extraordinarily uniform, and there are many good reasons for supposing it was not. After all, some states had no blue shift; some had a great deal. Also some precincts had DREs, which might be fairly easy to hack; others had levers or punchcards which would be more difficult.

So I set up a computational model in which I tried to determine how much fraud you could smuggle into the data without showing up as a correlation greater than zero. And it is very little.

So not only does the exit poll data not indicate widespread fraud, it actually contra-indicates it. It is difficult to postulate any scenario by which millions (or even hundreds of thousands) of votes could be switched to Bush without producing a swing-shift correlation. And there isn't one.

It is not, of course, proof - no statistical analyses can offer "proof" - what statistical analysis does is produce probability estimates. And the probability that enough votes were switched even to eliminate Bush's margin is tiny. The probability that the exit poll was actually correct (and Kerry had Bush's 3 point margin) is even tinier.

That is why I think that digital vote theft was a far smaller factor in Bush's 2004 win than voter suppression, and high residual vote rates in Democratic precincts.

If you have a problem with this argument, let me know. Eomer is still trying to find holes in it, and I am encouraging him to do so.

But please stop posting abusive threads about me. It is not justified, and in any case is against the DU rules.

[BeFree]

112. Well

Since there have been many a person who could, and did argue your points away, but can no longer post here because such statements as your's about digital theft being non-existent or not relative, have them burning holes in their heads, then I guess you win, eh?

You know what? I don't care what your "analysis" says. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans. And before you go crying about abuse, think about the abuse you present when telling us we shouldn't even talk about machine theft.

You have ignored the proof that machines can, and do steal votes. You ignore the proof that only because certain actions have occurred, by overcoming all manner of power against us, we have found that proof. Yet you have the audacity to tell us not to talk about it.

Do you have a clue how upset YOU have made some good, honest people? Do you even care?

[Febble]

113. I know you don't care

what my analysis says.

But that doesn't prevent abusing other posters being against the DU rules.

I have not ignored the proof that machines can and do steal votes. You Made That Up.

I have not told you not to talk about it. You Made That Up.

And I am a good honest person. I think most people on DU are, or they wouldn't be here.

And this is a reality based community, right? Why should reasoned debate threaten any of us?

[BeFree]

114. You don't seem to care

It's like you are oblivious to the deeply held concerns and ride over them, by cutely telling them they are wrong, and that you, above all others, have all the right answers.

No, you have followed the 'rules' but that doesn't make you right. You have repeatedly stabbed anyone who disagrees with you, but you do it following the 'rules'.

I feel that you have hindered us in our cause, continue to hinder us, just as Miscountski has hindered us.

You have not helped us get to the bottom of all this, and then you tell us how we should think, and what we should talk about.

Who are you to tell us what to think, or talk about?

You admit your proof isn't even evidence. Its just an analysis. And the data you have analyzed can't be seen by anyone but you.

And you have hurt many a person's feelings - following the rules - but you don't seem to care.

[Febble]

117. OK, I'm hearing you.

But let's unpack this, right?

I am not telling you what to think. I am telling you what I think, and why I think it.

I do think that some of the arguments made from the exit polls about vote fraud are flawed, and I am prepared to say why. I am prepared to listen to counter-arguments, and I just gave you the example of one that was offered by eomer.

I am sorry you feel I have hindered our cause. I disagree, but I respect your view.

I certainly don't admit my "proof isn't even evidence". The opposite is true - my evidence isn't proof. But it is strong evidence, nonetheless.

And if I have hurt people's feelings by "following the rules", I'm sorry. On the whole I try not to hurt people's feelings, although occasionally mine are hurt. And I admit to being angry with you on Gary's thread, and I apologise for exploding. Mostly I simply become frustrated when people disagree with what I say, but do not actually say why they disagree.

But it is certainly true that feelings get hurt on discussion forums. It's probably why forums have an ignore facility. Perhaps we should both agree to ignore each other's posts. I won't respond to yours if you don't respond to mine.

Unless of course you'd like to discuss anything. I am always willing to do that.

Peace.

Lizzie

[OnTheOtherHand]

118. Ohio is still in my queue

I had a sloooooow month. I will be spending a lot of time on Ohio.

[Febble]

101. OK, figured it out

Translated into plain English it appears that you saying:

It is common sense that Kerry won. Those who argue otherwise are either stupid or lying.

Common sense is sometimes appealed to in political debates, particularly when other arguments have been exhausted. Civil rights for African Americans, women's suffrage, and homosexuality—to name just a few—have all been attacked as being contrary to common sense. Similarly, common sense has been invoked in opposition to many scientific and technological advancements. Such misuse of the notion of common sense is fallacious, being a form of the argumentum ad populum (appeal to the masses) fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense

[Name removed]

102. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

105. Deleted message

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

[Name removed]

109. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

7. in other words, you can't defend the OP?

and so you try frantically to change the subject? Yeah, I'm used to that.

I don't care whether you are convinced that Bush won. If all you want to argue is that we can't be sure, just argue that. But everyone here knows that you don't just argue that.

[In Truth We Trust]

8. I care as to whether our elections are open, honest, and transparent.

Peace Patriot does not need to defend the op. Your the one that changed the subject and attacked the message. It is up to you to disprove the assertion.

Ultimately Peace Patriot was exactly right in making the point as to whether or not it could be proved bush won or any other candidate won for that matter.

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. how was I changing the subject??

I responded to the OP by inviting someone to defend it. Can you defend the OP?

Folks, this is not a subtle argument; it isn't a close call. If you want to argue that we can't know who won the election, argue that. The OP basically consists of a link to, and partial quotation of, an article titled "Kerry Won!!!"

Is there anyone here who actually thinks that "Kerry Won!!!" and "it (can't) be proved bush won" are interchangeable arguments?

[In Truth We Trust]

11. Ultimately you are right. There can be no proof of either candidate having

won without a complete paper ballot hand count. That is the point. However, it can be argued quite accurately based on TIA's research and statistical reference that Kerry did win. Statistics is not an art. Statistics is a science. Can you refute the statistical truth?

[Febble]

13. Right, that is a better question

Inferential statistics does not offer proof. It offers probabilities. And yes, I can demonstrate that it is highly improbable that Kerry won more votes cast than Bush, using the exit poll evidence.

I cannot demonstrate, using the exit poll evidence, that if all the voters who should have been able to vote had done so that Bush would have won, as I think it is possible, that had there not been voter suppression in Ohio, that Kerry might have won Ohio (though I have not yet been convinced of this), and thus the presidency.

But I think that the exit poll evidence, plus the pre-election poll evidence, used in the statistical tool linked to in the OP, far from demonstrating that Kerry won, actually offer strong evidence against that case.

Rather than rehearse the arguments here, I will link to this page:

http://inside.bard.edu/~lindeman/slides.html

And my diary piece here:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Febble/3

And in short:

The finding that there is absolutely no positive correlation between redshift in the poll and benefit to Bush makes it extremely unlikely that fraud (which would result both) occurred on anything like the scale required to eliminate the margin between the candidates.

[OnTheOtherHand]

15. moreover

One problem with TIA's pre-election "analysis" is that he torques the results to give Kerry a lead in more polls than Bush. (Cf. the lists here: http://pollingreport.com/2004.htm .) That's not "statistical truth" -- at best it's highly speculative projection.

One problem with TIA's exit poll "analysis" is that he assumes zero bias in the poll. That isn't "statistical truth" either.

And then there is the analysis not taken, which is to compare the pre-election and exit poll results at the state level. You can try this by unprotecting the StatePreExit tab of his InteractiveElectionSimulation.xls and computing =CORREL(N11:N70,O11:O70). These "Kerry Vote Deviation(s)" are supposed to be two distinct measures of fraud, so (if fraud varied across states) they presumably should be positively correlated. I just tried this 50 times, obtaining 17 positive and 33 negative correlations. Hmm. This result doesn't surprise me, since I've pointed out many times that several of the states with the largest exit poll "red shifts" are states where Kerry did better than pre-election polls predicted.

[Febble]

10. Let me get this straight

Your OP asserts that Kerry won, and offers statistical tools, presumably to demonstrate it.

OTOH asks that it be demonstrated.

PP shifts the burden of proof to an assertion that has not been made.

Huh?

[In Truth We Trust]

12. see my last post to OTOH

[kster]

14. The fact that only one side of this debate is wilIing to go ON TV

and have serious discussion and debate IN FRONT of all the American
people on this issue, pretty much sums it up for me.

Now I ask you which side is it that is afraid to go ON TV to discuss?

Which side wants to keep this debate going ONLY on the internt hidden from the American people?

I'm glad I'm on the side that would not have any problem discussing the 2004 election theft and the illegal secret vote counting machines ON TV.

This question is for everyone here, WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

[OnTheOtherHand]

16. who's afraid?

Many people have said on TV that Bush won the election. A few have gotten to say on TV that Bush didn't win the election. How have you concluded that "one side" is afraid of going on TV?

I would have no trouble discussing the 2004 election on TV, but I find it pretty interesting that so few people seem willing to discuss it right here.

[kster]

20. Well then why not fight together to FORCE

open discussion and debate ON TV about these machines? I'm not sure if you live in this Country, but if you do, We need to Force discussion and debate about this issue on TV so all Americans can make a decision about these illegal secret vote counting machines, that are going to be used in future elections.

With the results of the 2004 election debate raging on to this date is proof, that illegal secret vote counting machines is not the way to run an election, and the people DESERVE to know about this whole online debate about these machines.

[OnTheOtherHand]

23. well, we need to get the issue right

TIA's statistical analysis has nothing to do with secret vote counting machines, per se. If you don't want to talk about TIA's statistical analysis, that is fine with me; in fact, I would encourage all activists not to talk about TIA's statistical analysis.

[kster]

26. Well, help me out

whats my next step, I agree with TIAs analysis you don't, which leads us all to the bigger picture the illegal secret vote counting machines, that where used in 2004 and still remain in place for 06, 08 elections.

I could start another thread about media silence on the machines but I don't think "In Truth We Trust" minds, if we have a side discussion. If He/She does I will start another thread.

How can You and I work together to get this discussion and debate on tv side so that the majority of the Americans can decide for themselves?

[OnTheOtherHand]

27. OK, fair question

Look, first of all, I don't accept the premise that you agree with TIA's analysis. It seems clear that you agree with TIA's conclusions. Maybe you agree with the analysis, but so far I haven't gotten you or anyone else actually to discuss the analysis, so I don't know. That said, it's a side point.

