Was the Presidential Election Stolen? InTheseTimes By Joel Bleifuss

[helderheid]

On June 2, Rolling Stone published a lengthy article by Robert J. Kennedy, Jr., “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” That article echoes the title of a book that Steven F. Freeman and I have written that has just been published by Seven Stories Press, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count.

We provided Kennedy with an early copy of our book and he cites it when discussing the discrepancy between the exit polls, which indicated that John Kerry won, and the official count, which deemed George W. Bush the victor. That Rolling Stone article has moved discussion about the 2004 election back into the national agenda.


Philip Anderson votes with his son Philip on Nov. 2, 2004 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

A particularly lively debate has occurred on Salon.com, where on June 3, Farhad Manjoo attempted to demolish Kennedy’s article. Both Kennedy and Freeman, my co-author, then published formal responses. Freeman pointed out that while Manjoo’s article is rife with problems, he completely misses the boat when considering exit polls.

What follows is an excerpt from our new book Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count.

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http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2696/

[helderheid]

1. ..

[renate]

2. 42%!!

A Zogby Interactive online poll one month after the election revealed that 28.5 percent of respondents thought that questions about the accuracy of the official count in the election were “very valid”, and another 14 percent thought that concerns were “somewhat valid.” In other words, 42 percent of all Americans had immediate concerns about what had happened on Nov. 2, 2004.

:wow:

Forty-two percent! That's a huge number! Surely that's at least as many people as are interested in a year's worth of coverage of a girl missing in Aruba. I've never heard before how many other people were worried about the validity of the election--we were made to feel as though we were alone in the wilderness. WHERE WERE THE MEDIA?? (that's a rhetorical question)

(P.S. I always hate it when people dismiss the Natalee Holloway story--it's tragic. I used it as an example of how the media spends an unbelievable amount of time on one story in a time when the world is in such a crisis... not as a complaint that the story is covered at all.)

[helderheid]

7. that is a huge number!!

[Senator]

3. k&r

[WiseButAngrySara]

4. K and R! ....n/t

[applegrove]

5. No smoking gun on exit polls. See they were off in places with no

diebold. In places like Texas where Bush ran for Governor. But lots of evidence of voter suppression in other ways.

[drm604]

6. Can you give specific instances and stats

where no machines were used (not just Diebold, any machines) and the exit polls were off? Keep in mind that even in places where the voters don't see any machines central tabulators may be, and often are, used.

[helderheid]

8. Utah using punchcards was within the MOE

[drm604]

9. But that's not what I was asking for.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I was looking for examples where no machines were involved and there was a statistically significant variation from the exit polls. That is what was being claimed and I was asking applegrove for examples to support that claim.
Your example is just the opposite. Punch cards are counted by machine, and the difference from the exit polls was within the MOE.

[helderheid]

10. maybe this will help:

http://www.exitpollz.org/indexver2.html

http://www.exitpollz.org/

Problem is I don't know what states/counties used what to vote

[drm604]

11. Thank you for your efforts but it's really not necessary.

Applegrove made the remark that exit polls are not a smoking gun and I was challeging him to back up that statement with examples of what he's describing. The point is for him to back up his statement. I disagree with him and I want him to show me some proof of his claims. Even if he can show me non-machine precincts (strictly hand counted paper ballots) with a statistically significant variation from the exit polls, that still doesn't eliminate exit polls as a smoking gun. Paper ballots can be miscounted also.

[helderheid]

12. gotcha. I'm sick right now and my brain cells aren't working at full

capacity. :)

[drm604]

14. No apology necessary. n/t

[applegrove]

13. Oh it was a long time ago.. more than a year..that someone brought

up the exit poll discrepancies outside of machine voting areas. I wouldn't know where to look. But I'll try.