Major Independent Exit Poll Projects to Coordinate

[Melissa G]

WOO HOO! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :patriot:


Major Independent Exit Poll Projects to Coordinate


With increased consciousness of the dangers of electronic vote-counting technology, there is increasing grassroots pressure for independent election verification. In elections around the world, public-domain exit polls are central to such efforts. Unfortunately, US media consortium exit pollsters have announced that they will no longer release any data even to their media clients until they can "correct" their numbers so as to make them conform to the official count. In other words, what they report is no longer exit poll data at all, but rather a meaningless affirmation of official numbers.


To obtain an honest assessment of how people voted and whether or not machines are recording votes accurately, groups around the nation have developed plans to conduct exit polls. We are pleased to announce that several groups at the forefront of the national election integrity movement groups pushing for independent exit polls are will be coordinating in this effort under the banner of the Vote Count Protection Project.


The combined exit poll will implemented by Kenneth Warren of The Warren Poll, Steven F. Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, and Jonathan Simon of the Election Defense Alliance. At the same time, election data forensics will be implemented by Stephanie F. Singer of Campaign Scientific and Bruce O'Dell of the Election Defense Alliance.


All data and findings will be available for independent analyses.


More information is available on the web:
http://www.electionintegrity.org/vcpp.shtml
http://www.electiondefensealliance.org


For more information, please contact Stephanie F. Singer at [e-mail] or at 215-715-3479.


The Vote Count Protection Project is an initiative of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism, a 501(c)(3) organization. The Election Defense Alliance is a 501(c)(3) organization. All contributions are tax-deductible.




Stephanie Frank Singer
Director, Vote Count Protection Project
http://www.electionintegrity.org/vcpp.shtml
tel: [phone]






:patriot:

[slackmaster]

1. Why are people dancing around the problem?

If the goal is to test the machines, then test the machines.

Pick a few percincts at random. Arrange for these to get one more machine than is needed to accommodate voters. For each of those precincts, pick one machine at random, configure it for a live vote, then feed it a controlled script and look at the output.

Use of polls will just perpetuate the uncertainty. Polls can always be challenged on methodological and procedural grounds.

[Iwasthere]

5. i agree !!!!

[sfsinger]

7. We don't have access to the machines!

I fully support your desire to test machines on Election Day. 
If you are in a position to implement it, please do.

As far as I know, however, only by election officials can
implement Election Day testing, and attempts to induce them
this kind of testing have not been successful to date.  Exit
polling and forensic analysis can be done by independent,
nonpartisan groups.  We can make it happen without legislative
and policy changes.  That's why we're "dancing around the
problem".  If we were allowed onto the main dance floor,
we would proceed differently.

[slackmaster]

8. I know very little about how the machines are controlled

Who has access, what procedures they use to prepare the machines.

Thanks for the input, and welcome to DU whoever you are!

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. that would presumably be Stephanie F. Singer

(see the OP). A most excellent person.

It's a fair answer: the machines aren't available to be audited right now, so we (the big swirling collective "we") need to audit what we can.

Of course I share your skepticism about exit polls. To confound my critics (but mostly to be accurate), let me emphasize: (1) since one problem with the existing national exit polls is that they aren't designed to audit elections, there is some obvious appeal to exit polls that are designed to audit elections; (2) even exit polls that aren't designed to audit elections can yield useful information, and the 2004 exit polls do -- although I sharply disagree with Steve Freeman about what they reveal.

I think the exit poll proposal here is appropriately portrayed in the rationale document as a "pilot" study. If people don't suppose that it will provide a smoking gun, then they will not be disappointed. I don't think anyone would benefit from another exit poll debate as contentious and circular as the first one has been.

[slackmaster]

11. Your point about intended purpose of polls is spot on

"Traditional" exit polls are designed to provide expedient content for the highly competitive news media. Accuracy is a secondary consideration.

[philly_bob]

22. SFSinger has been an election integrity progressive for some time.

Welcome to her.

DU browsers, do not be misled by sfsinger's low number of posts. She's on our side and know whereof she speaks.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

41. you don't need evidence... you're a journalist

This is just pathetic. Once I'm done being angry, I will be embarrassed for you. I'm embarrassed for all of us.

[Kurovski]

64. Don't strain yourself OTOH.

In keeping with circuitous patterns, you may ultimately end up embarrassing only yourself.

Broad, "Queen Victoria" Shame-based posts have a way of doing that. :-)

[OnTheOtherHand]

78. ?

My thought is, progressives (and everyone else) should refrain from unwarranted attacks, and respond when they see such attacks. No one has offered any warrant for this attack. I don't see what is circuitous.

[Kurovski]

83. How is fighting with emotion and manipulation via attempted humiliation

any better than the unwarranted attack that you perceive? althecat appears to be stating his opinion. Do you take his opinion personally for any particular reason?

Your generous and presumptuous offer to be embarrassed for us all is a circle that rounds back to...your embarrassing presumptuousness.

[OnTheOtherHand]

85. actually, I proposed a principle

You can agree or disagree, but it seems pretty contrived to complain about emotion and manipulation.

I see two ways of interpreting his "opinion." Either it means that I am a paid shill, or it means that I and the vast majority of my colleagues are paid shills. Pretty offensive either way.

[Kurovski]

92. Actually, we know how to read:

"This is just pathetic. Once I'm done being angry, I will be embarrassed for you. I'm embarrassed for all of us."

Those of us who haven't put you on ignore yet can see you quite plainly.

Good niiiiight, honeypot. Good night to you and the "vast majority" of your "colleagues" :boring: sleep tight.

[Kurovski]

10. Welcome to DU, sfsinger.

Recommended.

[Melissa G]

12. Welcome to DU, sfsinger! Great to have you here!

Check your voice mail when you get a chance...:hi:

[Febble]

15. Welcome, and thanks for dropping by!

I agree that one good reason for your exit poll venture is that you have your own data to analyse, independently. Also you can tie it to specific precincts.

I do have reservations about it as an exercise, as I do about all exit polls or parallel elections, whether designed to monitor the count or not, simply because getting random samples from face-to-face interviews is difficult, and bias is impossible to rule out. Response rates tend to be low, which means you cannot rule out non-response bias, and ironically, steps taken to try and increase it seem to make it worse (i.e. they seem to work differentially on the two brands of voters). So given the expense involved in doing them well, I can think of better things to with the money.

If I were doing it, however, I'd be inclined to test some specific hypotheses, and perhaps try to select matched pairs of precincts that differed as far as possible only in a factor of interest (e.g. voting technology), and randomly allocate interviewers to each member of the pair.

But I'd also want to collect vote-count data from a much larger selection of precincts, where possible at the precinct, and look for anomalous patterns of "swing" relative to previous elections, especially where boundaries have not changed. Again, a priori hypotheses would be useful.

And if you can force a recount in anomalous precincts, that would be better still.

Good luck!

Elizabeth Liddle

[electropop]

24. "Biases" only started appearing when the GOP started stealing

around 2000. The "biases" of exit poll respondents are a fiction meant to explain the fact that the vapor-voting counts didn't match the exit polls. The "biases" never appeared when we had real election systems.

[tblue]

28. Yep.

[Febble]

38. Um....

What about the 5 point "bias" in 1992?

[althecat]

33. Hi Stephanie.... a queston and some background on Febble and OTOH

I would be very interested in your answer to Febble's question in post #2 about the sources for this quote:

"Unfortunately, US media consortium exit pollsters have announced that they will no longer release any data even to their media clients until they can "correct" their numbers so as to make them conform to the official count. In other words, what they report is no longer exit poll data at all, but rather a meaningless affirmation of official numbers."

And lest you think I am being unnecessarily harsh on OnTheOtherHand and Febble in this thread there is a considerable history to their involvement in discussions about exit polls in this forum.

Since this forum is also ground zero for the origination and publication of the "contentious" data from the 2004 election, and so you know who and what you are dealing with I will provide a bit of background.

Febble "Elizabeth Liddle" was employed by Mitofsky Edison to check their post election whitewash report. OTOH seems to be either employed by a polling company or a voting machine manufacturer can't remember which.

They are both notable in several respects.

1. The respond almost instantaneously to any thread in this forum on exit polls.
2. They then proceed to poor scorn on anyone who thinks there is anything untoward about the NEP in 2002 and 2004.
3. They claim to be genuinely interested in assessing the risks involved in vote fraud but have provided not a single suggestion on how exit polls might be used for this purpose.
4. They are unbeleiveably patronising and ANNOYING...

anyway....

Welcome to DU....

And FANTASTIC NEWS ON YOUR EFFORTS.. I look forward greatly to your results.

[Febble]

39. I think you will find

that Stephanie Singer knows who I am, which is why I signed my name to the post.

But this post requires correction, if indeed it remains visible, which I hope it does not as it is contains outrageous and false allegations.

I was NOT "employed by Mitofsky Edison to check their post election whitewash report." In fact, I was not employed by "Mitofsky-Edison" at all. I was privately contracted by Warren Mitofsky to reanalyse the exit poll data using a measure I had proposed in a paper I wrote that was critical of the Edison-Mitofsky report. Dr Singer is aware of my paper, and we have even discussed the mathematics of it. "Whitewash" was not part of my brief, nor would I have consented under any circumstance to undertake anything that could conceivably be called a "whitewash".

As for:

"OTOH seems to be either employed by a polling company or a voting machine manufacturer can't remember which": I am not surprised you cannot "remember" which company OTOH seems to be "employed" by, as it is a complete figment of your imagination.

And you have the GALL to accuse US of DISINFORMATION.

Jeez.

[althecat]

46. So who does OTOH work for?

Or is that a secret?

[Febble]

49. I don't think it's a secret

but it is against DU rules to give information about other posters. I expect he'll tell you himself. He certainly frequently posts links to his own website.

[OnTheOtherHand]

51. you might direct him to the handy "profile" feature

where I revealed my affiliation back in May 2005.

[althecat]

53. I teach American politics and environmental studies at Bard College.

???

what affiliation?

[OnTheOtherHand]

73. are you serious? n/t

[althecat]

77. I think you are becoming a bit circular and contentious...

What is your affiliation which is allegedly disclosed in your profile - but which is less than obvious to moi?

What website do you produce which will shed some light on this that Febble alludes to which I am yet to cast mine eye upon?

[OnTheOtherHand]

86. I'm becoming a bit contentious?

:eyes:

I'm affiliated with Bard College, period, full stop. Not with a voting machine company, not with a polling organization. Aren't we done with that yet? Is there some point in the conversation where you venture that maybe you were wrong about that part?