Now, I have no special formula for getting stuff on TV. But I think the stuff that is getting on TV tends to be factually rock-solid information about the security vulnerabilities, unreliability, and expense of the machines, plus the various shenanigans that the vendors resort to in order to peddle their wares. There's an awful lot of material there. We could put Wilms in charge, maybe. ;)

If you look at RFK Jr.'s article, it doesn't really have all that much on electronic voting machines, and one reason is that they weren't very widely used in Ohio in 2004.

[kster]

29. You are correct, I do agree with TIA's conclusions

I just don't think it is fair that, this discussion isn't being played out on TV, for all Americans to draw their own conclusions.

What if they are hiding a vote theft scam, wouldn't it then be only common sense for our government to force discussion and debate on TV. If all was on the up and up the voting machine makers and the government would be falling all over themselves, on TV, to explain it.

Their silence on the whole story is what makes me conclude that something is VERY WRONG.

[BeFree]

32. Yeah, ON TV

Why not? Why is this not ON TV? Because they know the truth would come out, and that is the last thing they want the people to know: The Truth.

They are scared shitless by the prospect of a real debate. Their whole world news would come tumbling down and the people would then be free of their fascist control.

The silence speaks volumes.

[kster]

73. The silence speaks volumes, INDEED

:toast: LETS BAG THOSE MACHINES!

[OnTheOtherHand]

37. for what it's worth

There are thousands of issues -- ranging from the urgent to the trivial and beyond -- where discussion hasn't played out on TV. So I don't find that very telling. I know you do. Shrug. It's not as if I'm trying to defend the government.

Anyway, the media hasn't blacked out election issues; there is some room to get something done. I'm not trying to call shots for anyone on what we should do, except to say that I don't think the statistical arguments will fly. The question you want reporters to be asking experts is "So, are these machines reliable and secure?", not "So, is there statistical proof that Bush stole the 2004 election?" My professional opinion.

[Melissa G]

71. OTOH, re your Professional Opinion and disclosure

You spend an AMAZING amount of time on this board dispensing your professional opinion. Have you disclosed on this board that you work with Mitofsky? Febble, at least, is honest and puts it in her sig line. I'm not thinking that you have been so forth coming. Perhaps I missed something?

[Febble]

79. Melissa, I actually worked

for Mitofsky, albeit for a single project, amounting to a month's full-time work.

Your post seems to me to be an attempt to "out" another poster on the basis of an assertion that isn't even true.

Sure you "missed" something. It's easy to miss things that aren't there.

[Melissa G]

91. Hi Febble, what assertion am i making that is not true? n/t

[Febble]

93. that OTOH works with Mitofsky

unless you mean it in the broadest of senses, in which case it would apply to Steve Freeman as well.

Or, there is another sense, I suppose, in that he and I published a paper together (with Rick Brady) that proposed a measure that I then used in the work I did for Mitofsky. But that wasn't OTOH working "with" Mitofsky - it was more like Mitofsky using (via me) published methodology authored by OTOH. In same sense I also worked "with" Pearson and Gauss.

[OnTheOtherHand]

86. Freeman "work(s) with Mitofsky" too

although it would not surprise me at this point if Mitofsky answers my questions faster. (Being accused of trying to conceal evidence of a stolen election does tend to put people's backs up.) Freeman and I have both posted information that Mitofsky gave us. Mitofsky hasn't paid either of us (well, I'm just assuming he hasn't paid Freeman). So what is it that you think I should disclose?

A lot of people spend an amazing amount of time on this board. Certainly my invitation extends to you: if any DU member is able to defend TIA's spreadsheet or any other aspect of the exit poll argument for massive fraud, please do. Partly this is a matter of personal curiosity -- I want to see whether anyone actually believes the arguments that many claim are definitive. And in this context, "belief" entails (in my view) being able to make the arguments oneself. I am waiting for someone, anyone, to convince me that he or she believes the arguments, much less that the arguments are actually true.

Why would it not be an obviously important thing to point out that lots of people are offering arguments that no one seems willing to defend? Wouldn't that bother you, too?

Are you willing to defend the arguments? Is anyone here willing to defend the arguments? Wow.

EDIT TO ADD: By the way, Melissa, if you agree with me that Febble is honest, why do you evince absolutely no respect for her opinions? or are you just not very interested in this issue?

[Melissa G]

90. ROTFLMAO!!!! OTOH!!! You are toooo Funny!!!

:rofl::rofl: :rofl:

You have actually presented a paper at a symposium WITH Mitofsky..Freeman goes to symposiums and presents papers CRITICAL of Mitofsky's work..

OF COURSE, he answers your emails faster. YOU have worked WITH him. Yes, that fact is what i wanted you to disclose.

Arguing with you.. hmmm.. no, not very interesting.. and for me, not very illuminating either..we get off into movies..
This one is one of the ending scenes in the Wizard of OZ..
you remember when the professor behind the curtain is shown to be working the oz machine..he starts Booming Through the Speaker "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN...

LOL at so many levels..My problem with arguing with you is that like the professor behind the curtain you want to reframe the questions in ways that are IMO not productive and then IMO waste time discussing your reframing all of which takes away attention from the stolen election.

Yes, I believe Febble is honest,just IMHO misguided in her focus. She and I have already had this conversation. They are just two opinions. Hers guides her work.. mine guides mine.

I am interested enough in the issue to spend this weekend reading Freeman's book. I am not interested enough in this issue to spend this particular weekend arguing with someone who works WITH Mitofsky...much rather read Freeman's book.

[OnTheOtherHand]

92. Melissa, you are factually challenged here

I have presented on a panel alongside Mitofsky, and I have presented on a panel alongside Freeman. There is no difference. You can say that I "have worked WITH" Mitofsky, but your saying it doesn't make it so. Is there really a part of this that you don't understand?

So far, you are just another DU poster who refuses to defend the exit poll arguments but nonetheless insists that they are conclusive. Call that "framing" if you like.

If you are able to discuss Freeman's book when you are done, you know where to find me.

[Melissa G]

125. LOL! OTOH, Are you saying that you are neutral and not an active

participant in the exit poll debate? Not that i usually read her, but here is Kathy Doppp's account of the Montreal
AAPOR conference which i understand Mitofsky did not attend.(Note..She does not seem to have an affinity for you and Lizzie..)
AAPOR conference in Montreal:

Ron Baiman and Steve Freeman did a terrific job at the AAPOR conference. Both
were incredibly convincing speakers and answered a lot of questions,
which all seemed to be directed at them rather than at Liddle and
Lindeman.

The fact that Ron and Steve did such a great job speaking and
answering questions was important because the organizers of the
seminar on whether the 2004 election was stolen, stacked the deck
against our side by having three speakers on the other side who they
let speak after Ron and Steve spoke first. I was angry when I tried
to make several comments to respond to the nonsense on the other side
and was interrupted and prevented from finishing during the question
and answer period.

It was also unfair that the entire conference fee was waived for
Liddle who has contributed more sophistry (plausible sounding but
fallacious argumentation) to the analysis of exit polling than any
other person and who has recevied payment for her sophistry by
Mitofsky, but Ron Baiman and I who have worked as unpaid volunteers
and who have contributed valid work in this field were not helped, so
that Ron was only able to attend the session that he spoke at.
....More if you want to read it available from uscountvotes but you and Lizzie were clearly 2 of the opposing speakers..

And here Dopp has you listed in 3 of the 7 arguments rebutted...

Rebuttal to All Arguments that Dismissed Vote Fraud:

This short paper refutes all of the arguments that have incorrectly
been used to dismiss the evidence of vote fraud/miscounts in the
November 2004 election:

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/IncorrectElectionDataAnalysis-06.pdf

On your own home pagehttp://inside.bard.edu/~lindeman/ you have "courtesy of Warren Mitofsky" 3 times..and as far as I can tell all your papers are supportive of Mitofsky and Febble credits you as having helped with most of her work on this issue..


Is there some evidence of neutrality here that I am missing? Are there volumes of work and DU posts supporting Freeman, Baiman et al that I am missing? The links sure aren't on your home page if so..

[OnTheOtherHand]

128. Melissa, I am saying that I don't work with Mitofsky

What part of that don't you understand?

I can't be accountable for what Kathy Dopp says. I'm not even sure that she is accountable for what she says. As always, if you have any substantive questions about her purported refutations, I am happy to address them. (EDIT TO ADD: By the way, Dopp says something about Febble here that simply isn't true. I am used to this.)

Mitofsky has presented several slides that are pertinent to the exit poll debate, and I asked for and received permission to post them. Freeman took his stuff from the evaluation report, so he doesn't thank Mitofsky separately. But hey, as long as we are cherry-picking, here is Freeman on the subject of Warren Mitofsky, last October: "In my interviews and correspondence with Warren, I have been struck that he is not only brilliant, but funny and at his core, honest, decent, a man of rare experience and even wisdom."

My opinions about exit polls are hardly a secret around here, nor are Freeman's. It's a matter of semantics whether either of us, or anyone else, can be said to be "neutral." But what you said was that I work with Mitofsky, and that is inaccurate, and I am still waiting for you to admit it, instead of changing the subject and hoping no one notices.

Otherwise, hey, thanks for the drive-by.

[Melissa G]

134. Why are you running so hard from Mitofsky? That is what I don't

understand? As hard as you work to spread the Mitofsky gospel, why are you feigning neutrality on this issue?

Almost all, if not all, of the 1708 posts (since only May 17th '05) which I have seen you post support Mitofsky. I remember that Mitofsky gave you the scatter plots to post when no one else had them. No preexisting relationship there I am sure.. you are just lucky, I guess..

Here, at the spring AAPOR conference, they describe you and Lizzie as clearly on the other side of the issue from Freeman and Baiman..

http://www.aapor.org/pdfs/AAPORNewsSpring06Color.pdf

Do we know yet who won the 2004 election?

Steve Freeman and Ron Baiman

suggest we may not. Mark Lindeman

and Michael McDonald bring in other

perspectives. Elizabeth Liddle, an early

self-described “fraudster” who initially

sided with Freeman and Baiman, but

whose innovative statistical analysis of

exit poll data changed her mind (and

many of the original “fraudsters”), will

respond to the panelists.