I'm not sure what website Febble referred to, but most likely my Bard home page.

[althecat]

94. Well that could have been cleared up about 50 posts ago....

:argh:

[Melissa G]

112. Hi althecat, I can answer the source question because I remember

it from the so-called debate that Freeman had with Mitofsky before the American Statistical
Association. Mitofsky announced it as one of the “improvements” for future exit
polls.

Freeman specifically pointed out what it meant in a brief set of his comments
after his talk. Mitofsky did not challenge those remarks.

There should be a link to this on Freeman's website,“Notes on the American Statistical Association
presentations” but the link is broken. I emailed Freeman about it and he says it should be back up soon.
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/ASA-P.htm

A more interesting question is the source for Febble's assertion

“What the exit pollsters have said, is
that they will take care to prevent leaks of exit poll data until close of
polls.”

[Febble]

113. Here ya go:

From an interview with Joe Lenski, conducted by Andrew Kohut, President, Pew Research Centre, re the November 2006 mid-term elections:

Warren spoke, and others have spoken, about the efforts that are being made to reduce the chances of a leak...

Well, I'll tell you a brief description of what we will be doing with the networks and the Associated Press. We're going to put in place systems in which no one, even at the networks, can view any of this data before 5 p.m. on Election Day. This will be very similar to procedures used in England and Mexico and other places to strictly control the dissemination of data, and the number of people who get to look at it before 5 o'clock. We'll have one or two rooms in which people will,in essence, be in a bubble, quarantined. They'll have to give up their cell phones, their pagers, any internet activity, anything of that sort and stay in that room until 5 o' clock in order to view the data so we know there is no possibility of communication with the outside world.

http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=69

I believe it was this measure that Warren was referring to in his presentation with Steve Freeman, but you'd have to check with those who were there.

Anyway, here you have it from Joe Lenski, who is now the guy who matters.

(I'm aware that Melissa has chosen not to see my posts; however, others might be interested in my response to her request for a source for my assertion).

[robinlynne]

16. and how are you going to do that?

[slackmaster]

54. I don't have any idea, just pointing out that it would be best

Maybe we could steal one?

[greeneyedboy]

23. this struggle has several fronts, and this is one of them.

let's not obsess on the machines to the exclusion of everything else. KKKarl would be thrilled if we did, but I hope we don't.

[tblue]

30. The other concern is the purge of legit voters off the voter rolls

Double-check that you are registered, and encourage your friends & family to do it, too. No 'November Surprise' on Election Day.

[slackmaster]

55. Frankly I think (and hope) the machines turn out to be a non-issue

The problem is we don't know.

We DO know that registration fraud, voter suppression, and old-fashioned ballot box stuffing are still problems.

[greeneyedboy]

57. agree. how about some *real* reform - standardized open-source systems

etc. etc. etc.

[slackmaster]

114. And paper audit trails, and random audits of machines for accuracy

Sounds good to me!

[Bill Bored]

71. They do this in CA already.

Risks are that the test scripts will become known in advance by a potential attacker, that the random machine selection will be known in advance or be non-random, that the sample size isn't large enough to find any rigged machines, etc.

But it's still not a bad idea and there's no excuse for any states without paper trails NOT to do this.

Exit polls are a lot sexier though.

[Febble]

2. Sources?

In elections around the world, public-domain exit polls are central to such efforts.

I'd like to see just one example.

Unfortunately, US media consortium exit pollsters have announced that they will no longer release any data even to their media clients until they can "correct" their numbers so as to make them conform to the official count.

I'd like to see the source for this claim.

What the exit pollsters have, to my knowledge, said, is that they will take care to prevent leaks of exit poll data until close of polls, which is rather different.

[rumpel]

3. but why not release

data before close of polls

I believe it is rather interesting to see the cumulative data over the course of the day and thereby possibly detect and flag oddities early on?

I remember midnight election day 2004, on (CNN) how the numbers were suddenly withheld and Blitzer et al clearly confused as to the numbers and what to report. Subsequently the report of the "weighted" data shifted in the other direction.

Was it also not that the MSM decided to never release the raw data of that day citing it to be "proprietary" since they paid for it?

[slackmaster]

6. Premature release of data may influence voter behavior

That is a Bad Thing.

In any kind of exit poll, data should be collected and tracked throughout the day in order to observe effects like employed people voting early and late.

[althecat]

21. It might for example make the RBRs even more reluctant than normal...

:)

[OnTheOtherHand]

13. that's not how I remember midnight on CNN

and that's not how the transcript seems to remember it either. Woodward and Gergen (obviously not a neutral figure) was on in the 9 PM hour talking about how the exit poll numbers didn't seem to match the results on the ground, and John King elaborated on that in the 11 PM hour (I don't have the 10 PM transcript).

Also in the 11 PM hour (maybe around 11:40), Blitzer said as per Lexis-Nexis, "Throughout the afternoon, as those exit polls were coming in and here at CN (sic), we never reported what those exit polls were showing, though we certainly knew what was going on. People all over basically knew, although we always recognize that these are polls and polls can be accurate. They don't necessarily always wind up being accurate." And a few minutes later, he reported the latest numbers from Ohio: "...with 64 percent of the precincts reporting, the president is atop with 52 percent of the vote...."

By the way, also in the 11 PM hour, Judy Woodruff explained, "we're not making calls tonight in states where it is anywhere -- anything like close unless we have sample precincts and unless we have the raw vote and that's what we're waiting for. We're waiting for some hard numbers and a comfortable spread...."

So when it was that numbers were suddenly withheld and Blitzer et al. were clearly confused, I don't know.

(On the other question, we've gone around on that before. The individual responses are archived and were publically available for about a year -- they are still available to ICPSR members or anyone who can cadge a copy -- but without precinct identifiers. The confidentiality issues are real, and most researchers don't see any appreciable benefit in releasing the identifiers. The independent exit polls proposed here apparently won't collect demographics, or perhaps not many demographics -- I haven't read all the fine print -- so they may be able to promise confidentiality to their respondents and still release the data, identifiers and all. A study without any demographics would be pretty hard to validate.)

EDIT TO ADD: By the way, as Mystery Pollster pointed out, Wonkette cited rumored problems with the exit poll numbers (albeit not specifically the ones from Ohio or Florida) at 5:40 PM Eastern. ttp://www.wonkette.com/archives/hot-fresh-polling-024809.php
This supports the statement in the Edison/Mitofsky evaluation report that E/M warned even before the polls closed that they thought the exits were overestimating the Kerry vote in several states and the Bush vote in a few. All the more reason the broadcast media wouldn't have been going overboard to project a Kerry victory.

[Febble]

14. Well, slackmaster

has answered your first question, and I can add that in UK, exit poll data is not allowed to be broadcast until polls close, for the same reason.

It would certainly be interesting to see the cumulative data over the course of the day, but because voters don't arrive randomly, you won't get anything like a random sample until the end (if then, and there are many reasons to believe, often not then). So there is also good reason for with-holding them until the whole sample is collected.

The raw data was publicly archived, as always, and was available for free download for over a year, despite the fact that it is indeed owned by the NEP. Weights are given, so you can analyse it with or without.

I don't remember the numbers being suddenly withheld - I was logging on to CNN, and also watching on cable (in the UK). I certainly remember being buoyant at the prospect of a Kerry victory (on the basis of the exit polls), but did not count my chickens as from bitter experience not to trust exit polls in close race.

[althecat]

26. Ok OTOH and Febble... please stop with the disinformation...

This is VERY VERY annoying.

The weighted data replaced the raw data on all publicly available websites at close to midnight on election day.

The unweighted data WAS THEN WITHHELD TILL AFTER INAUGURATION....

THESE ARE THE FACTS.

Slackmaster may have been a bit loose in his language but he is substantially correct about what happened on election night and no amount of patronising obfuscation is going to change that.

[Febble]

36. This is NOT disinformation

The raw data was NOT available on public websites at close to midnight on election day, although I agree that estimates based partially on the raw exit poll responses were - very publicly, which is one of the reasons that I find allegations that their updating was a conspiracy to hide those initial estimates fairly ludicrous.

But it was not RAW DATA. It had already been "corrected" to reflect evidence that those "raw" data had a pro-Kerry bias.

So cease with the "patronising obfuscation" schtick. You have the FACTS wrong.

And yes, the fact that considerably more weighting was required was what alerted many of us (myself included, I might add) to the possibility that the count was fraudulent.

But Simon's data are NOT RAW DATA.

[althecat]

59. See post #58

[althecat]

20. Ukraine?

Febble for God Sake...

Elizabeth I do dearly hope that you are right that the uncorrected numbers will be available from the close of polls.

What I would like - given your special relationship and committment to transparency - is an undertaking from you to do your best to make sure that uncorrected numbers from the exit polls this year are made available to us in a usable form.

And "in a usable form" means numbers relating to the contestable races. Nationwide and statewide numbers will be meaningless in the context of the tight races for the Senate and the HOR that are on the line Nov. 7.

And b4 you accuse me or anyone else of paranoia about this please recall that the uncorrected numbers were not available in 2004 except on the night of the actual election.

These numbers were scrubbed at around 2am and repeated calls to the NEP and their clients to release the uncorrected numbers were completely ignored till after the inauguration.

The only reason the numbers become public was because Jonathan Simon had the precience to take a series of screenshots on the night - and the NEP data updating (scrubbing) system broke down for a few hours.

[Febble]

32. althecat...

in Ukraine, there were witnesses to acid being poured into ballot boxes, and one of the candidate was poisoned with a potentially lethal and disfiguring poison! And sure, the exit polls were screwy too, not surprisingly, although my understanding is that there were two and they didn't even agree with each other. I'm sure OTOH will be along in a minute with more details on Ukraine - but the point is that the exit polls were not central to the allegations.

But sure, if an election is corrupt, the exit polls are unlikely to match the count. But, equally, if an exit poll is biased, it is unlikely to match the count either. And as bias is a serious problem in exit polls, then exit polls are unlikely to be key to monitoring elections, and I know of no country where they have been. It is not what they are generally designed to do.

"Uncorrected" numbers were not available at close of poll in 2004. The numbers had already been adjusted in light of pre-election polling, and, I believe, age, race and sex of non-respondents. The pollsters had good evidence, before a single vote-return was in, that there was pro-Kerry bias in their poll. My understanding is also that the "Simon data" incorporated some vote-returns - the re-weighting is an incremental process, so yes, as the vote-returns come in, the old numbers are replaced - "scrubbed" if you like, "updated" if you are looking at it as the pollsters do.

And yes, before you accuse me of assuming the vote count is correct - I don't, but the pollsters do. This is a problem if you want to use the exit poll for something for which it was not designed, which is why an exit poll designed to do that thing might be worth having. The trouble is that one reason exit polls are not designed to monitor election integrity is that they a very poor tool for the job.

Can I repeat, because it is a point often lost: Simon's numbers were already partially "corrected" because the pollsters were aware before any vote returns were in that they had a greater than usual pro-Democratic bias. They were not raw data. And they even incorporated a few vote returns, because the reweighting process is continuous, and begins when the first results arrive.

[althecat]

35. See what I mean.....

* pulls hair out *

[Febble]

37. No, frankly, I don't.

What part of:

SIMON'S DATA WERE NOT RAW DATA don't you understand?

[althecat]

44. The bit where your observation about the "Rawness of data" is remotely relevant....

And the bit where your saying so addresses the question raised by slackness which is why did the NEP and Edison Mitofsky refuse to re-release the "insufficiently re-weighted data" which was publicly available on election night in the period nov. 3 2004 to 20 January 2005?

And the bit where you think your answer or that of OTOH to the original post was not disinformation?

[Febble]

50. Please state clearly

what you consider the "disinformation" either I or OTOH have posted.

I have no idea at all why the NEP or Edison Mitofsky might have refused to "re-release" the partially reweighted crosstabs that were posted on CNN, if, indeed, they were ever asked to do so. I think what Conyers requested was the actual exit poll responses.

[althecat]

58. Exit Poll Data Release Disinformation Defined.....

Post #3 Rumple said…

Was it also not that the MSM decided to never release the raw data of that day citing it to be "proprietary" since they paid for it?

***********

Post #13 OTOH said…

(On the other question, we've gone around on that before. The individual responses are archived and were publically available for about a year -- they are still available to ICPSR members or anyone who can cadge a copy -- but without precinct identifiers. The confidentiality issues are real, and most researchers don't see any appreciable benefit in releasing the identifiers. The independent exit polls proposed here apparently won't collect demographics, or perhaps not many demographics -- I haven't read all the fine print -- so they may be able to promise confidentiality to their respondents and still release the data, identifiers and all. A study without any demographics would be pretty hard to validate.)

***********

Post #14 Febble said…

The raw data was publicly archived, as always, and was available for free download for over a year, despite the fact that it is indeed owned by the NEP. Weights are given, so you can analyse it with or without.

I don't remember the numbers being suddenly withheld - I was logging on to CNN, and also watching on cable (in the UK). I certainly remember being buoyant at the prospect of a Kerry victory (on the basis of the exit polls), but did not count my chickens as from bitter experience not to trust exit polls in close race.

***********

What actually happened as Febble and OTOH well know…

NOVEMBER 10 2002 - Scoop: 47 State Exit Poll Analysis Confirms Swing Anomaly
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x38567

&

NOVEMBER 10 2002 - A Must Read ** Breakthrough ** – EXIT POLL ANALYSIS FOR 47 STATES
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x36314

… snip…

However the activists were caught off guard on election night.

The Official Exit Poll results – posted in real time on public websites - have some significant drawbacks. Unbeknownst to their readers CNBC, Fox News and CNN were constantly updating their exit poll databases to fit the final results. That is the statistics were fluid and were updated several times through the evening. By 2am in the morning on Nov 3, If you looked at the exit polls and the final results you would find the matched. For Ohio, for Florida, for everywhere. No story there people. Move on.

But as often seems to happen in these tortured times, something unexpected happened and so we can now tell you something close to the full story.'

The Washington post takes up the story:

Washington Post 11/4/2004:
"... a server at Edison/Mitofsky malfunctioned shortly before 11 p.m. The glitch prevented access to any exit poll results until technicians got a backup system operational at 1:33 a.m. yesterday.

The crash occurred barely minutes before the consortium was to update its exit polling with the results of later interviewing that found Bush with a one-point lead. Instead, journalists were left relying on preliminary exit poll results released at 8:15 p.m., which still showed Kerry ahead by three percentage points.

It was only after the polls had closed in most states and the vote count was well underway in the East that it became clear that Bush was in a stronger position in several key battlegrounds, including Ohio, than early exit polls suggested."


By 2am on Nov. 3 in the morning the publicly available exit poll results on the network news sites all changed. Activists still had the original results posted in blogs but they were no real comparison.

Which is why the following data study by Jonathan Simon of http://verifiedvoting.org is so remarkable.

As it turns out this study was only possible because of the computer crash reported by the Washington Post. While the boffins fiddled with their computers Simon – with a considerable degree of foresight - downloaded as much data as he could off the publicly available sites.

The revision number of this data is not known and the original data – from Edison - is now being sought by Scoop.co.nz in order to repeat this study with the full 4pm and 8pm data runs.

***********

So how is this disinformation…

The original poster suggested that the MSM withheld the data.

Both Febble and OTOH's responses imply that the exit poll data was available after the election and that the original poster Rumpel is wrong to think that the data was withheld.

In fact – as I imagine you know Febble - while the data was eventually available it was not available for such a long time that the issues became somewhat academic.

Disinformation is not necessarily a lie but it does misinform the reader about the nature of what actually happened. And in that sense both your answers were disinformation.

To complete the story following the discovery of the Simon data here on DU there was a campaign to get all the data released.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x58415

And this was long before Conyers started asking for it.

I even tried to buy it. But was told it would cost $10,000 usd +.

I do not think it would be incorrect to say that the only reason this entire debate occurred was because of the release of the data in the form above in this forum.

As a result when you - Febble and OTOH - assert that the information was available I find it a bit annoying.

[OnTheOtherHand]

66. you are still trashing us without warrant

"Both Febble and OTOH's responses imply that the exit poll data was available after the election and that the original poster Rumpel is wrong to think that the data was withheld."

My response is entirely correct (as is Febble's), and there is no disinformation in it whatsoever. As I stated, the individual responses were archived without precinct identifiers. I elaborated on the issue of the precinct identifiers on the assumption that Rumpel might have that in mind. We've gone over the entire chronology many times.

Your posts have been riddled with outright errors, and I don't think I've seen you retract or apologize for any of them. It's pretty goofy that you are reaching to find "not necessarily a lie(s)" in ours.

You're angry that you couldn't get your hands on the data with precinct identifiers? OK, fine. But there is no reason to take it out on us.

[althecat]

67. Read the post OTOH... its nothing to do with identifiers...

In the original post Rumpel suggests the data was not available because the MSM was sitting on it.

You and febble reply to him asserting that the data was available and archived. That he must be mistaken.

FACT: The data was not available till sometime in 2005.
FACT: The data was asked for repeatedly by lots of people from early November 2004.

You and febble fail to mention that it wasn't available for several months. Which is clearly what Rumpel meant. You and febble appear to suggest that rumpel's recollection of the facts is somehow false.

This is disinformation. I don't know why its so difficult to understand.

[OnTheOtherHand]

72. your reading is unsupportable

Rumpel wrote:

Was it also not that the MSM decided to never release the raw data of that day citing it to be "proprietary" since they paid for it?"

(Emphasis in original!)

And I say, again, that the individual responses were available for over a year (etc. etc.).

I have no way of knowing what Rumpel does or doesn't recall. If he thinks that the MSM never released "the raw data," well, it depends on what he meant by "raw data."

[althecat]

79. Technically that would make you wrong methinks OTOH....

While tis true that rumpel is wrong that the data was "never" released. You and Febble were technically disinforming the readership in suggesting that the data was made available without mentioning that it was not made available till long after it was asked for and long after it could be used for any serious purpose to question the result.

This has always been my point and while it may infuriate you a tad it doesn't make it wrong.

And since the bad old data shows nothing anyway - according to febble - why shouldn't it have been released earlier?

One can but wonder.

[OnTheOtherHand]

91. that doesn't make me "wrong" at all

Rumpel asked a question, and I made a good-faith attempt to answer it. The question didn't hinge on timing, and neither did my answer. It did not occur to me that the timing mattered, not only because the question clearly indicated otherwise, but because -- despite your assertion to the contrary -- many people still appear to think that the 2004 exit poll data "could be used for (a) serious purpose to question the result." (If you mean that they could have been used to prevent the inauguration, well, that is hard to imagine.)

I really have no opinion on whether the NEP sponsors should have made the exit poll data available to Conyers. I don't think it matters. In my opinion, trying to make sense of the exit poll data would not have been a good use of time in late 2004, but it might have saved us all some histrionics. What troubles me is how many people refuse to look squarely at what we know about the 2004 exit poll data -- even from the screen shots -- that makes them very unserviceable as evidence of massive, widespread fraud, whether or not it happened.

[Febble]

98. For pete's sake

I corrected an error.

Because I failed to include the virtually universally know information that the data were not archived until January 2005 you claim that I have posted disinformation???!!!!! I have posted the date of the release on countless occasions. Do you want an entire thesis in every damn post?

[OnTheOtherHand]

100. that would be patronising, obfuscation, and arguing around the point

And careless observers might even draw the inference that you actually participate in the forum on an ongoing basis. Oooooh, you are devious!

It's a complete mystery why you pretend to know things -- and why you dare to disagree with the people who actually know things, that is, the people who know that I am right. And the sincerely-wronged act you put on when you are attacked... well, the hundreds, nay, thousands who have put you on ignore nonetheless feel the universe's derision at your antic contortions. Why, you have no substantive arguments whatsoever. Or you have too many substantive arguments. But that is only because the real researchers are busy working on the problem, to which they already know the answer, because we all know the answer, which is that you are wrong.

Wait, what was this thread about? I seem vaguely to remember a time when we were actually talking about election integrity. But the memory is so faint, and your pseudo-scientific, patronising, ANNOYING depredations are so ubiquitous... this I know for sure: you are wrong. Not just factually wrong, but ontologically wrong. Huzzah!

[rumpel]

69. thanks althecat,

I thought I am suffering from dementia....

:)

[althecat]

76. My pleasure entirely rumpel....

[BeFree]

61. Last pargraph of Febble's post #32

I bet you wish you could re-write it, eh?

Quote:
"Can I repeat, because it is a point often lost: Simon's numbers were already partially "corrected" because the pollsters were aware before any vote returns were in that they had a greater than usual pro-Democratic bias. They were not raw data. And they even incorporated a few vote returns, because the reweighting process is continuous, and begins when the first results arrive."