Baiman goes a bit farther in his paper where on page 43 he refers to you and Lizzie as 'EM surrogates'



• There is plenty of blame to go around on this, its not just EM and their

surrogates on this panel – though they were, and still are in a position to

finally do the right thing – make the data available, and acknowledge that

something other than “rBr” was drastically and dramatically wrong in Ohio!

http://www.freepress.org/images/departments/1996_Stolen.pdf



in case you need some more convincing.. google yourself with Mitofsky and the word paper..

I was remembering you delivered one with him but i had trouble finding the link. So perhaps, perhaps not..

What I did find was a huge amount of circular referencing posts supporting Mitofsky from Febble, Lindeman,(and all your various blog personas like HudsonValleyMark etc)and your friend, Mark Blumenthal..It occasionally branches off to where you spread the not so good news to Salon's Manjoo and get then get refuted and links to all the other folks who like to refute you.. but all in all it reads like The Mitofsky Gospel according to Mark L..So, perhaps you can see why I am confused.

When do you have time to Teach?

[OnTheOtherHand]

135. well, why are you running so hard from the facts?

You said I work with Mitofsky, but it isn't true. So now you are talking about "neutrality" and scatterplots and "surrogates" and whatever else you can come up with to confuse the issue. I don't know why. It's a shame.

Believe it or not, there are hundreds -- thousands, I suppose -- of survey researchers who agree with Mitofsky that the exit polls don't point to fraud. I suppose some of them actually have worked with Mitofsky, but most of them haven't. Are they "neutral"? Hey, it's your word, not mine. "Gospel"? Not so much. My opinions are my opinions, and I have explained and defended them at length. I even change my opinions when someone comes up with a persuasive argument or evidence.

(Yes, I'm still waiting for the persuasive argument -- or really, even a rather weak argument -- about how Kerry won New York by 30 points.)

As to the scatterplots, the fact is, Kathy Dopp distributed a link to a copy of Mitofsky's 2005 AAPOR PowerPoint presentation on May 19, 2005, via the USCV election stats list. I don't know where she got it, although I assume that she asked for it; I certainly don't know whether she asked for permission to mount it on the USCV server, which is what she did with it. Here's the link, which I had to tinyURLify:
http://tinyurl.com/p7ulu
So, was there a controversy about whether Kathy Dopp "works with Mitofsky" that I somehow missed?

However, the first two of the three images weren't labeled on the Y axis, so I asked for some labeled copies that I could post so that people could look at them. I don't really know why you have a problem with this. The scatterplots are scatterplots. They aren't pro-Mitofsky or anti-Mitofsky.

(As far as I can tell, I had never spoken or corresponded with Mitofsky before that, unlike Freeman. I never had any reason to.)

Ah, but here is a startling revelation: I am known to disagree with Freeman and Baiman. Wow, Melissa, you really brought the goods this time! Ooh, and Baiman called me and Febble a name. Well, then. (Heck, you could post some pretty interesting names that Dopp has called us, although I really wouldn't advise it.)

As far as I can tell, nothing I told Manjoo has been refuted. (Freeman did take a stab at some of Manjoo's numbers, which he attributed to me. I figure this was an honest mistake on Freeman's part.) But my invitation to you to discuss substance does still stand. When you run out of pots to throw at me, New York will still be there.

[Febble]

136. Melissa, let's get a few things straight

Agreeing with someone is not the same as "working with them". Mark Lindeman and I have both said, on various occasions, that we support at least some of Mitofsky's interpretation of his data.

I have actually worked for Mitofsky, and so clearly I agree with Mitofsky where Mitofsky is reporting my findings.

Lindeman has not worked for Mitofsky, but has said he finds those findings credible.

I have no idea what Baiman means by describing either of us as "EM surrogates" but it is certainly not a description I recognise.

Neither of us have "feigned" neutrality, but as scientists, impartiality is what we strive for. That does not prevent us coming to conclusions. These conclusions differ from those of Baiman and Freeman.

AAPOR:

Lindeman, Baiman, Freeman and McDonald all submitted abstracts to AAPOR, and, because they were good abstracts, were selected to present papers. As all the abstracts concerned exit polls they were allocated to the same panel. Baiman's was on Ohio; Freeman's was on the nationwide data; McDonald's was largely methodological; Lindeman's was on the reasons why people might believe that the exit polls were evidence of fraud, and why these reasons might be at odds with the evidence.

Baiman's and Freeman's papers thus advanced the idea that the exit polls evinced fraud; Lindeman's paper countered those views. McDonald's paper produced tentative findings that suggested that the picture of the electorate emerging from Voter registration databases was more congruent with that of the census data than with the exit poll data, and was thus consistent with the view that the exit poll sample may have been biased.

In no way was it a debate - it was simply a panel of four academic papers, but nicely contrasted, with two papers strongly advancing the view that the exit poll data evinced fraud, one paper strongly advancing a counter view, and a fourth paper offering tentative support for the counter-view.

I was invited to be discussant, presumably because of my position as someone who had come into the debate suspecting fraud, but after consideration of the data, had reached a different conclusion. I was not therefore neutral (all discussants have views) but was considered competent to understand both arguments.

Baiman's submitted paper turned out to be an update of the NEDA smoking gun paper, to which I prepared a short response. However, instead of presenting that paper, he attempted to gallop through 40 plus close packed slides in small font (you can download them from Freepress), only briefly referenced his submitted paper, and went over his time limit. It was, by any standards, a poor presentation, never mind the content - it is not possible to present 40 + closely packed small font slides in 15 minutes, and make a coherent case. Freeman did not even submit a paper beforehand, so I had based my response (on his suggestion) on his Philadelphia presentation. However, although his presentation was better than Baiman's, he actually scarcely mentioned the exit polls, thus leaving his largely polling audience (and me) somewhat bemused. Michael McDonald and Mark Lindeman both submitted their papers in advance, and both managed to deliver the content of those papers within the time limit.

As discussant, this left me in a difficult position as I could not comment on either Baiman's or Freeman's papers, seeing as they had not talked about anything that I had prepared comments on, and I thought it would be invidious only to address McDonald's and Lindeman's. Instead, therefore, I tried to state the issues as I saw them, the hypotheses that I thought needed to be tested, and the results of tests of those hypotheses that I had myself conducted.

This left 15 minutes for questions, and Kathy Dopp was the first to be invited to speak. She started going through a prepared list of comments (not questions), mainly, as I recall, criticising mine and Lindeman's work. She was repeatedly asked by the chair what her question was, and eventually she demanded to know who had paid my expenses. At this point, David Moore, the conference convenor got up, and addressed the question by saying that he had subsidised my expenses to enable me to travel from Britain, and had also waived Baiman's fee as he would have otherwise been unable to attend.

I enjoyed meeting Steve, and had several substantive discussions with him, and I think we retained some mutual respect. I still think his inferences are flawed, however, and can explain why, if you are interested, although I think you are not. I also think he has not adequately considered the lack of swing-shift correlation, which presents IMO, serious problems for his argument.

But let this be clear: agreeing with someone is not "working with them" neither does it involve sacrificing impartiality.

[Febble]

131. Suffice it to say

there would appear to be some lack of neutrality in this report.

[Febble]

94. What the hell do you mean?

If someone appears on the same panel at a symposium they are supposed declare an interest - that they worked "with" that person?

I've heard of CV stuffing, but this is ridiculous. I wonder if it will help me get a job if I say I've "worked with Steve Freeman"?

[Melissa G]

126. Hell? Lizzie.. If you want clarification see post 125..

I must go do something useful to the cause like post on the daily election news thread. I'm sure it needs a recommend!

[autorank]

104. My copy just arrived. It's great isn't it. He took the time to get it

right and didn't go off half cocked. Quite an achievement.

I'm glad I ordered it way back when.

In the mean time, I spent time reviewing this fine collection.

http://electionfraudnews.com/TruthIsAll.htm

:hi:

[Melissa G]

127. Freeman's book is looking great !

Hope the kid's let me get it finished..TIA always makes good reading as well..

[kster]

74. The media hasn't blacked out election issues, PLEASE

tell me you are ATLEAST crossing you fingers when you say that. Mark C. Miller......... Mr Conyers......... PAAAALEASE
The list goes on and on.........

:shrug: Yes, this discussion to be ON TV about the "illegal secret vote counting machines" is very important for my kids future, how about You.

[OnTheOtherHand]

87. review the board

For instance, all the references to Lou Dobbs in the last week.

[kster]

106. Do you know why they run "reruns" in the summer months

probably because there are not many VIEWERS in the summer, if Lou Dobbs is free to talk about the election scam lets say throughout September, I'll take my words back.

[OnTheOtherHand]

116. OK, we'll see

You and I have a lot of differences in how we look at the media, but neither one of us is a big fan. (I'm no big fan of Lou Dobbs, for that matter.)

[Wilms]

119. Hey kster

There has been increasing info in the media to help one realize there are serious problems with the election management system.

Granted, there was more info in the media suggesting that Bush's WMD claims were bullshit. But what difference did that make? :shrug:

Plus, when I see articles in the media referrencing the problem, that don't get posted here, I have to wonder if some of us spend too much time arguing about exit polls, bbv, Blackwell's poll numbers, etc.

If it wasn't for the stories posted by the Daily Thread editors (for whom we often have to beg recommendations) I wonder if anyone relying on this board would know much about what's going on.

[kster]

124. All you have to do is

ask anyone around you, what they know about Clinton and Monica. If they are able to describe it in great detail, then the media was doing their job. (For some reason)

Then ask them what they know about the illegal secret vote counting machines.

WHICH STORY DO THEY KNOW MORE ABOUT?

WHICH STORY SHOULD THEY KNOW MORE ABOUT?

THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR ANSWER!

[Febble]

17. I am not at all clear

what you mean by "side" here, but if anyone wants me on TV they only have to ask.

But then I consider myself on the "side" that demands urgent reform of your election systems, including the eradication of voter suppression and the reform of vote counting systems to make them transparent, auditable and secure.

That to me, has nothing to do with the issue of whether or not votes were stolen in 2004, or whether enough voter suppression occurred to change the result.

I do not think the exit poll evidence supports the case that anything like enough votes were stolen to give Kerry a popular vote victory, and if Kerry won Ohio, I think the evidence is much stronger for voter suppression than vote theft. But I think coupling the two issues - whether Kerry won (in any sense) to whether reform is needed seriously undermines the case for the second.

Witness your own post, which appears (unless I have misunderstood you) to draw a division between those who think that Kerry won and those who don't, where the relevant division is between those who think that the the electoral system needs reform and those who don't. If you drop the requirement to believe that Kerry won, you may find you have more people on your "side".