First you say that the pollsters were aware of Dem bias. How were they aware? You don't say. But you do say: "...before any vote returns were in..." How would they have determined a Dem bias at that point? Magic ball maybe?

Then you say that it indeed "... incorporated a few vote returns,..." Can't quite get it straight, eh, Febble?

So we know the pollsters had the raw data showing a Kerry win. But then returns showed a difference betwixt the two. Uh oh. So, they threw in a vote returns to make up the difference. With me so far?

Now, to explain the new 'cooked' data, the pollsters came up with the idea that something like 100% of the 2000 bush voters voted bush again in 2004. Well, TIA showed how that recipe made for some bad tasting stew. Rotten garbage, actually.

Looking forward to your intellectual integrity explanation for all this.

[OnTheOtherHand]

74. if you actually learn something, then it makes sense

I'm not sure I agree with Febble about the "because," but we know that the early tabulations are based on the composite estimate, which means that they incorporate pre-election polls. And since the exit poll interview results in some states diverged sharply from the pre-election polls, not only were the tabulations rather different than the interview data, but the pollsters warned their broadcast sponsors in the afternoon that they thought some of the results were awry. Wonkette posted a similar warning, as I pointed out elsewhere on the thread.

No magic ball required, and no contradiction between saying that the pollsters were aware of a bias before the polls closed, and that Simon's screen shots incorporated some vote returns.

"the pollsters came up with the idea that something like 100% of the 2000 bush voters voted bush again in 2004."

Been there, done that. BeFree, you could probably write a response to this yourself. TIA insists on assuming that everyone reports their previous vote correctly, and evidence from every exit poll on record -- and from a National Election Study panel survey that reinterviewed the same people -- shows that it isn't true. He needs to come up with better arguments.

[althecat]

82. ...looks a little like criticism and undermining there OTOH...

n/t

[Melissa G]

111. ROTFLMAO!!! Althecat has been here SOOOO much longer

than certain posters who are criticizing him.. Althecat posts at DU regularly and brings us the latest in Election Fraud news. Althecat actually Contributes to the fight for Free, Fair elections on a DAILY basis. Read Scoop! Use the search function and see how often Scoop comes up. Read Greatest and find Scoop there TODAY!. I have personally Never seen althecat nit pick and waste many people's time with useless misleading posts.

Althecat and Scoop Rock!

[BeFree]

103. Here's what I just learned

Miscountski, et al, have faith and trust in the pre-polling... that is if one trusts what you say. In fact, going on what you say, the pre-polling numbers were trusted more than their own!! So much so that they doubted their collection was accurate.

When one looks at the cross-tabs, one sees, as TIA pointed out, that the final exit numbers were cooked. Cooked so much it left a residue of crust, and looking closely at that crust one sees the burned numbers of deceit and manipulation in their foolish attempt to justify a bush win.

Still hoping our dear Febble can explain her statement, because your's doesn't wash. Simon's screenshots were not referenced in her statement and your inclusion of Simon lacks the intellectual integrity so needed.

[Febble]

105. Here ya go:

"Can I repeat, because it is a point often lost: Simon's numbers were already partially "corrected" because the pollsters were aware before any vote returns were in that they had a greater than usual pro-Democratic bias. They were not raw data. And they even incorporated a few vote returns, because the reweighting process is continuous, and begins when the first results arrive."

First you say that the pollsters were aware of Dem bias. How were they aware? You don't say. But you do say: "...before any vote returns were in..." How would they have determined a Dem bias at that point? Magic ball maybe?

I have answered this before. The pollsters were aware of Dem bias because their raw responses were deviating from pre-election poll expectations. They also knew that they were undersampling some demographic groups that were tending to vote for Bush, because of the age, race and sex data they collect from non-respondents.

However, by the time CNN screened the cross-tabs that Simon downloaded, there were also a few vote-returns in the estimates.

[BeFree]

106. Simon's screenshots...

.... had no bearing on what the pollsters had assembled... that was my point about not including Simon's screenshots into the exit-poll numbers.

I just love this from yall... the idea that the degree of trust in the pre-election polls had such a great influence upon the Miscountski crew. So much influence that they began twisting in the wind when their own numbers showed that the democratic turnout was far beyond what had been expected.

Now, about a pre-election poll that called for a Kerry win... a poll that Miscountski must have, as yall say, influenced the exit-poll estimations.

The Zogby pre-election poll called for a Kerry win. Given yall's statements, this Zogby poll must have shown the Miscountski crew that their own numbers were correct. But, it seems yall are saying Zogby's poll lead them to believe they were wrong!

[autorank]

87. Two Nov 2004 Articles - Althecat- "Scoop" Independent News

What a great day that was. Thanks to Jonathan Simon and Althecat (Alastair of Scoop), we have the beginnings of the truth.

To the people who say it was all right, guess what, we're getting a Democratic Congress and they'll be able to investiate and show up at the consortium and say, "turn over the damn files and, btw, we know you included precinct data in the 2000 NEP so don't use that lame excuse." I think that the networks will cooperate.

Its boing to happen, the truth will be know.

These are great articles althecat, a piece of vital American history.l They'll grow in importance as time moves forward and the election thieves are flushed out.

[autorank]

88. "Scoop" - 47 STATE EXIT POLL ANALYSIS CONFIRMS SWING ANOMALY

LINK: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

47 State Exit Poll Analysis Confirms Swing Anomaly
Thursday, 11 November 2004, 1:45 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson
47 State Exit Poll Analysis Confirms Swing Anomaly



By Jonathan Simon
Introduction by Scoop Co-Editor Alastair Thompson

" In the 12 critical states (CO,FL,MI,MN,NE,NV,NH,NM,OH,PA,WI,IA) the average discrepancy was a 2.5% red shift (= total movement of 5.0%), nearly twice that in the safe states. "
- Jonathan Simon

- JUMP STRAIGHT TO THE NEW DATA

Introduction by Scoop Co-Editor Alastair Thompson

By the time of the close of polls at around 5pm EST on election day the buzz on the world wide web – including here at Scoop - was that Kerry had was a shoe in for election 2004. Slate Magazine and the Daily Kos had published the swing state exit polls before the polls had even closed. The news was very good for Kerry supporters.

According to the exit polls Kerry was showing a 1% popular vote margin over Bush. But more importantly he was shown leading by a nose in Florida and a solid 4% in Ohio. Because of the way the Electoral College system works this meant that he had almost certainly won.

The polls have significant sized samples in all states and ask actual voters who they actually voted for and so are traditionally very accurate.

As we now know they weren't very accurate once midnight came and went.

Or were they?

On November 4 (NZT – Nov. 3 EST) Scoop published Faun Otter: Vote Fraud - Exit Polls Vs Actuals. This was the first exit poll comparison analysis produced on the web it originated in the Democratic Underground, a forum website, for Democratic Party activism and the clubhouse for a lot of people doing grassroots research work.

Faun Otter's data - already immortalised in the Wikipedia (with a link to Scoop.co.nz) - showed swing states moving far further on average from their exit poll results than non-swing states after the polls closed. I.E. the actual result for these states was more at variance with the exit polls than it was in other states.

Alarm bells rang at this point because it has always been postulated that looking at exit poll results after a stolen election would be the best way to look for "general" evidence of voting fraud. By general evidence I mean evidence that suggests fraud has occurred – not proof that it has.

The reason this is so is that traditionally exit polls have been close to 2% accurate. Yet in the last three elections, 2000, 2002 and 2004 they haven't been. This years poll remarkably is almost precisely a re-run of 2000 with Ohio playing the part of Florida. In Florida in 2000 the exit polls showed Gore winning by 3%. In the middle of the night they were still counting and on this state alone hinged the entire election.

In 2004 just like in 2000 Fox news called Ohio to Bush before the counting had finished.

Because exit polls are such a good research tool for vote fraud analysis an organisation called PollWatch.org was even set up to conduct independent exit polls. By election time their efforts had been subsumed into the efforts of VerifiedVoting.org, a lobby organisation initiated by Stanford University Professor David Dill which signed up thousands of computer scientists and academics to a petition calling for auditable voting machines.

However the activists were caught off guard on election night.

The Official Exit Poll results – posted in real time on public websites - have some significant drawbacks. Unbeknownst to their readers CNBC, Fox News and CNN were constantly updating their exit poll databases to fit the final results. That is the statistics were fluid and were updated several times through the evening. By 2am in the morning on Nov 3, If you looked at the exit polls and the final results you would find the matched. For Ohio, for Florida, for everywhere. No story there people. Move on.

But as often seems to happen in these tortured times, something unexpected happened and so we can now tell you something close to the full story.'

The Washington post takes up the story:

Washington Post 11/4/2004:

"... a server at Edison/Mitofsky malfunctioned shortly before 11 p.m. The glitch prevented access to any exit poll results until technicians got a backup system operational at 1:33 a.m. yesterday.

The crash occurred barely minutes before the consortium was to update its exit polling with the results of later interviewing that found Bush with a one-point lead. Instead, journalists were left relying on preliminary exit poll results released at 8:15 p.m., which still showed Kerry ahead by three percentage points.

It was only after the polls had closed in most states and the vote count was well underway in the East that it became clear that Bush was in a stronger position in several key battlegrounds, including Ohio, than early exit polls suggested."

By 2am on Nov. 3 in the morning the publicly available exit poll results on the network news sites all changed. Activists still had the original results posted in blogs but they were no real comparison.

Which is why the following data study by Jonathan Simon of verifiedvoting.org is so remarkable.

As it turns out this study was only possible because of the computer crash reported by the Washington Post. While the boffins fiddled with their computers Simon – with a considerable degree of foresight - downloaded as much data as he could off the publicly available sites.

The revision number of this data is not known and the original data – from Edison - is now being sought by Scoop.co.nz in order to repeat this study with the full 4pm and 8pm data runs.

I conclude this introduction with some remarks from Chuck, who was commenting on Simon's results.

"Warren Mitofsky meanwhile says that he knew in the afternoon that his exit polls were off in nine states, but this does not sit well with me (I'd need to know how he would know at that point and, assuming he knew, why he would go ahead and promulgate them without caveat?).

Way too much work went into getting the exit polls right this time for me to just accept that they can't do as well as they were doing routinely in the 80s and 90s. It is not, like stained glass, a lost art."

Way too much indeed.

- Alastair Thompson Scoop Co Editor Thursday, 11 November 2004

*** ##### ****

To Those Who Seek Information As A Basis For Action Regarding Bush's "Victory":

By Jonathan Simon
Thursday, 11 November 2004

I examined the discrepancies between the actual vote tabulations as reported and the Edison/Mitofsky exit poll results in 47 states, incl. D.C. (in 4 states—New Jersey, New York, North Carolina,Virginia—I did not have early exit poll results available, and the later results had already been amended to reflect input of actual vote totals, which rendered them corrupt as exit polls and useless for the purpose of checking the veracity of actual vote totals).

I noticed an overall red shift (to Bush) across the spectrum of states, but the shift was significantly nonuniform.

Having divided the 47 states examined into two groups, 35 noncritical states and 12 critical or suspect states (Nebraska included because of ES&S control and prior anomalies even though not a battleground state).

I calculated that the average discrepancy in the 35 safe states was a +1.4% red shift, that is the average of the vote totals in each state was 1.4% more favorable to Bush than what the exit polls predicted (= total movement of 2.8%).

In the 12 critical states (CO,FL,MI,MN,NE,NV,NH,NM,OH,PA,WI,IA) the average discrepancy was a 2.5% red shift (= total movement of 5.0%), nearly twice that in the safe states. This in spite of the fact that the average sample size in the critical states was nearly twice that in the noncritical states and should have produced significantly more accurate results.

Further, assuming a 3% margin of error and 95% confidence interval for each state poll (the standard Mitofksy protocol, but a conservative assumption here, since the sample sizes were significantly increased in critical states), the red shift exceeded the margin of error in 4 of the 12 critical states (and equalled it in a fifth).

The chance of this occurring in 4 of the 12 states in the absence of "mistabulation" can be computed using a simple probability equation and is approximately 0.002 or one in five-hundred. It's a relatively crude analysis and better analysis would have to wait on more complete data, but basically what it's telling us is that we can say with 99.8% certainty that "mistabulation" played some significant role in this election.

Critical States (12)

DATA DESCRIPTION
Exit Poll Data Bush% then Kerry%, # of respondents, then time of poll ET, and "Red" Shift%
Note: Red Shift = <(Btab% - Bep%) + (Kep% - Ktab)>/2 tab= tabulated vote, ep=exit poll

The number is positive with net movement toward Bush, negative (blue shift) with net movement toward Kerry. I'll take Florida (early) as an example:

Exit Poll % : B=49.8% K=49.7%
Tab (99% precincts) B=52% K=47%
Red Shift: <(52% - 49.8%) + (49.7% - 47%)>/2 = (2.2% + 2.7%)/2 = +2.5%

I'm aware that I've played fast and loose with significant figures; a more refined analysis would get at least one more sig fig out of the tabulated.

Critical States (12)

FINDING: 12 (Critical) State Average Red Shift +2.5%

(charts at main link: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

[autorank]

89. "Scoop": Complete US Exit Poll Data Confirms Net Suspicions

LINK: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

Complete US Exit Poll Data Confirms Net Suspicions
Wednesday, 17 November 2004, 10:45 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson
Complete US Exit Poll Data Confirms Net Suspicions
Full 51 State Early Exit Poll Data Released For The First Time

By Scoop Co-Editor Alastair Thompson

Scoop.co.nz is delighted to be able today to publish a full set of 4pm exit poll data for the first time on the Internet since the US election. The data emerged this evening NZT in a post on the Democratic Underground website under the forum name TruthIsAll.

The new data confirms what was already widely known about the swing in favour of George Bush, but amplifies the extent of that swing.


">Click for big version

Figure 1: Graph showing the "red shift" between 2004 US General Election exit polls & the actual 2004 US Election results

In the data which is shown below in tabulated form, and above in graph form, we can see that 42 of the 51 states in the union swung towards George Bush while only nine swung towards Kerry.

There has to date been no official explanation for the discrepancy.

Ordinarily in the absence of an obvious mistabulation error, roughly the same number of states should have swung towards each candidate.

Moreover many of the states that swung against Democratic Party hopeful John Kerry swung to an extent that is well beyond the margin of error in exit polls. Exit polls by their nature - they ask voters how they actually voted rather than about their intentions - are typically considered highly accurate.

Last week in an analysis of a similar, but incomplete set of data, Dr Stephen F. Freeman from the University of Pennsylvania calculated that the odds of just three of the major swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania all swinging as far as they did against their respective exit polls were 250 milllion to 1. (See…"The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy" – Dr Stephen F. Freeman - .pdf format)

Dr Freeman's academic paper contains a thorough description of why and how exit polls are conducted (in some countries they use them to prevent against vote fraud), and considers a number of hypotheses for why this year's polls could have been so dramatically wrong. He concludes that the reasons are unknown.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: The data that is released today shows the 4pm data run from the Edison-Mitofsky polling company. This run was based on 63% of the full 13660 sample in the poll. However as we also have a set of data from around midnight with which to compare this data, we can tell that the final exit poll results were not that far different than these early results. This in itself tends to suggest that the polling system did not have a systemic bias in its early data as suggested by some commentators in early reports on this puzzle.

(For a more detailed description of the limitations of this data and the claimed gender bias in the early data see.. EXTENDED FOOTNOTE ON THE LIMITATIONS OF THIS DATA - By Jonathan Simon )

*****************
For more background and the latest news links on this news subject see also Scoop's A Very American Coup Special Feature

*************

BACKGROUND

Ever since the first analyses (See... "Faun Otter: Vote Fraud - Exit Polls Vs Actuals ") showing the swing in favour of US President George Bush between the exit polls and the actual results were published, the internet has been swimming with rumour and speculation about what the results meant.

These initial internet news reports were debunked in a report from the CALTECH/MIT Voting Technology Project which was widely distributed to the media in the days immediately following the election. The unnamed authors of this report stated:

"If we look at the 51 separate exit state polls, we see that 30 predicted more votes for Kerry than he actually got, while 21 predicted more votes for Bush than he actually got. Therefore, at the state level, the polls favored Kerry less than the sum of all the polls aggregated up to the national level. Furthermore, if we do a statistical test to see whether the differences between the exit polls and the official returns are significant, only three out of 51 are.5 Therefore, while it is fair to say that the exit polls predicted a significantly greater vote for Kerry nationwide than the official returns confirmed, it is not immediately apparent that any systematic biases are revealed when we take the analysis down to the state level."

This report was subsequently quoted in a November 12th New York Times front page article ("Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried") that purported to debunk Internet conspiracy theories and misconceptions about the 2004 election, including those about the exit polls. The New York Times stated:

A preliminary study produced by the Voting Technology Project, a cooperative effort between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, came to a similar conclusion. Its study found "no particular patterns" relating to voting systems and the final results of the election.

"The 'facts' that are being circulated on the Internet," the study concluded, "appear to be selectively chosen to make the point."

However CALTECH/MIT's analysis had already been proved flawed on November 11 when Scoop.co.nz published the first iteration of a set of data that was fortuitously captured by VerifiedVoting.org activist Jonathan Simon in the early minutes of Nov. 3 (See… "47 State Exit Poll Analysis Confirms Swing Anomaly"). Dr Freeman's report was also based on this data. However Jonathan Simon had not managed to capture data for all states - hence the hunt for the full set of data continued.

Interestingly after the Simon data was widely circulated in the blogosphere the authors of the CALTECH/MIT report edited their footnotes (see footnote 2 & compare with the version cited above & hosted on Scoop) making it clear that the source of their data was the publicly available Exit Poll reports on CNN.com which were "rebalanced" in the early hours of Nov. 3. This data which has effectively been recast to fit the final results cannot really be termed exit poll data at all and has been the source of a great deal of confusion.

*************

The complete set of New 4pm Edison & Mitofsky 2004 General Election exit poll data follows in tabulated form (sorted in descending order of the magnitude of the "red shift"):

CHART AT MAIN LINK

[OnTheOtherHand]

4. the best news here is Singer and O'Dell on forensics

Anyone who has actually tried to analyze election data knows how hard it can be to get the data. I think it's an enormous undertaking, but I love the idea of having some people dedicated to working it out from the get-go. I hope they are comparing notes with some of the researchers who are most likely to use those datasets.

[robinlynne]

17. Exit polls are data. I work with an election poll group every election.

We get swormn affidavots from the voters as they leave, that theyw illv ote as their ballot was cast. They fill out an identical ballot, in secret, fold it and put it into a sealed box. This is proof. That is it's purpose when done correctly by election protection groups. Our only problem is not having enough exit polls! You do not need an average. All you need is to know the exact number of respondents, adn get the exact number of people who voted in that precinct. You can then determine what percentage of voters from that precinct participated. Even a 10% response is enough for statiticians to work with. We found we got well over a 50% response rate. If for example we had 500 votes for a certain candidate, out of a precinct with 1000 votes cast, and the other candidate has 600 votes at thee end of the day, we know there was fraud. Exit polls are designed to catch fraud. They do. Results can't be given right away. They have to be analyzed by mathematicians as to possibility and porbablilty that the voting results were correct (i.e. matched the exit polls).

[Febble]

19. hmmm....

Exit polls are indeed data, and they are interesting data too.

And if you actually get sworn affadavits from more voters for one party than the number of votes counted for that candidate, then you do indeed have evidence that something untoward happened to those voters' votes. But 10% will not be enough for statistical analysis if it was not a random sample, and 10% won't be a random sample if your intention was to get everyone. Even 50% is won't be "enough". In order to do statistical inference your sample has to be random, and yours isn't.

And while it may be true that some "exit polls are designed to catch fraud" I don't know any that actually are designed that way, apart from the kind you describe. All the exit polls I know of are designed to give a heads-up on the result, and/or, to characterise the voters for each candidate by means of a detailed questionnaire.

I'm not saying what you are doing isn't worth doing, but it is really important to realise that if your target is 100% participation, anything less than that isn't a random sample, it's a volunteer sample, and you can't make probabilistic inferences from your sample to the population from which it was drawn.

[althecat]

18. Mitofsky dies and then this...

"Unfortunately, US media consortium exit pollsters have announced that they will no longer release any data even to their media clients until they can "correct" their numbers so as to make them conform to the official count."

.....

Why would they do this unless they wanted to hide the fraud?


Note that extensive accurate exit polls are KEY PART OF ANY COORDINATED VOTE FRAUD PLAY as you need them to know how many votes to steal.

[Febble]

25. Because they didn't

or if they did, I don't know of the source of the information. When someone finds it perhaps they could post a reference, and if they can't perhaps this meme could be put out of its misery.