On TV.

[kster]

22. At this point, I don't care who won or lost

what I am concerned about is, the silence ON TV about this online debate.

One side thinks it was rigged, one side doesn't think it was rigged, thats what I meant by side.

The debate needs to hit the big screen now. Not Letterman or c-span, but all the channels.

[Febble]

31. Well, if those are the sides you mean

I have a few questions:

By "rigged" do you mean the voting machines were rigged?

Or by "rigged" do you mean that Democrats were much more likely to be prevented from voting at all?

Now, I accept you may mean both.

I certainly believe the second happened. I do not think the evidence is strong for the first, although I am perfectly prepared to believe it happened in some places. I do not believe that millions of votes were stolen by rigged voting machines.

Does that mean I am on your side, or not?

Because I am certainly on the side that thinks that voting machines should be both reliable and unriggable, and at present they are neither.

And I am also on the side that thinks that voter suppression is an abomination, a racist abomination at that, and one that needs to be urgently eradicated.

But I do not believe that that Bush owes his popular vote win to rigged voting machines, for good statistical reasons, and I think that if that debate were to go on TV the argument that he does would lose. Which would be a shame, because the argument that voting machines need to be tranparent, auditable and secure, and that voter suppression must end is unbeatable.

[kster]

I do not think the evidence is strong for the first,

of course you don't, If we were able to rig elections, what YOU would do is get the right lawmakers elected, so that the laws that where put in to place concerning the voting machines, would make it legally impossible for anyone in future elections, to be able to get at any such evidence. Because then, Febble and Kster could sit there and debate election rigging "till the cows come home" and it wouldn't matter. Thats where we are right now.

PROPRIETARY!= (My definition)Legally able to withhold evidence.

[Febble]

39. Not following you.

What I mean is that I think there is good evidence that machines are unreliable, and disturbing evidence that some of them might have been rigged (the preponderance of EIRS reports showing votes flipping to Bush) although that evidence itself isn't strong as there is no reason to believe (and some reason not to) that the reports to EIRS were a random sample. That's what I mean by not strong.

There is also evidence of major errors being caught, which makes one wonder about less egregious errors not being.

But because pro-Bush fraud on a multi-million vote scale would show up as redshift in the exit polls coupled with benefit to Bush, and it doesn't, it is very hard to make any massive vote-switch scenario consistent with the exit poll evidence. I have actually tried pretty hard to do this, but with out any success whatsover.

And I certainly don't want to debate election rigging till the cows come home. I want to get legislation enacted as soon as possible to make elections much more difficult (if not impossible, which might be impossible) to rig. And I think it would be a heck of a lot easier to get politicians to sign up to such legislation if it wasn't supported by flawed arguments that rigged machines stole millions of votes in 2004, when it is extremely easy to demonstrate that it is very unlikely that they did.

My point is really very simple: I think that arguments based in reality stand more chance of being listened to, and of being persuasive, than arguments based on hyperbolic claims that are not only not supported by the data that are claimed to support them, but actually contra-indicated by those very data.

I want your cause to succeed. I think TIA's analyses are flawed and do not support his conclusions, and that those erroneous conclusions hinder the cause, not help it.

[BeFree]

41. And I think you hinder the cause

But let us not debate this amongst ourselves, ask DU what they think about your cause. Post a poll. Why not?

A poll that asks if you are a help or a hindrance to the cause. I will, of course take no answer to this question as a cut and run action.

[Febble]

42. post a poll if you want

But DU is scarcely a random sample of those you need to persuade.

[BeFree]

44. I can post a poll, but...

It would be considered as calling you out.

Aren't you curious to see if your hours and hours here have been productive?

[OnTheOtherHand]

45. intellectual integrity is inherently productive IMO n/t

[kster]

43. If only they would put your argument ON TV

for some reason they fear an ON TV debate, you know, where you lay out all your facts vs the other side of the arguments facts, ON TV for all to see. I never hear you mention the illegal secret vote counting machines? Yes they are counting our votes in secret, That is a fact, so no matter if you are looking at past or future elections. The simple fact that, the voting machine is counting our votes in secret demands an ON TV discussion for all to see.

[Febble]

49. Well if you never hear me mention

"the illegal secret vote counting machines" maybe you aren't reading my posts. Check out #31:

"Because I am certainly on the side that thinks that voting machines should be both reliable and unriggable, and at present they are neither."

And countless others, not to mention my frequent posts about UK paper ballots (usually with pictures):

[kster]

51. Now that you mentioned

"the illegal secret vote counting machines" What the hell are we doing here debating something that the crooks will never let us get answers and or evidence to confirm one way or the other.

This is why we have to fight to get this debate ON TV, so the American people can take a look at the obvious evidence, secret vote counting. Why is it secret? Was it secret in 2004? Is it still secret for 2006 and 2008? if so WHY are the machines counting them in secret?

They know that secret vote counting would not fly with average American. So their only defense is to keep that fact from the American people. You know it and I know it.

[Febble]

64. I completely agree with you

that vote counts should be transparent, auditable and secure.

I would happily go on TV to say so, but I don't suppose anyone will invite me.

[kster]

72. Transparent, auditable and secure

clouds the issue to the average American. (If you should get ON TV) "Illegal secret vote counting machines" would be a much better statement to get their attention, if you really wanted to get their attention, Both statements are absolutely true, but the second raises more eyebrows and explains much better to the average American what is going on, don't ya think?

[Febble]

82. Maybe,

but it sums up the problem:

• Transparency: it should be clear to voters that their intentions have been recorded
  
• Auditable: those intentions must be recorded in a permanent form that can be subjected to recount or random audit
  
• Secure: Safe custody of ballots must be ensured between voting and counting, and between counting and recounting or audit: there must be no opportunity for counting software to be tampered with.

I should also add reliable to my list, though. I can't believe how crappy those machines are.

[Peace Patriot]

18. A plea for election reform fundamentalism: intolerance for non-transparent

elections and for anyone who defends the results of non-transparent elections, and re-affirmation of the FUNDAMENTAL principle of democracy: VISIBLE, VERIFIABLE vote counts.

I suggest that anyone who spends their time attacking one piece of the evidence of 2004 election fraud--the exit poll discrepancy analyses--and ignoring the context of the fraudulent 2004 election SYSTEM and how that system was set up and by whom, and ignoring all the other voluminous evidence of a wrong outcome in 2004, be ignored in election fraud threads from now on.

The Diebold Congress just voted down the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in addition to voting for endless war in the Middle East. Our country is in great peril. We don't have time to engage one-issue posters in these threads.

Election fundamentals:

1. Elections must be transparent and verifiable or they are NOT elections--they are tyranny.

Transparent elections are not difficult. People vote, and their votes are counted in public view. The Bushites in the Anthrax Congress who pushed through the electronic voting bill (aka, the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002)--led by the biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney--DID NOT WANT a transparent election in 2004, or ever again. They went out of their way to PREVENT a paper trail for the 2004 election (and thereafter); they failed to ban "trade secret," proprietary vote tabulation code; they permitted secret industry "testing" of the machines; they failed to ban lavish lobbying and "revolving door" employment; they failed to provide adequate regulation of the new election theft industry; and they provided a $4 billion boondoggle that would largely benefit Bushite-controlled electronic voting corporations, two of whom--Diebold and ES&S--would end up "counting" 80% of the nation's votes in 2004 under a veil of secrecy. The Bush junta, not known for its respect for the law or belief in free and fair elections, deliberately set up a non-transparent, unverifiable election for 2004, and it can only be presumed--on the basis of what tyrants always do with secret vote counting--that they USED this secret vote counting capability to retain power.

To deny election fraud in the circumstance of a fraudulent election SYSTEM--rather than PRESUMING election fraud and trying to find the evidence--serves the interests of unaccountable tyrants, whose purpose it is to HIDE the evidence. Election fraud activists might as well be citizens of Stalinist Russia who dare to questions the result of a Stalin-run election that "elects"--you guessed it!--Stalin! A Stalinist would say, "Prove it! Prove that Stalin was not elected!" What's wrong with this picture? The questioner SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PROVE who won an election. It should be obvious and verifiable. The burden of proof is on Stalin!

REMEDY: Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW! We still have a chance to restore transparent elections, by pressure at the state/local level, where ordinary citizens still have some potential influence. Do it NOW!


2. Independent exit polls are an essential tool to help insure free and fair elections, whatever the conditions of transparency.

Exit polls are especially useful in non-transparent conditions. A significant disparity between exit polls and the official result is a strong indicator of fraud (not proof).

No one can prove that Bush won the 2004 election, due to the non-transparent conditions of the election that were quite deliberately arranged by Bush's supporters in Congress, by Bush's supporters in the electronic voting corporations, who insisted on "trade secret" vote counting with no paper trail, and by the election officials they corrupted. The case for election fraud must therefore NECESSARILY be based largely on inferential evidence. This evidence includes, but is by no means limited to, the real exit polls--which said that Kerry won the 2004 election by a 3% margin (of the voters who made it past Republican blockades to the polling place). Exit polls are the standard tool used throughout the world to verify elections and check for fraud. Exit polls that differ significantly from official results are THE "red flag" for election fraud. They are especially useful in non-transparent conditions--such as those prevalent in the 2004 election, where a recount was rendered impossible.

Kerry's win of the exit polls occurred within a CONTEXT of massive criminal behavior by the Bush regime--including lying about war, waging illegal war, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people, torturing prisoners, indefinite detention of prisoners without charge, pervasive domestic spying, massive theft of the federal treasury, and massive violations of the Voting Rights Act in Ohio and other states, perpetrated against poor, black and other Democratic voters. The latter criminality--the votes directly suppressed/stolen in Ohio--in and of itself makes a case for Bush's loss of the 2004 election. But the exit polls point to something more hidden--they point to widespread tweaking of the vote in small ways here and there, in close battleground states and other regions, that laid the foundation for the direct assault on Democratic voters in Ohio, where the pivotal Electoral Vote count was determined.

REMEDY: The Democratic Party (as the opposition)--or, better yet, some independent body not tied to large corporations--should be conducting INDEPENDENT exit polls, especially given the non-transparent vote counting controlled by partisan Republican corporations. This can be done within the present circumstance of Diebold/ES&S control of the vote count.


3. A free press is essential to free and fair elections. We don't have a free press.

A further element of the CONTEXT of the 2004 election was the lack of a free press. If the Iraq war has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that the corporate news monopolies, a) lie through their teeth in support of war and theft by the rich, and b) lie and deceive in many other ways, by fuzzying up the facts, creating false debates, creating illusions of consent, creating "win" narratives for war and for non-transparent fascist elections, and, in short, act as the clever propagandists of fascist government. It is no wonder, then, that they shut down the election reporting system on election night 2004, and ALTERED their consortium exit polls--in impossible ways--to force the exit polls to FIT the results of Diebold/ES&S's "trade secret" vote counting software. Kerry was winning, by all accounts. Then suddenly, at the end of the day, he was not winning. They had fed the official, secretly derived voting results INTO the exit poll data, CHANGING the exit poll data to confirm a Bush win. Exit polls are supposed to be COMPARED TO the official result, not altered to confirm it. And all the rest of the corporate news monopoly behavior around the election, and the election fraud story, follows from this. They colluded in the stolen election and are covering it up.

REMEDY: Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW! Our right to vote has been taken away, and we therefore no longer have the power to control our public airwaves and to bust up corporate monopolies (news or otherwise) that are harming us. We need to get our power back, through TRANSPARENT elections, before we can remedy anything else. Alternative press--especially Leftist (i.e., majority) press--should be encouraged and financially supported by all believers in democracy.


4. Non-transparent elections = endless war.

Power grabs--including illegitimate elections--have ever been used by tyrants to wage endless war and to rob and oppress the people whom they lord it over. Hitler did it. Stalin did it. The Caesars did it. Napoleon did it. The Medieval Popes did it. The ancient Greek tyrants--from whom we get the word "tyrants"--did it. Virtually every tyrant known to mankind has combined illegitimate power--often with the collusion of the rich--with war and with draconian taxes on the poorest citizens. The population becomes cannon fodder and slave labor, and loses its ability to control its government in the interest of the majority. People don't go to war WILLINGLY, unless their country and their interests are directly threatened (as in WW II). They have to be propagandized and manipulated, robbed of their power as citizens and oppressed.

The 2004 election took place in the context of an illegal war that most Americans have opposed since before the invasion of Iraq (nearly 60% opposed to the war in Feb. '03; over 70% opposed today). There is overwhelming evidence of disagreement between the American people and their government on this, and on every major issue of foreign and domestic policy. If this is not a "red flag" on the 2004 election, I don't know what is. Are George Bush and his puppetmasters ACTING LIKE TYRANTS who are UNACCOUNTABLE to the people? They surely are. Are their "pod people" in Congress acting they same way? Yes. The Diebold Congress (ALSO largely "selected" by Republican-controlled "trade secret," programming code) just voted to allow the Bush junta to remain in Iraq in effect forever, to continue using it as a cash cow for Bushite corporations like Halliburton, and to continue using our young people (and, indeed, now, some of our OLD people) as cannon fodder for their corporate oil wars.

In the late Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas asked people to believe in a Prime Mover or First Cause (God). He had a point. What is the force behind everything? What is MOVING all this--the vast created universe (and he didn't know the half of it)? But whether you believe in God or not, as the "Prime Mover," there is a place in human thought for 'a priori' principles, such as the principle of TRANSPARENT vote counting: if an election is not transparent, it is NOT an election. If a democracy permits secret vote counting by the powerful, it is NOT a democracy. Our Constitution also reflects an 'a priori' principle (based on experience): It says, in effect, that all presidents WILL seek tyrannical powers--especially powers of war--if they are not "checked and balanced" within the government--by Congress and the Courts--and, ultimately, by the people in free and fair elections. The Constitution left a certain amount of leg room for the power elites--the rich, the landowners. But it is absolutely paranoid in its intention of preventing unjustified, treasury-draining, presidential war. Our Constitution is based on the 'a priori' principle articulated by the British democracy lover, Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It PRESUMES bad, warmongering presidents, and seeks every way possible to contain them, with the votes of the people as the ultimate, final stand against presidential tyranny.

But what if, ultimately, consortiums of the moneyed class--corporations--who own and control electronic technology, manage to take over the voting system with "trade secret" proprietary electronics--high speed, invisible, and extremely insecure and insider-hackable vote counting machines--funded and facilitated by the tyrants who need to control the population? The fascists have a bought and paid for, and largely Diebolded, Congress. They have bought and paid for, and illegitimately appointed, Supreme Court and other federal judges. The only check and balance left is the people. How to control their outrage at illegal war and fascist rule? How to convince them that, despite all the polls and their own experience, the majority of OTHER Americans approve of illegal war and fascist rule? How to disempower the majority? How to disenfranchise them?

If you have a regime ACTING LIKE TYRANTS--blatantly ignoring the will of the people, on war and every other issue, blatantly shoving the Constitution and the law aside, blatantly suppressing poor voters in Ohio in violation of the law--then you MUST presume illegitimate power, and look for how that power was achieved. And those who are a drag on that inquiry--whose skepticism diverts rather than assists that inquiry--must, finally, be ignored, because the matter at risk--our country, our lives, our children's future, and the future of the very planet--is too precious to waste our time on endless academic debates on one piece of evidence in the overwhelming picture of 2004 election fraud.

REMEDY:

The remedy for the Ohio vote suppression was the Voting Rights Act, which these fascists violated with impunity BECAUSE of their secret control of the vote count nationwide. They've now killed the Voting Rights Act. So much for holding fascists with secret control of the vote count accountable before the law.

The remedy for the hidden fraud--in the non-transparent, corporate-controlled election SYSTEM--and the remedy for illegal war and illegitimate government, is...

Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines in 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

...while there is still of window of opportunity to do so. While we still can.

[OnTheOtherHand]

19. short PP: "you can't make me answer that question!"

Damn right, I will attack any evidence that isn't actually evidence. And if anyone insists on purveying evidence that s/he isn't prepared to defend, well, good luck with that.

[Febble]

21. Peace Patriot:

I do wonder whether you ever actually read my posts. You write:

I suggest that anyone who spends their time attacking one piece of the evidence of 2004 election fraud--the exit poll discrepancy analyses--and ignoring the context of the fraudulent 2004 election SYSTEM and how that system was set up and by whom, and ignoring all the other voluminous evidence of a wrong outcome in 2004, be ignored in election fraud threads from now on.

What this appears to mean is that you do not want to know whether or not there is actually evidence that millions of votes were stolen.

And you advise others to block their ears as well.

You are entitled to ignore my posts of course, but I'd appreciate it if you could actually read this one

There is substantial evidence that millions of votes were not stolen in 2004. By continuing to insist, apparently, that those who take this evidence seriously are to be ignored, and, indeed are enemies of election reform, is, I submit, to insist that you fight a battle hampered by a claim that is actually contra-indicated by evidence.

And there is NO NEED to be so hampered, because "the system" is, as you say, in urgent need of reform. But if people who are not persuaded that reform is needed are told that reform is needed because millions of votes were stolen in 2004 you will miss recruiting a great deal of support because many people, including me are not convinced that millions of votes were stolen in 2004, and yet are still capable of being convinced that electoral reform is urgently needed. Because it is.

What I am trying to do is to demonstrate that even though it is extremely unlikely, statistically that millions of votes were stolen in 2004 that makes not one jot of difference to the need for election reform.

But if you really love that albatross around your neck, and you really don't want to know it's there - well, I can't stop you ignoring my posts.

But to ask other people to ignore them - well, I don't see why other people should put up with the albatross as well, just because you are convinced it either isn't there or it doesn't matter.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. way to model "rigorous debate" n/t

[BeFree]

30. There is no debate

The evidence was presented on the night of the election: The Exit Poll Numbers showing John Kerry was elected by the people of the United States.

Ever since, the pollers have been masturbating themselves to come up with 'proof' that those numbers were wrong. Nothing they have come up with has convinced anyone that the raw numbers were wrong.

You don't think so? Post a poll here and see. I dare you.

[OnTheOtherHand]

34. short BeFree: "I don't have to answer that question either!" n/t

[BeFree]

35. Posting a poll, are you?

Why not? It won't go ON TV, but you can post a poll here asking what people think of the pollers. Why not come out of the shadows and put yourselves right up front?

[Awsi Dooger]

70. No debate? Here's a warning about exit polls, published Nov. 7, 2000

In other words, the day of the Gore/Bush election, before we knew what would transpire that night, or in Florida over the next month. Notice the buggaboo theme of unequal representation, for various reasons, is already detailed as a source of flawed exit polling:

http://www.hfienberg.com/clips/exitpolls.htm

* VNS overstated the final Democratic vote in the 1992 presidential race. Many believe that this was due to Perot voters being relatively suspicious and unwilling to cooperate with the exit polls.

* In the 1989 Virginia gubernatorial election, exit polls showed African-American Democratic candidate Douglas Wilder winning by 10 percent. Since he actually won by less than 1 percent, many feel that some white voters, feeling perhaps a bit guilty, lied about voting for Wilder.

* In the Republican primaries in New Hampshire in 1992 and in Arizona in 1996, exit polls overestimated the vote for Pat Buchanan. The most likely reason for the mistakes, which resulted in misleading news coverage? Zealous Buchanan voters were more willing to participate in exit polls. In 1992, exit polls predicted a George Bush win by only a small margin over Buchanan -- Bush actually won by 16 points. In 1996, exit polls put Bob Dole a distant third after Steve Forbes and Buchanan - Dole actually came in a close second to Forbes.

[kster]

78. Wow thats pretty fancy

do you think you can get that ON TV?

[Awsi Dooger]

84. Why do you ignore radio?

I was on a radio talk show for 5 years. Albeit sports. I'd be more than thrilled to detail on radio, or your ON TV.

Yes, it is fancy. So fancy, no one is disputing it. Isn't that remarkable, kster?

I kept that link after 2000. Found it on an old Jaz disk a few days ago. I also have links that indicate Bush won the early exit polls in 2000 in Wisconsin and Iowa. Pennsylvania was tied. Another old link says 12 of the states had the wrong winner from the earliest exit polls in 2000. Fancy all around.

[autorank]

77. Back to basics. First causes prevail, not dilatory bull shit.

I've heard enough of the questioning and pseudo intellectual discussion I need for this life time.

Why don't those who question the stolen election 2004 argument also question:

- the argument that no WMD means a fraudulent war ; after all, the questioners are intellectually curious by nature, or

- the argument that no stem cell research is a bad policy, deadly policy; after all, the questioners are intellectually curious by nature, or

- the argument that no pro environment policy is a bad policy; after all, the questioners are intellectually curious by nature, or

- the argument that this is the most corrupt administration in history; after all, the questioners are intellectually curious by nature.