Of course they won't refuse to release the data to their clients, and I don't see any reason to think that their clients won't be wanting to get early estimates out as soon as they can. But they won't project any winners in any close races until vote-count data is incorporated into the projections, because that is the way that projections are always made.

[althecat]

29. So Febble... when we end up getting crappy unusable data from the NEP on election night....

... from the publicly available sources will you now promise to eat your hat.

Or better will you undertake to do your level best with your contacts in the NEP to get us the uncorrected data for the individual contested races.

Your answer to my post was classic Febble. Rather than answering the intent of the question you set up a straw man and shoot it down.

We are not interested in how the projections are calculated by the networks. We are interested in what the raw uncorrected exit poll data tells us about who is going to win in the close races.

Once the vote tabulators have been hacked and fraudulent data has been added to the exit poll results in these close races the original data will be contaminated and in effect useless.

You know this. You pretend to be interested in preventing vote fraud and yet you persistently and consistently POOR HUGE BUCKETS OF COLD WATER on anyone who attempts to use exit polls to make any observations about the election fraud debate.

As I said b4 this is VERY VERY ANNOYING.

[Febble]

34. I normally try to answer the intent of the question

so I'm sorry if I missed it, though I would argue that my point about how the projections are calculated is germane to it. At the very least, it is important that people understand that there were not two discrete sets of data - one "uncorrected" set, later scrubbed and replaced by a "corrected" set. You appeared to think that was the case, so, straw man or not, I was attempting to explain that it was not.

Yes, the data you get from the NEP on election data will be fairly useless for figuring out whether there was fraud in the election, so no hat-eating on my part will be required. But that is because the "raw data" has never been released on election night, although in January 2005, Edison-Mitofsky released their estimates made from the exit poll responses alone on election night 2004. As far as I know that was an unprecedented move, but too late for your purposes.

I know you are annoyed by my lack of faith in exit polls to tell you anything very useful about fraud, but to assert that I only "pretend to be interested in preventing vote fraud" is not only very very annoying but extremely insulting.

I am a professional data analyst, and I know the difference between good and bad data. I'd like those who are interested in detecting and preventing vote fraud to concentrate on getting and analysing good data, not poor data. And even exit polls designed to monitor an election, although possibly better than data from exit polls not so designed, are likely to be poor data. In fact worse than poor - potentially misleading.

I don't think, for example, it is likely that 2004 was massively stolen on lever machines in New York. But if we really believed the exit poll data from 2004, that is what we would have to conclude.

[althecat]

42. Febble... let me count the ways that answer DOTH ANNOY me...

I normally try to answer the intent of the question so I'm sorry if I missed it, though I would argue that my point about how the projections are calculated is germane to it. At the very least, it is important that people understand that there were not two discrete sets of data - one "uncorrected" set, later scrubbed and replaced by a "corrected" set. You appeared to think that was the case, so, straw man or not, I was attempting to explain that it was not.

1. "I normally try to answer the intent of the question"

Dunno about that Febble.

2. The fact that you repeatedly say something does not make it true. There were 2 discrete sets of data on election night. There was the data that was up on the websites of NEP members till about 2am in the morning... and then there was the new data that replaced it at about that time. Just because the data prior to the scrubbing is not "Raw" and because you happen to know a great deal more about how data for exit polls is produced than I do does not mean that all those of us who recall the data being scrubbed and then the wall of silence that followed when we attempted to see the numbers again are suffering from hallucinations.

Yes, the data you get from the NEP on election data will be fairly useless for figuring out whether there was fraud in the election, so no hat-eating on my part will be required. But that is because the "raw data" has never been released on election night, although in January 2005, Edison-Mitofsky released their estimates made from the exit poll responses alone on election night 2004. As far as I know that was an unprecedented move, but too late for your purposes.

3. Since you already seem to know what we are going to get from the NEP on election night perhaps you could condescend to inform us what that is?

4. The intent of my question is to ask you to assure us that you will help us to get the uncorrected data from contested races. Can I now presume that you understand that we will not be getting that?

5. Given that Edison Mitofsky failed so spectacularly on election night, and that there was a huge public discussion of vote fraud as a result - that even made it to the Front Page of the NYT it is hardly that surprising that Edison Mitofsky made the unprecdented move of re-releasing the data which had in fact been on several NEP member websites all night on election night.

6. What is remarkable is that Edison-Mitofsky did not release that data earlier.

7. And what is trult remarkable is that you portray the belated re-release of publicly available data as some kind of virtue on the part of edison-mitofsky?

I know you are annoyed by my lack of faith in exit polls to tell you anything very useful about fraud, but to assert that I only "pretend to be interested in preventing vote fraud" is not only very very annoying but extremely insulting.

8. Ok then Febble if you are really interested in vote fraud please write us a paper on how you would construct an exit poll in a manner that would provide us useful information about vote fraud.

9. Alternatively write us a post which indentifies the best places to look in the 2006 NEP exit poll results for evidence/hints of vote fraud?

10. Alternatively GIVE US AN UNDERTAKING THAT YOU WILL DO YOUR BEST TO MAKE THE CONTEST by CONTEST DATA FROM THE 2006 NEP POLL AVAILABLE TO US IN THIS FORUM SO WE CAN LOOK AT IT OURSELVES.

I am a professional data analyst, and I know the difference between good and bad data. I'd like those who are interested in detecting and preventing vote fraud to concentrate on getting and analysing good data, not poor data. And even exit polls designed to monitor an election, although possibly better than data from exit polls not so designed, are likely to be poor data. In fact worse than poor - potentially misleading.

11. I am a professional political journalist and I do not have access to either good or bad data because I am not a multimillion dollar participant in the NEP. I would like access to any data at all. I would like to concentrate on getting any data at all.

I don't think, for example, it is likely that 2004 was massively stolen on lever machines in New York. But if we really believed the exit poll data from 2004, that is what we would have to conclude.

12. I am delighted you raised the subject of New York state. As a professional data analyst I would be fascinated to hear your explanation for how George Bush achieved such remarkable voting returns in that state. As I noted I am only a professional political journalist but when I noticed:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x19390

That GWB had picked up more than 544,000 new voters in NY State an increase in his vote of over 25% I immediately came to the conclusion that massive vote fraud occurred in NY State.

You presume - irrationally in my view - that in order to establish that vote fraud has occurred you need to know where in the chain of the process it is occurring. You therefore look at the "lever machines" and wonder how they could be responsible.

I do not know enough about NY's voting infrastucture to know how vote counting in NY State was screwed with but I do know enough about politics to wonder how an unpopular president managed to achieve 24% or more gains in his vote in many cases in states where most of the evidence points to his operatives being more interested in suppressing democratic vote than boosting his votes.

Were I to inquire further into this question I would be interested to know whether any presidential candidate in the past with declining and low public approval ratings has managed to acheive anything remotely similar in terms of an increase in his popular vote in NY State betweeen his first and second terms.

Were I to inquire further I would look more closely at the precinct by precinct results for NY state.

However I am a New Zealander and it is not my job to find vote fraud in the United states.

You however are an American & one who claims to be interested in ascertaining whether vote fraud occurred in the United States. And yet I am fairly confident that the extent of your inquiry into NY state starts and ends with a sweeping generalised statement wholly lacking in context or rigorous intuition.

[OnTheOtherHand]

43. you think Febble is an American?!

That's pretty revealing about your level of attentiveness. Wow.

[althecat]

45. And the comprehensiveness of your answer to the points raised....

...tells us volumes about whether you are actually interested in vote fraud or just part of the problem.

[OnTheOtherHand]

47. keep digging, guy

I've written extensively on this topic -- no idea whether you've bothered to read any of it or not. You apparently don't have a clue about me, or Febble.

You wrote a well-nigh endless post to Febble, and I will give her first shot at it. Except to say, it is absolute nonsense to insinuate that anyone has accused you of hallucinating the change in the exit poll tabulations displayed on cnn.com. If you are going to post on this topic, how about paying a bit of attention to what people actually write? Otherwise, what on earth is the point?

[Febble]

48. Sure, there were two discrete sets

posted. But that does not mean that one was "raw" and the other "corrected". They were two snapshots of a continous process. I said nothing about hallucinations.

I have no idea what you will get on election night, but if it was anything like 2004, which I expect it will be, it will not be a great deal of use for deciding whether or not there was fraud.

And no, I am in no position to get "uncorrected" data for you, even were you to tell me what you would consider "uncorrected" data, although I see no reason to doubt that the actual poll responses will not be archived as usual.

And no, I will not write a paper about how you would "construct an exit poll in a manner that would provide us useful information about vote fraud." because, as I have repeatedly said, to your annoyance, that I think that exit polls are a poor way of providing useful information about vote fraud. If you actually read my posts in this thread, you will see what I do suggest, nonetheless, and I have talked to others, including Steve Freeman, about things I would do to make such a poll worth doing. Indeed, I spent a couple of hours with Steve over a Chinese meal in Montreal giving him as much information as I could about what might make an exit poll a better indicator of election integrity, and he took copious notes. For all I know, my suggestions may have made their way into the design of the proposed poll.

But, as I've said here, and on many previous occasions, I think a much more energy and cost efficient way of checking on the integrity of the election is to monitor the precinct counts, and check for anomalous departure from previous elections, especially where these are associated with suspect technology, or suspected corrupt administration. I suspect fraud in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida in 2004, and probably elsewhere, but my reasons for doing so have nothing to do with the exit poll data.

If you suspect massive fraud in New York State, I would be interested to hear your theories. I do not rule it out - I simply note that for all the assertions I read that the 2004 exit poll discrepancy was due to electronic vote hacking, it is ironic that it was levers (and punchcards) precincts/states that had the largest discrepancies. But I do not believe it is "irrational" to postulate a hypothesis as to how fraud occurred. Testing hypotheses is what data analysis is all about, and I am a data analyst.

And it is no more my job than yours to find fraud in the US. I am a Brit. I live in Nottingham, UK. I care about US democracy because it is the most powerful democracy on earth, and all our futures depend on the leaders it elects. I was outraged by Ohio 2004.

[althecat]

52. Thankyou Elizabeth

"But, as I've said here, and on many previous occasions, I think a much more energy and cost efficient way of checking on the integrity of the election is to monitor the precinct counts, and check for anomalous departure from previous elections, especially where these are associated with suspect technology, or suspected corrupt administration. I suspect fraud in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida in 2004, and probably elsewhere, but my reasons for doing so have nothing to do with the exit poll data. "

If you put 1/100th as much effort into exploring the ideas contained in the above paragraph rather than criticising and undermining anyone who is in interested in divining some information from the exit poll debate I would take you a great deal more seriously.