Then there would be a debate on all fronts.

Or could it be that questioning 2004's legitimacy essentially questions EVERY SINGLE argument Democrats make against the * administration making it unnecessary to question any of the other points. After all, corrupt elections assure Republican dominance and thus nihilistic policies prevail.

The end product of endless, meaningless questioning
can be hazardous to questioners:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

T.S. Elliot

[Febble]

80. Do you have any evidence that I, for one, don't?

Of course, if you ignore my posts, you won't know whether I do or not.

[OnTheOtherHand]

89. short autorank: "no, not THAT question! THAT question is dangerous!"

It's obviously not "meaningless" to question whether the exit polls prove massive fraud. If it were "meaningless," autorank wouldn't be sputtering.

"After all, corrupt elections assure Republican dominance and thus nihilistic policies prevail."

Nihilistic policies prevail for many discouraging reasons. But no one here seems willing to make a disciplined argument that corrupt elections are one of them. I keep hoping to find one person.

[Peace Patriot]

28. For those who need info on how our country was stolen from us, and

how to get it back, I recommend the following (and draw your attention to **--Bob Koehler and Amaryllis, below):

RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN REVOLUTION II:

Hopeful signs - latest news:

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. lays out the case for 2004 stolen election, Rolling Stone (6/1/06)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/1

California voters sue the state over Diebold:
www.VoterAction.org is suing the state of California and 18 Calif county registrars on behalf of 25 California voter/plaintiffs, on the illegal Diebold "certification" by Schwarzenegger appointee Bruce McPherson.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2180496
Seven of these counties have promised the judge they would use PAPER BALLOTS, and were dismissed from this lawsuit (4/27/06).
http://kcbs.com/pages/29285.php
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2249205

Maryland rejects Diebold:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418263

Florida - anti-trust accusations against Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, re: heroic Florida election official Ion Sancho:
(FLA AG subpoenas the companies)
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,110192,00.html
http://www.tbo.com/news/politics/MGBKSY8W8LE.html
(info & discussion)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2183630

Utah county clerk fights back!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x419226

(Tide turning?) New York Times: "New Fears of Security Risks in Electronic Voting Systems" (5/12/06)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2278829

Florida - Rep. Wexler may sue over no paper trail:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/14869941.htm

-----

INFORMATION AND ACTIVIST RESOURCES for American Revolution II:

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.UScountvotes.org (statistical monitoring of '06 and '08 elections--they need donations)

(Activist sites with links to state activist groups or info)

www.votersunited.org (good general info, and state links)
www.verifiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.votetrustusa.org (news of the movement from around the country--caveat: $$$ connections to Choicepoint)

www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.bradblog.com (also great, and devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)* :patriot: :applause: :patriot:
www.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)
Provisions of the PA lawsuit:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x423739

The Voter Confidence Resolution
http://tinyurl.com/rlnr2 (“We Do Not Consent”)
http://guvwurld.blogspot.com (GuvWurld blog main page)
http://tinyurl.com/amryg (Voter Confidence Resolution

www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.johnbonifaz.com (running for Massachusetts Sec of State on strong election reform and antiwar platform)

*Some tributes to TruthIsAll, who is very ill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417231
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x675477

Congressional bills:

Russ Holt's HR 550 requires a real paper ballot, bans secret software in "voting machines", and has more than 170 co-sponsors, but the audit required is too weak, it promotes electronic voting and centralized power, and the secret software might be permitted to continue in the central tabulators (the bill is not clear). At lot of discussion at DU of the loopholes/pitfalls in HR 550 (many DUers support the bill):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x422926
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x421136
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=422967&mesg_id=422967
To sign the HR 550 petition: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html

(Note: Senate Bill-SB 330 and House-HR704 simply require a "voter verified paper audit trail" (VVPAT), which may be best for the moment.)


Also of interest:

Michael Collins (Autorank)'s searing election reform article for New Zealand's Scoop.com
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x971363

**Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy! Title: "Poll Shock" 11/24/05)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col321.htm

Bob Koehler's latest: "Trust us: Take this box and stuff it" (3/16/06)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm
More Koehler:
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

**Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05) - "Election officials for sale to the highest bidder."
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

HOWARD DEAN remarks on electronic voting machines 04/06
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x994507

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

Throw Diebold, ES&S and ALL election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:think: :patriot: :woohoo: :patriot: :think:

-----------

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." --Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

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

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

33. Exit Poll Madness

Exit Poll Madness
By LYNN LANDES

Excerpt:

"Exit polls are completely non-transparent and unverifiable. They're as bad as voting by machine, absentee, or early. There's no meaningful oversight to either enterprise. Worse yet, a belief in exit polls is a trap that's had tragic consequences for elections around the world.

There's growing evidence that exit polls sponsored by the Bush Administration and the International Republican Institute were used to support rigged elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector, recently said that his information is that the Iraq election was fixed. Even the situation in the Ukraine is cause for concern as the Western governments used their own poll to discredit the first election and support the second one. It seems that the West's favorite candidate, winner Viktor Yushchenko, promised to privatize lots of government industries and services.

Although the elections in these countries were conducted using paper ballots and (mostly) hand counts, the counting took place behind closed doors and the results took weeks to announce. What did our corporate news media report to the world on the Election Night for these countries? Not the actual vote tallies, but instead the corporate news media jubilantly announced exit polls results. Most people didn't seem to notice the difference. And that's thanks to people like University of Pennsylvania professor Steve F. Freeman...."

http://www.counterpunch.org/landes03032005.html

[BeFree]

36. Well, our pollers have said it was a "crock"

And we all saw that the numbers can be/are manipulated to further the cause of one side alone.

But the numbers we saw.... the raw counts on election night, before the one sided manipulation took place, are a body of evidence that must be regarded as an important piece of the puzzle we are attempting to build.

That is precisely why the pollers have put so much time and effort into their own little "crock."

[Peace Patriot]

46. There is no question that corporate exit pollsters CAN tweak their polls

to support the rich and the powerful. The highly discredited exit polls by the anti-Chavez rich oil elite in Venezuela (funded by our Diebold Congress in violation of Venezuelan law) are a good case in point. The Carter Center, the OAS, and EU election monitoring groups--and their hundreds of election monitors--all closely followed that Venezuelan election and found it to be honest and aboveboard. The opposition's polls were wrong--and obviously tweaked. (The vote was conducted electronically, by the way, but with OPEN SOURCE CODE. "Trade secret," proprietary programming code is NOT a necessity of electronic voting--so, why do we have it?)

But IF Edison-Mitofsky COULD tweak the 2004 exit polls for the rich and powerful, on first brush, why didn't they? Why create this controversy? Why not just rig the exit polls from the beginning? Landes' article doesn't make sense in this regard.

What DID occur is that alert bloggers and independent experts CAUGHT THEM IN THE ACT of tweaking the exit polls in Bush's favor AFTERWARD--after the undoctored numbers showed a clear Kerry victory. APPARENTLY, E/M set about to conduct honest exit polls, but something happened to change their minds (what was it? threats from Bushites' secret spy network?); the reporting system went down (a computer crash, we were told), and, when it came back up, the exit polls had been tweaked--in impossible ways (as TIA has shown)--to MATCH the results of Diebold/ES&S's secret vote count.

The trouble with Counterpunch--and apparently with Landes as well--is that they don't like Kerry or the War/Corporate Democrats. That's my opinion as a longtime Counterpunch reader. They fail to understand that a victory for Kerry in 2004 was a VICTORY FOR THE PEOPLE. It was a huge grassroots movement, led by LEFTISTS (majority-ists) who gave the Democrats a blowout success in new voter registrations in 2004, nearly 60/40. People were flocking to the Democratic Party to OUST BUSH. It was their ONLY alternative. And, boy, did they take it! 20 million more people voted in 2004 than in 2000--most of them for Kerry. The great majority of new, independent and former Nader voters voted for Kerry. People were dragging their non-voting family members and friends and co-workers to the polls TO OUST BUSH. We would have had joy in the streets, had the Bush junta not stolen it. There would have been smiles all over the country, and all over the world.

THEN we would have had to deal with Kerry's "more efficient war in Iraq" policy--and other War/Corporate Democratic policies (like NAFTA)--and the military-corporate establishment (long in need of trimming, by about 90%, down to a true defensive posture). But we would have had a chance. We would have had great spirit. We would have been working with REASONABLE people in a Kerry administration. Snobs, maybe, but reasonable snobs.

Counterpunch doesn't want that--even though that is what would have been best for most living people (in our country and the world). Counterpunch wants the overthrow of Corporate Rule. But you don't get that overnight (except by bloody revolution--and I hope we've all become grownups about that), and you don't get it with depressed, demoralized, disempowered, DISENFRACHISED people.

This "hard left" attitude, that nothing short of overthrow of the Corporate Rulers, will do, bothers me a lot. Because I'm a 'hard leftist' myself in many ways. The U.S. of A. has been on a wrong course for a very long time. The 2004 fascist coup was just the capper to decades of encroachment on our democracy by U.S.-based global corporate predators. We spawned these monsters--Halliburton, Bechtel, Chevron and all the rest. Now they prey upon the world, and upon us. It is our obligation to rein them in (and, theoretically, it is our right as a sovereign people). (They know this. Why do you think they took away our right to vote?) We also have a profound problem of structural (as well as overt) racism in our society--and the Corporate Rulers have made an unholy alliance with rightwing 'christian' fundamentalists to exploit both racism and sexism, and to create a false American self-image as a hate-filled, racist, sexist, murderous people. But most Americans are NOT hate-filled. Most Americans want peace and justice, just like everybody else in the world. Americans are also better-informed than anybody gives them credit for--and more tolerant and more generous. And I hate to see this broad consensus of progressive values--and this great majority of generous, tolerant, peaceful people--eclipsed and oppressed by the far right minority, by virtue of its unholy alliance with the Corporate Rulers, and at the same time vilified by the hard left. There seems to me to be a contempt for democracy--and for consensus--at both far ends of the spectrum.

I wanted to see Kerry elected not because I liked Kerry all that much, or thought he was the fair-chosen candidate. I wanted to see him elected BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WERE COMING OUT IN RECORD NUMBERS TO VOTE FOR HIM AND TO OUST BUSH. And the people needed a boost. They needed that victory to keep the grass roots momentum going. It was a beautiful up-from-the ground movement, and it won, and it was robbed. I think some corrupt Dems colluded in that robbery (chief suspect among them, Bilderberg 'Democrat' Christopher Dodd, who helped major crooks Tom Delay and Bob Ney devise the electronic voting coup), because corrupt Dems don't want majority rule in this country any more than Bushites do. (Dodd was also Kerry's advisor on electronic voting!) And this is one opinion I share with Counterpunch: a dim view of our War/Corporate Democratic Party leaders. However, CP acts as if we have a Parliamentary system, in which small minority parties (who often represent large majorities on particular issues--such as the Greens) can achieve power and have a say in government policy. Coalition governments. The closest we've ever come to coalition government is under FDR--under emergency conditions. (Socialists had a big say in those days.) But generally we have a winner take all system, that makes it virtually impossible to have any influence on policy except through one of the two major parties. We are stuck with this system, as to federal elections--until we, the majority, can achieve the power to change it. And we have to work with it. It is unrealistic to do otherwise. We can dream and plan. But we have to deal with the here and now. ( Long time--40 years--loyal Democratic voter and activist, here, by the way--"since birth," as they say.)

Counterpunch is a brilliant magazine--well worth reading. But I've stopped reading it. You know why? It never offers solutions.

And I'm into solutions. And I think it all comes down, right now, to ONE, CRITICALLY IMPORTANT, FIRST STEP SOLUTION: restoring our right to vote. Give the people a chance, and they WILL create peace and justice. They've proven time and again, whenever they have the chance, that that is what they want. They want peace. They want justice. They want the environment protected, and the planet saved. They want good, fair, decent government. Restoring our right to vote is the FIRST STEP back along the path of democracy. We obviously have many, many more problems to solve. But without transparent elections, we have no power to solve them. We can't even start.

We have only to look to the amazing, peaceful, democratic, Leftist (i.e., majority) revolution in South America right now. to see the power of TRANSPARENT elections--in Brazil, in Chile, in Argentina, in Uruguay, in Bolivia, in Venezuela--with strong Leftist movements developing in Peru, and even in Nicaragua, moving right on up into Mexico (where the Leftist mayor of Mexico City is now ahead in the polls for President). The work of the OAS, the Carter Center, EU election monitoring groups and local civic groups has been a very, very powerful force in this revolution, in some of the most brutally oppressed countries on earth. If they can recover from all they have suffered, so can we. TRANSPARENT elections are the key.

That is my inspiration. With transparent elections, we can do ANYTHING. We can create a good and just country. Let's get on with it! Power to the people!

[OnTheOtherHand]

47. fact check

"...the reporting system went down (a computer crash, we were told), and, when it came back up, the exit polls had been tweaked--in impossible ways (as TIA has shown)--to MATCH the results of Diebold/ES&S's secret vote count."

That is more wrong than right. It has been rebutted repeatedly. I still invite anyone on DU to defend TIA's analysis -- as distinct from parroting the results. Reality bats last.

[BeFree]

50. Its been butted...

...but it butted right back.

The very idea that all those dead bush voters came back to life just to vote for him again, is ridiculous.

Just the number switches alone - once the system came back- gives every reasonable person cause to question the intellectual integrity of the pollers.

[OnTheOtherHand]

65. like the dead Clinton voters in 2000?

Look at the 2000 exit poll results
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/index.epolls.html
46% Clinton voters, 31% Dole voters. That's too many Clinton voters. Same problem as 2004. I don't think that's Gore vote fraud, I think it's people misreporting their past votes. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The pollers always reweight their tabulations to the official counts; it's been explained repeatedly. It might be reasonable to admit that.

[BeFree]

66. Heck, that's well known...

...that they reweight (add in) extra numbers. We saw that after, what was it, 12:30am , or so? That's when the dead people come out... after midnight!

What we saw before that is what interests me. We saw the raw, but already modeled numbers, (those numbers are called "estimates") that the networks had paid dearly for, after which they started saying it looks like Kerry won.

If it was people just 'misreporting' their votes then why didn't that show up before the "projections" were made which changed everything around? Why didn't the models catch that first?

Don't tell me the models are messed up, too! If they were, then yeah, its all a "crock".

[OnTheOtherHand]

67. it did show up before the reweightings

Even in the initial tabs there are more supposed Bush voters than Gore voters -- not to a mathematically impossible degree, but to a highly unlikely one.

Did you actually look at the 2000 exit poll result and think about it? If we don't think, nothing changes.

[Febble]

48. Jeez, PP

Stop Making Stuff Up

http://www.exit-poll.net/faq.html#a10

How are projections made?
Projections are based on models that use votes from three (3) different sources -- exit poll interviews with voters, vote returns as reported by election officials from the sample precincts, and tabulations of votes by county. The models make estimates from all these vote reports. The models also indicate the likely error in the estimates. The best model estimate may be used to make a projection if it passes a series of tests.

This was on the E-M website before the election, as I read myself.

You say: "APPARENTLY, E/M set about to conduct honest exit polls, but something happened to change their minds"

Well, they were so damn honest, they told you that the projections would incorporate vote returns before the damn elections!

What kind of conspiracy is it that actually announces itself on a public website beforehand?

What you are post is NOT TRUE, and while it makes a great story, it's not much use if it flies in the face of completely verifiable facts!

[BeFree]

52. Not so fast, febble

That page was changed on January 19, 2005

http://www.exit-poll.net/faq.html#a10

Right click and then click Page Info.

That crap could have been posted after the election.

And what crap it is. Projections were made before polls closed on the east coast. So vote counts from vote returns could nothave been used in those projections. Unless you think returns were leaked to the pollers by officials?

But your site says:
Projections will be made for each race in a state, one at a time, after all the polls in a state are closed. There will be no projections before the last polls in a state are closed.

So, either the page has been changed, or we aren't on the same page, because why would Fox news saying at 5:pm bush is gonna lose, if projections are not made before polls close?

Anyway.... the raw numbers, we now see, were put into the models as those numbers came in, and some brave soul at CNN put the resultant projections on the website, well before those numbers made the Miscountski computers crash and burn it's way into hell.


On edit: went to the wayback machine to find the essential wording had not changed after the election. Shoulda done that first, eh? The page was not changed. My mistake.

[Febble]

53. Except that it wasn't

Because I read it on election night, and it is archived here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041030085848/http://www.exit-poll.net/faq.html

With a date of 20th October 2004.

I saw the estimates at close of poll, and they showed Kerry ahead. Later, as it says in the FAQ, subsequent projections incorporated the vote counts, and those showed Bush ahead. Because I'd read the FAQ I knew that the close-of-poll estimates would just include estimates made from the polls, and that later projections would incorporate the vote returns.

They don't even attempt to call a winner in close states until a substantial number of actual returns are in. The whole point of the projections is to project the winner, so, of course, if it is close, they also use the vote returns.

They did exactly as they said they'd do, and as they do each year, and as they do in the UK as well.

[BeFree]

55. Wait, I see what's happening

How are projections made?
Projections are based on models that use votes from three (3) different sources -- exit poll interviews with voters, vote returns as reported by election officials from the sample precincts, and tabulations of votes by county. The models make estimates from all these vote reports. The models also indicate the likely error in the estimates. The best model estimate may be used to make a projection if it passes a series of tests.

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

What we heard at 5pm on Fox, was an estimate not a projection, silly me.

So, what we saw at 5pm was the raw data after being run through the models turned into an "estimate".

The "projections" come after the official corrupted results were seen and incorporated into the mix.

Great way of twisting terms... this twisting of "projections" and "estimates".

Had me going for a bit. Geez, talk about intellectual integrity... more like just plain gritty, eh?

[Febble]

58. Well, technical terms are a bit tricky sometimes

And if the polls are really clear, a state may be called on the basis of the exit results alone.

But yes, the estimates are based on the currently available data, which, as the night wears on, will include the vote returns. When, as I said, the confidence limits of the estimates exceed a critical level (the pollsters are 99.95% confident of the result) then they will project a winner.

[Febble]

57. And I should also add

that no projections are made until the confidence limits of the estimate reach a critical value.

If Fox was saying at 5.00pm (and I don't know, I don't watch Fox) that Bush was going to lose, it is possible that whoever was saying it was saying it on the basis of the exit poll returns*, to which Fox had access. And we know that the exit poll returns had Kerry ahead.

But projections aren't made until the pollsters are extremely confident, and if the result is at all close, that point isn't reached until a large proportion of vote-returns are in.

What you may have seen are the national cross-tabulations of who voted for whom, and they certainly showed Kerry ahead. But those aren't projections of the winner.

But the point of what I'm saying is not that the exit polls didn't show Kerry ahead - they did, and there is no secret about that. Millions of people, including me, saw those crosstabs on CNN, and they showed Kerry ahead in the national sample. What I'm saying is that there was no cover-up - the state projections were made, as they are always made, and as they announced in advance they would make them, on the basis of both the exit poll interviews and the vote returns. When the estimate for a state reaches a critical confidence value, the state is called.


edited to add:

*incomplete exit poll returns

[BeFree]

61. Our only confidence can be in...

... those fairly raw, modeled estimates.

Because we know when projections were finally made, too many bush voters would've had to risen from the dead for the projections to reach the needed confidence level.

Hope that's clear.

[Febble]

62. Exactly

And all the data analysis I have done was done on even rawer data - the actual data from the exit poll respondents.

As for the dead Bush voters - well, let's leave that for another thread.

At least we agree: if we are interested in reverse-engineering the exit poll to try and find out whether there was fraud in the election we have to go back to the raw responses.

Cheers (again) :toast:.

[Febble]

60. Re your edit

Good for you for checking.

Checking facts is good.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

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

[Febble]

40. Fact check:

The firm that doctored the exit polls in 2004 (Edison-Mitofsky) has promised that we will never get to see the real exit polls (Kerry won) ever again

Not true. Not only were the "real" exit polls actually published by E-M in January 2004, but they have not made (AFAIK) the promise you allege. All they have said is that they will try to block leaks of midday polls (i.e. before samples are complete).

and has continued to withhold the 2004 raw exit poll data from independent experts and from Congressman John Conyers and his election investigation team.

The raw data has been available since January 2005, with precinct identifiers removed, as always, to protect the confidentiality of the respondents. However "blurred" data for Ohio has already been made available to independent researchers and more is, I understand, forthcoming.