Why if you are genuinely interested in vote fraud and outraged by what happened in Ohio do you spend so much time and effort correcting people about the minutae of exit polls when you could be exploring methods of effectively auditing results?

Kathy Dopp's NEDA project has worked extensively with the ideas of looking for precinct by precinct data anomalies. Unfortunately - if as many of us suspect - there has been vote fraud in some areas for at least three elections 2000, 2002 and 2004 getting some clean baseline data to operate on is rapidly becoming impossible.

I am delighted to hear that you had a nice chinese meal with Dr Freeman. It would have been interesting to have been there given that you disagree about so many aspects of the usefulness of exit polls.

In his original paper for example I think he said that exit polls are used in other parts of the world as a check against vote fraud... an assertion which you seem to disagree with vehemently.

Finally let me address the unpleasantness in this thread.

You are exasperated because you think that rhetorically speaking I am unfair to you and OTOH in these debates.

In the posts above you have twice attempted to indirectly co-opt the support of both Dr Stephanie Singer and Dr Steven Freeman for your brand of exit poll skepticism. They are fellow academics with whom I speak and whom I know you tell us.

Yet clearly they are investing their considerable talents in undertaking exit polls with the intention of using them for precisely the purpose you say they cannot or should not be used.

It would be great if some of your ideas on how to do a better exit poll for vote fraud analysis are incorporated into their plans. And it would be very interesting to know what those ideas are.

Instead you consistently assert that your POV that exit polls are useless for vote fraud detection is somehow unassailable and that your academic qualifications and inside information make your opinion significantly more valuable than that of the rest of us.

Clearly there are several academics in the same or similar fields of study who disagree with you seemingly fairly completely.

So if you want to know why I am being so hostile then perhaps you should look a little bit more closely in the mirror and then start participating in the effort to right what is wrong with American Democracy rather than turning on DU members who show a genuine interest in the subject with your incessent defence of your repeatedly publicly expressed view that there is nothing to see here.

We know full well that you and OTOH think we are barking up the wrong tree. There are several 1000 posts no doubt that make your views on the subject clear.

However many of us disagree with you and in the end we are going to have to leave it there.

Finally, let me tell you and OTOH something which you may not be aware of.

Many if not most of the people involved in this forum have long since put you on the ignore list. Your unwavering committment to speedily patronising anyone who attempts to engage in this debate has driven them away.

Now with just 14 days to the election now would be a good time to take off the gloves and start becoming part of the solution rather than yet another obstacle in the way of those of us who genuinely want to fix what is wrong with the election apparatus of the United States of America.

Alastair

[Melissa G]

60. Alastair, You sir, are a saint with the patience of Job...

I think I may have to add you to list of Floaty Heart Fan clubs I maintain..

There are some who confuse the vacant, massive emptiness of the ignore button with the sound of crickets...just because so many folks have tired of the the black hole suck of life of two on one instant exit poll nit picking obfuscation that magically appears on any related exit poll post...
(There are too many links to cite to support this assertion...but the current one is self evident enough..)

Every once in a while a Valiant Soul like yourself rides in to confront the delusions... I applaud you!:applause: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :toast: :yourock:

[althecat]

62. Thankyou Melissa.....

What is somewhat confusing at this juncture is the sudden silence from the exit poll nit picking obfuscation tag team. I am almost certain that in all previous incarnations of this discussion I failed to get the last word....

Cheers

alastair

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

70. still at it

You obviously have no idea what Febble has been doing. You didn't even know her citizenship, even though it has been in her sig since I don't remember when, and often comes up in DU threads.

No one in the world has worked harder than Febble at divining information from the exit poll debate. It is quite ridiculous to accuse her of "criticising and undermining anyone" who is interested in doing so. It is quite ridiculous to make any assumptions about what else she has been doing. You have no clue.

Febble never asserted "that exit polls are useless for vote fraud detection." You made that up. Add it to the list. Febble's posts are not that hard to understand; why not try?

Febble's opinion on exit polls is more valuable than yours, not because of her "academic qualifications or inside information," but because she works to have valuable opinions. I could cite others who lack "academic qualifications or inside information" yet also have taken the time to form valuable opinions. But far be it from me to "indirectly co-opt the support" of anyone, whatever that means.

There are very few "academics in the same or similar fields of study" who broadly disagree with Febble on the broad outlines of her interpretation of the 2004 exit polls. Among political scientists and survey researchers, it is hard to detect a debate. You could verify this for yourself, as an independent journalist.

We were nonetheless attempting to discuss the merits of independent exit polls going forward without reenacting arguments about the past. Does that bother you?

I think it is surreal that you accuse us of shilling for pay, and then complain that we are "patronising." Do you giggle when you write this stuff?

If you want to know why I am being so hostile, then perhaps you should stop making invidious assumptions and insinuations about us, and start checking some facts. Perhaps that would lead you toward a more effective approach to fixing what is wrong with the U.S. election apparatus.

[althecat]

75. Lets have a straw poll: Do Febble or OTOH ever "criticise and undermine"?

....perhaps this is another antipodean hallucination.

Giggle.

[OnTheOtherHand]

93. you ducked the substance and quoted YOURSELF out of context n/t

[Febble]

104. I plead guilty

to criticising interpretations of evidence that I find flawed, and to undermining confidence in assertions that are unsupported by evidence.

I do not plead guilty to criticising or undermining people on this forum, nor the goal of election reform to which this forum is dedicated.

In contrast, your posts on this thread have failed to engage any of the issues I raised. Perhaps you would like to provide a source for an exit poll "around the world" that was central to election verification efforts - it would be a useful resource; perhaps you also have a source for the claim that the "US media consortium exit pollsters have announced that they will no longer release any data even to their media clients until they can "correct" their numbers so as to make them conform to the official count.

On the other hand you have spent most of your posts "criticising and undermining" my style of posting and moral integrity.

[Febble]

97. Your hostility towards me is completely unfounded

Try reading my posts.

[althecat]

99. No its not....

Since you ask.

Elizabeth you have for months and months lurked in this forum pouncing on any poor unsuspecting poster who dares to mention exit polls in the context of vote fraud telling them they are foolish and silly explaining how you are an expert and then dazzling them with your pseudo-science.

You do this in concert with OTOH and your stamina is truly incredible.

Your opinion is unshakable and your determination to put it across remarkable.

You are very good at it employing every trick in an virtual armoury of rhetorical tricks including the "I am sincere and wronged" tack you are presently on.

Other tricks include, name dropping, self righteousness, confusion, obfuscation, arguing around the point, putting up straw men, engaging the person rather than the issue.... a full gamut.

Why you do this is a complete mystery.

Many of those who actually participate in this forum on an ongoing basis has you on their ignore list because your dismissive patronising drivel is enough to drive anyone to distraction. And once distracted into engaging with you and OTOH in a thread such as this inevitably leads to mental exhaustion and a voluminous quantity of wasted words.

Meanwhile contrary to your strongly held beleifs yours is not the final word on the subject of exit polls. You and OTOH are not a two person repository of all knowledge on the subject and there are many mathematicians & scientists out there who work in this field who disagree with you.

Only thing is, they are out there busy working on the problem and not busy in here telling every poor sucker who delves into this forum that they are wrong in all respects about everything to do with exit polls.

Since you asked.

Al

P.S. And I have carefully read all your posts. No. 15 in particular is the only vaguely constructive comment that I can see you have made in this thread aside from the quote that i thanked you for in #52. But even in #15 you damn with ever so faint praise pooring scorn on the notion that exit polls are very useful in the process.

Moreover the suggestion that you do make - on the basis of my amateur understanding of exit polls - is in fact the opposite of helpful.

You suggest pairing precincts with similar characteristics. No doubt you will correct me on this as I am undoubtedly wrong (as I always am) but my understanding is that precinct data in isolation or small samples proves nothing, precinct data is noisy and volatile... i.e. exit poll data tends only to be meaningful in agregate (a thesis which to me makes some sense).

Perhaps you could tell us how many paired precincts would be required (assuming such a thing exists as a paired precinct) for an statistical variation in the way they move relative to each other to actually mean anything.

But then again I know nothing as you and OTOH have been so kind to remind me on numerous previous occasions.

[Febble]

102. Frankly, I am at a loss as to how to respond to this.

I do not lurk, I do not pounce, I do not peddle pseudo-science.

I do not attack people (as you are doing right here); I do challenge arguments and assertions that seem to me unfounded.

I do so because I think good arguments for a good cause are better than bad arguments; because I think what is true is more important than what we would like to believe is true; and because I think we can be more effective in both advocating for election reform and in discovering the extent to which American democracy is broken by looking at the data dispassionately.

I do not claim authority for my views (check my sig) - I ask only for my posts to be considered on their merits. I entered this thread because the OP contains two assertions that were unsourced, and I as far as I know are not actually true. If someone can supply the source, that is fine. However, rather than supply the source, most of this thread seems to have been devoted to the outrageousness of even raising the query. I do not think it is wise to base strategy on erroneous perceptions.

I also posted that exit polls were unlikely shed very much useful light on the integrity of elections. I gave reasons. I am happy to debate them, indeed to be shown ways in which exit polls might be useful. However, instead, responses to my posts have been attacks on my own integrity rather than the content of my argument. And you have the gall to accuse me of "engaging the person rather than the issue"

You may have your own views on my motivations for being part of this forum. They appear to be wildly wrong, but only I can know that, clearly. But as someone who is a journalist, it seems to me somewhat ironic that you can get basic facts wrong about myself and my colleague, and then accuse us of posting disinformation, without so much as an apology for your own errors.

But let me respond to some of your two specific accusations:

That my position is unshakeable. Not at all. I have engaged in constructive debate on this forum, and changed my views as a result. Indeed I subject my views to reassessment in the light of any substantive counter-argument, or indeed, new data.

Name dropping Huh? Is this because I said I'd exchanged emails with Dr Singer and had lunch with Dr Freeman? You actually claimed I'd co-opted their support. I did no such thing. I have no idea whether Dr Singer agrees with me over my exit poll data, I simply informed you that I knew she had read it (in response to your post to her "warning" her about me. As for Dr Freeman - well he knows my views only too well about his work, and clearly he does not agree with my view. I did not claim that he did, I simply cited first-hand evidence that he knows of my views on what can introduce bias into exit polls (because he asked me).

As for the rest, I will leave objective observers to judge.