This high-speed, invisible, secret vote counting environment INCLUDES the corporate news media and their consultants and contractors. The results now go directly from the Diebold/ES&S-controlled central vote tabulators to an Associated Press computer, thence to your TV screen and other news outlets.

And your evidence for this is?

It's all intended to "call" elections at lightning speed in order to PREVENT any investigation, challenges or recounts. What you see on TV on election night IS VERY LIKELY INCORRECT.

And your evidence for this is?

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. Good when they come out of the woodwork, isn't it?

A nice tiny little mutual admiration society chatting among themselves.

[Febble]

59. Well, if you don't want to pay any attention

don't.

[Name removed]

96. Deleted message

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

[autorank]

69. Well, we may have a new word for it...

"solipsistic political autism" - As Martha might say, talking is a good thing;)

[Joe Chi Minh]

95. Nice one, Auto!

[autorank]

68. After the * administration has shown clear guilt for: (see below;)

Thanks for reposting this. It's a classic. Ernest Partridge includes it in his Election Fraud collection.

After the * administration has shown clear guilt for:

=> negligence on 911

=> starting a tragic preemptive war based on lies

=> neglecting the environment in times of building ecocatastrophe

=> revolutionizing our democracy by introducing tyranny and

=> all the other crimes against the American people and the world it's reasonable to say

Denying election fraud in stolen election 2004
is like denying global warming!

It is the lowest common denominator in atavistic, primitive superstition based reasoning
or lack there of

[reprehensor]

75. Righteous.

We live in interesting times.

[autorank]

76. Yes, and as I like to say...

f' em if they can't take a joke;)

[Febble]

83. I can take bad jokes

it's bad arguments I have a problem with.

And, on the offchance you are not ignoring my posts:

My reasons for seeking to ensure that argument for election reform - which I believe to be a vitally urgent one - rests on sound foundations, is that I think that argument based on sound foundations have a better chance of being heard, and supported, by those with the power to take legislative action.

I think the argument that the exit polls are evidence of massive digital vote-theft fails, although this of course was not apparent when TIA started posting. But we know more now. In particular, we know:

1. That in precincts with the largest redshift, there was no tendency for Bush to do any better than in precincts with no redshift, or blue shift - in other words, redshift was not associated with any benefit to Bush.
   
2. That the exit poll discrepancy was not greater where DREs or other digital voting equipment was used
   
3. That in states with the greatest redshift, Kerry actually did best relative to his pre-election poll showing, and that in states with the least redshift (suggesting an accurate count) Kerry tended to do worse relative to his pre-election poll showing.
   
4. That just as Bush 2000 voters seemed to be over-represented in both the unweighted and reweighted crosstabs, so were Clinton 1996 voters over-represented in the 2000 crosstabs, indicating that people mis-recall their previous vote in favour of the present incumbent
   
5. That factors likely to be associated with bias in the poll are present in precincts that showed greatest redshift.

For all these reasons, the argument that millions of votes were stolen receives no support from the exit poll data, but of these, the finding that there is absolutely no association between the magnitude of the redshift at precinct level, and Bush's performance relative to 2000 means that not only is the theory that millions of votes were switched to Bush unsupported by the exit poll data, but that the theory is actually inconsistent with that finding.

This is not "superstition" based reasoning. This is evidence based reasoning. And it is good news for Democrats, as it means that you have a much better chance of throwing out the Republicans at the next election.

Go for it!

edited for typo

[Larry Bergan]

115. I use that phrase a lot these days

Because interesting is a lot nicer way to say disgusting, horrifying, reprehensible, demoralizing, ect..

All I know is that I'm real glad I'm defending the view that the voting machines are unacceptable, and not the unenviable task of defending them.

Although it seems he didn't want to go as far as taking on the entire corporate media after the 2004 election, John Zogby felt it was time to go out on a limb and say that he was sure Kerry was going to win based on his many years in the polling business. He said that on "The Daily Show" very close to the election. The video was taken off the archive site, probably to protect Mr. Zogby. I can only say "I saw it with my own eyes". For myself, I would trust Zogby over Edison/Mitofsky any day!

This is my second post on DU and don't know much about what's been going on here.

[autorank]

120. Welcome to DU!!!!

Stick around, enjoy. It's about to get even more interesting here!!!

:hi:

[Larry Bergan]

122. Thanks for the friendly welcome!

I'll try not to waste anybody's time, and promise never to intentionally misinform, as is common with this issue. I've already learned much from this thread, and I've beem following this voting machine comedy-of-errors for a long time.

[autorank]

123. Welcome. Check this mind blower out from1988

http://www.itl.nist.gov/lab/specpubs/500-158.htm

We have the VERY SAME issues now. Amazing...why, it's almost as if someone planned it that way;)

[Larry Bergan]

132. Mind blowing document indeed!

If this document is real, it is unbelievable!

I’ve been wondering about the inner-workings of the punch card system ever since I became involved in this election business and found out my higher election officials in Utah act weird when asked questions about it. Nobody seems to know a darned thing about these enigmatic punch card machines. I’ve never seen a picture of one, or seen one article that describes them.

I haven’t got the time to read the entire, (HUGE) thing, but almost by magic, I happened upon something VERY INTERESTING. A detailed description of the punch card system by Dr. Michael Ian Shamos. Dr. Shamos is one of a handful of people allowed to comment about voting machines in the Utah press. Despite the fact that he has come out strongly stating the vulnerability of the Diebold machines after the BBV examination, I’m uncomfortable with him being used as a source of expertise because he has done studies against the use of paper ballots. So I was stunned to see this observation by him concerning the punch card ballots:

“the ballot itself contains no candidate names and is meaningless when examined”

Granted, this was many years ago, and he’s certainly allowed to change his mind. Also, if he’s been working on this issue that long, he’s probably even more confused then I am! He continues with his description of the punch cards with these stunning revelations:

“It is a straightforward matter to alter a punched-card voting booth so that votes cast for one candidate will be recorded as though they were for another....Any required tampering can be performed during the election and all traces removed before any investigation can occur. Computers can be manipulated remotely, by wire or radio, or by direct physical input. The memories on which these computers operate can easily fit into a shirt pocket and can be substituted in seconds. The software can be set to await the receipt of a special card, whose presence will cause all the election counters to be altered. This card could be dropped into the ballot box by any confederate. The possibilities for this type of tampering are endless, and virtually no detection is possible once tabulation has been completed”.

Possible RADIO manipulation of Utah votes since the 1960's or whenever we got these things. WOW!. Verification of my every suspicion, right from the horses mouth (Shamos). If we get to send our Diebold machines back for credit, I move that we NEVER even consider using these scary pieces of junk again!

This Diebold debacle may turn out to be the best thing that has ever happened to election reform!

[JimDandy]

130. Hey there, Larry. Good to see you on DU!

:hi: We can always use another solution-oriented poster.

Generally the water is warm here on the ER board, but I had to laugh when I saw your first two posts ended up in snake-infested waters. A few of the snakes here are really poisonous. Wading into their muddy, life-sucking waters causes them to writhe and swarm even more. Ignore them as much as you can, but whack at them if necessary, always being careful to FOLLOW DU RULES, of course.

You're right..."the voting machines are unacceptable" and not just because they fail and are potentially hackable, but simply because it's impossible to prove they counted our votes correctly. Elections using paper ballots only, cast only on election day, at neighborhood-sized precincts manned by volunteers from opposing parties (not by county employees), and hand-counted at the precinct are mandatory for the existence of a democracy.

Larry, reading past DU posts can help you know more about what's been going on here, but posting your own thoughts and ideas will help you, and us, even more. You're at the second yard line...post, post, post and meet me half way down the field, my friend.

J.D.

[Larry Bergan]

133. My first time on DU was very tough!

I've been listening to Mike Malloy for years now and love the show, but to run into Ben Burch posting hateful messages about Beverly Harris was awful! I don't know who to trust. Ben didn't answer my inquiry, so I guess I'll just have to wait. Seems odd that he doesn't use his airtime on the Malloy show to bash Beverly if he thinks she's up to something.

I listened to the Randi Rhodes show with Beverly and didn't know what to think. Randi, (whose show I also love) seemed to be in a real bad mood and wouldn't let her defend herself. Mike says he hates liars, and so do I. All I've heard him say, is that he doesn't know what to think about Bev.

I tend to trust her, and hope things turn out well for everybody!

[Febble]

81. One big difference;

The conclusion that the evidence indicates global warming is supported by a consensus of experts in the field (environmental scientists).

The conclusion that the election was stolen is not supported a consensus of experts in the field (political scientists). Indeed I know of only one.

Moreover, in this thread, the conclusion that the election was stolen is supported by reference to assertions that are easily demonstrated to be false (superstition based reasoning?)

That doesn't mean that the election wasn't stolen. But it does mean that there is perfectly good justification for debate as to whether it was, and, IMO, the evidence is strongly against the case that millions of votes were stolen by digital vote fraud.

[Awsi Dooger]

85. Hysterical! Thank you for making my point, without realizing it

Global warming is verified by historical data, trendline relationship over a long period of time. If you jumped smack in today and were completely oblivious to past data, you would have no idea if we were warming or plunging toward Ice Age.

That's Steven Freeman. That's TIA. They leap right in as instant experts. The voting history of the individual state could vary 10 points either way from the exit poll and they wouldn't know or care.

Here's a challenge: go back to before the 2004 election and find any reference to exit polls in TIA's posts. Now certainly, since he's basing everything on the exit polls there's no doubt he wrote extensively about them prior to November 2, 2004. Why, I bet he predicted specific states and what the exit polls would look like. He might have warned which early exit polls would be the most significant and which ones to be a bit wary of. No doubt he had a massive data base and fourth degree polynomials examining previous cycles and the exit polls. I'm really looking forward to the refresher course. Freeman's pre-2004 work on exit polls might be intriguing also. Take your time.

[OnTheOtherHand]

88. short autorank: "I don't have to answer that question either!"

autorank's "argument" makes as much sense as: "Since Jesus has shown his love for us, we know that the earth is 6000 years old." It might make sense to someone who believes it, but it doesn't seem likely to convince anyone who doesn't.

C'mon, folks, is anyone here willing to defend the exit poll argument for massive fraud, in his or her own words? Does anyone understand the exit poll argument well enough to defend it?

Failing that, can anyone direct me to evidence of a scientific consensus that the exit polls demonstrate massive fraud, comparable (in any way whatsover) to the consensus on global warming documented by Oreskes at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686?

Hmm.