To turn to the second part of your post:

Pairing precincts does not mean considering two precincts at a time. Yes, precinct level is extremely noisy, which is one of the many reasons why anything other than an extremely large and expensive exit poll is unlikely to give you a statistically significant effect, let alone tell you what caused it. But by pairing precincts you could increase your statistical power, by controlling for variables you are not interested in, and comparing like with like. If, for example, you suspect that a particular technology is more likely to be corrupted than a different one, and you sampled pairs of precincts that were similar in as many respects as possible (size, interviewing rate, demographics, expected voteshares etc), and randomly allocated interviewers, you could try to determine whether the discrepancy tended to be higher in the precinct with the suspect technology than with its pair. One pair would tell you very little, but many hundreds of pairs might tell you a lot.

But I'm not sure it's doable. It just might be a more statistically powerful approach. I'm happy to discuss it. It's why I came into the damn thread.

I did not come into the thread for any of the reasons you allege. In fact I reject all your allegations, including the one of "rhetorical tricks". In fact it strikes me that your own post is a fine examplar of rhetorical tricks. If you don't like my posts, ignore them. I'm not going to stop posting because some people don't like my posts. I have had far too much useful discussion with posters who are prepare to engage with the content to be discouraged by people who are perfectly capable of using the ignore button, but prefer to lay down the law about how they perceive my personal failings.







"name dropping" - huh?

[Febble]

110. Posted without proof-reading:

corrections:

I wrote:

I have no idea whether Dr Singer agrees with me over my exit poll data, I simply informed you that I knew she had read it (in response to your post to her "warning" her about me.

Data=paper (posted here)

I also wrote:

Pairing precincts does not mean considering two precincts at a time.


I meant to write:

Pairing precincts does not mean considering only two precincts at a time.

There are others but those were the worst.

[Awsi Dooger]

101. althecat, that's pathetic for a professional journalist

I have a degree in print and I honestly can't remember anyone from the damn school paper even threatening your level, at least the level observed in this thread. The others here may have a petrified excuse for failing to absorb Febble and OTOH's posts; they have them on ignore. What, pray tell, is yours?

The post in this thread in which you storm in and authoritatively provide "background" on Febble and OTOH is possibly the most laughably inept post I have ever seen on DU, or any other site. I would have hit the floor in a seizure of laughter if I didn't realize who it was coming from, someone who indeed works as a journalist, and people accept what he writes as accurate. Yet that person identified OTOH as working for a polling firm or voting machine company.

Do you have any idea how scarily incompetent that is? I'm primarily involved in sports and don't visit this forum very often. But even in those limited visits I've seen OTOH reference his transitional home page very frequently including a link. Right there, smack on top, is his name and where he works. Along with a dozen or more relevant, well-researched and informative PDFs.

There has never been a single post from OTOH that remotely hints he works for a polling firm or voting machine company. You weaned that into your system because it's what you desperately want to believe, similar to the assertions in another post in this thread that New York was fraud because Bush substantially increased his vote total from '00 to '04.

"Hey, what happened? It had to be millions of stolen votes. He's the most unpopular president ever. Democrats have more intensity than any party in history, and Republicans don't care. The whole country hates Bush." That's a summary of althecat's post-election analysis in early November 2004. I know, I lived it every day. Disregard the articles I linked from PEW and Mark Mellman previously, at the time, and subsequently, that Bush had tons of built-in advantages as the incumbent, ones that DUers refused to acknowledge. PEW found that the level of enthusiasm for Bush voters was higher than any candidate since Reagan in '84. I've already linked that many times and I'm not going to go searching for it now. You've already proven in this thread you are comfy to ignore or forget any evidence that betrays your robbery scenario. Then there's that 9/11 factor, also posted and apparently discounted, that women and hispanics veered toward the GOP in '02 and '04 due to national security concerns.

Next time you guys champion exit polls, find some that make sense. A Democrat does not earn 57% in New Hampshire in a 50/50 year. There was a reason I gave up and turned off the TV and computer early on election night, hours before those CNN exchanges that OTOH detailed. I've told the story many times. DU was celebrating stupid exit polls like 60% in Pennsylvania, down 3 in North Carolina, and you name it. Then I glanced at the tiny theoretical leads in the vital states Florida and Ohio and realized we were doomed, that they would topple in similar proportion to all the obviously flawed numbers in other states. I turned on the computer hours later solely to check the exit polls, specifically what the party ID had been. When I saw the 37-37 I gulped and posted a thread in GD 2004, that our poll adjustments had been wrong. I've never seen Steven Freeman explain how his beloved exit poll percentages from individual states wildly contradict traditional party ID numbers, partisan index history, and the liberal/conservative/moderate breakdown in those states.

Oh, by the way, I noticed you are still clinging to TIA's lame claim that people accurately remember and announce their vote, even years after the fact. Here's an inconvenient test of that theory, a poll taken over a three-week time frame last year, immediately after the Virginia governors race between Kaine and Kilgore. The Democrat Tim Kaine won that race 52-46. Here you go, althecat. See if you can get 52-46 out of these numbers. Let TIA try himself. Maybe only a few carpools of females voted.

http://www.virginia.edu/surveys/press/CFPPoll%20Release%201-13-06.htm

I loved althecat's late tip to Febble and OTOH, that many posters in this forum have embraced the ignore function. Frankly, it's because they are so far over their head when trying to trade posts with Febble or OTOH that their system screams it's infinitely safer, to run away and give up, huddling safely with their own, blinkers on.

Now autorank, he's a special case, the Liberace of Ignore. But hey auto, even though I know you can't read this, thanks very much for your Raiders lining my pocket last week. A system I've mentioned often in the sports forum: "bet against any NFL team if it played on Monday night then travels to face a non-division opponent." I inherited the Raiders last week via that system, first half and game. Combine the system with the devastating and draining manner in which the Cardinals lost to the Bears, and a starting rookie QB, and a winless Raider team desperate for its first win and it was a situational bonanza, the best of the season. Just don't pretend your team is suddenly any good. Ignoring situational influence seems to be a specialty around here.

Which reminds me, I'm behind on sleep and my Excel football work for this weekend. Good night.

[electropop]

27. Exit polls as run by the consortium have lost their original function.

The media can no longer use the results for their breathless predictions. Somebody's got to pay for actual data, and that somebody must be those who want to steal. Interesting theory.

[Febble]

40. What do you think

"their original function" was?

ETA: This is not a snarky question. I'd really like to know. I think that if there was better understanding of the design and purpose of the US exit polls, there would be a better understanding of the light they can shed on election integrity.

[slackmaster]

56. The original function is quite obvious IMO

Media outlets paid pollsters to come up with something that would make good headlines, with the goal of attracting more readers and viewers than their competition; in turn increasing advertising revenues.

It's all about money.

[BeFree]

63. Original Function?

You had to ask? Why, it is to find fraud!!

Just kidding. Still, for an 'expert' such as yourself to ask such a question does amaze, believing that it was not in snarkiness.

The function of exit-polls is to make it possible for the 'News' to determine the winner of an election before people go to bed at 9-10 o'clock at night.

I remember years ago the 'News' did accurately call elections before polls closed. How'd they do that? With the raw numbers. Or even, slightly weighted numbers. Yep, they did that a few times and caught hell. Oh, the numbers were accurate, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that it was said, it kept people from voting at 7pm.

Funny, isn't it, that years ago the exit-polls did accurately call elections well before polls closed, and now, with the use of computers to add things up, the accuracy is being denied? What the hell happened? Did the expertise of the pollsters decline, leading to sloppy numbers?

No, I'd say the numbers are more accurate than ever, its just that the power of the numbers has been recognized to be detrimental to the fraudsters and so, like everything else that gets in their way, must be obfuscated.

Exit-polls are a good tool to find fraud -- the polls did just that in 2004.

[rumpel]

84. FYI

this is what you can find on wikipedia

Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as "parallel vote tabulation", as a check against and rough indicator of the degree of fraud in an election. Some examples of this include the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004, the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004, and the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy.

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

[Febble]

108. Thanks

However, of the three references, one is to the 2004 US election itself, and one is the the Ukrainian election, to which the exit poll data was certainly not central.

The Venezualan recall referendum is interesting, and the exit poll discrepancy certainly appears to have been very large. I certainly do not dispute that a corrupt election will tend to result in a discrepancy between the exit polls and the count, nor that a large (or even moderate) exit poll discrepancy should not raise red flags. What I dispute is that exit polls are "central" to election integrity efforts. They are a very poor tool for such a task, and given the misplaced faith people have in their accuracy, a potentially misleading one.

Which is why I am dubious about spending a great deal of money and energy on an independent exit poll. But if it's going to be done, I do have some ideas about how it could best be designed.

[autorank]

96. I'm really looking forward to the day after election day.

That will be a come to Jesus meeting to end all meetings;

[Febble]

107. I didn't ask

what the original purpose was. I asked electropop what s/he thought the original purpose was.

Now I have a question for you: what evidence do you have for your assertion that the news organisations used to call the elections "accurately" with raw numbers before the polls closed?

I'd like to see an example.

[BeFree]

109. Evidence...

....I have followed exit polling nearly all my political life. Years ago, ON TV, the news programs would call an election aa early as 5pm, and it turned out, the calls were nearly dead on. How'd they do that? They used raw data from the exit-polling organizations. Data that incorporated no results because the results were unknown at 5pm.

In 2004, the same scenario took place... the news people were looking at the raw numbers from exit-polls and were saying Kerry won.

Of course, in 2004, they also had pre-election polls such as Zogby's. Zogby was also saying Kerry won.

[autorank]

95. Oh, you are so suspicious. They are part of the Bush PR team now.

People act like this is all new, electoin fraud. Little real history never hurts and its a great book.


http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/078671591X.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Tracey Campbell, Deliver the Vote

[althecat]

68. Be nice if this thread got a few more KnRs......

[nicknameless]

80. "R'ed" earlier.

Here's a :kick:

And more floaty hearts for you, Alastair

:loveya:

[althecat]

81. Excellent three stars now.... tyvm nicknameless

[SaneInSC]

90. TY

Thank you althecat for your intensity and effort here. I appreciate it. /cheer

Screw off patronizing trolls.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

115. Locking

This thread unfortunately contains too many posts that infringe upon the DU rules and guidelines including personal attacks, insinuations and accusations against other DU members and other such violations. This may be an interesting topic but members are advised that future threads on this topic or any other must adhere to DU rules and guidelines, which can be found here
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