Report: Heavy response by Kerry voters tilted exit polls

[budkin]

Utter bullshit.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/19/exit.polls/index.html

Report suggests changes in exit poll methodology
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Posted: 10:09 AM EST (1509 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Exit polls overstated John Kerry's share of the vote on November 2, both nationally and in many states, because more Kerry supporters participated in the survey than Bush voters, according to an internal review of the exit-polling process released Wednesday.

The report said it is difficult to pinpoint precisely why, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit poll than were Bush voters. "There were certainly motivational factors that are impossible to quantify," the report said.

Problems with the numbers first surfaced on Election Day, when exit polls showed Kerry with a 3-point lead nationally and an edge in some key battleground states. Those exit poll results were leaked and became widely known through the Internet.

CNN did not air those inaccurate results or post them on its Web site, and CNN's projections of winners on election night were accurate.

Nationwide, Bush got about 3.5 million more votes than Kerry.

The discrepancies stemmed from problems in interviewing voters at the 1,480 randomly chosen precincts where exit pollsters were stationed, not from how those precincts were selected or the way the data were processed, according to the 75-page report.

The report recommends a number of steps to deal with the problem, including better training for interviewers, as well as continued research aimed at boosting participation in the polls.

The report was issued by Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research, the polling firms that conducted the polls on behalf of the so-called National Election Pool, a consortium of six national media organizations (AP, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC).

To prevent leaks in future elections, the news organizations have agreed not to access the data until 6 p.m. ET.

The report found that the exit polls offered no evidence of widespread fraud.

"Exit polls do not support the allegations of fraud due to rigging of voting equipment. Our analysis of the difference between the vote count and the exit poll at each polling location in our sample has found no systematic differences for precincts using touch screen and optical scan voting equipment," the report found.

The new report shows that exit polls overstated Kerry's support in 26 states, while estimates overstated Bush's support in four states. The problem is not new -- in every presidential election since 1988, exit polls have overstated support for Democrats nationally -- but the discrepancy in 2004 was more pronounced than in previous years.

The report identified several factors that may have contributed to the discrepancy, including:


Distance restrictions from polling places imposed upon the interviewers by election officials at the state and local level.


Weather conditions, which lowered completion rates at certain polling locations.


Multiple precincts voting at the same location as the precinct in the exit poll sample.


Interviewer characteristics, such as age, which were more often related to the errors last year than in past elections.

The pollsters said they plan to further investigate the recruiting and training procedures, the interviewing rate calculations, the length and design of the questionnaire, as well as characteristics of both the interviewers and the precincts chosen to be surveyed.

"Even with these improvements, differences in response rates between Democratic and Republican voters may still occur in future elections," the report reads. "However, we believe that these steps will help to minimize the discrepancies."

In addition to the information included in this report, exit poll data from this election are being archived at the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut and at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and will be available there for review and further analysis. A description of the methodology of the exit polls is posted at www.exit-poll.net.

From 1992 to 2002, exit polls were conducted by Voter News Service (VNS), whose exit polls in 2000 led to the networks' decisions to declare Al Gore the winner in Florida. In 2002, VNS was unable to deliver any exit poll data to the networks, resulting in the decision to disband it.

[OnionPatch]

1. Uh-huh

right.

[bpilgrim]

30. thats the same ROVE talking point the RW has been using since day 1

and now its OFFICIAL :crazy:

peace

[Stevepol]

131. It's easy to see why vanilla ice cream outsold chocolate ice cream.

There's nothing mysterious about it. It can be easily explained. If you consider the buyers of ice cream only, among those who bought ice cream at the time, those who prefer vanilla were in the stores at a time when it was more likely that they would buy vanilla than chocolate because more of them were preferentially predisposed to buy, whereas the chocolate lovers were far less likely to express their preferences at that time than those who normally would have preferred vanilla at the time the ice cream was being sold. This says nothing about the overall preferences for vanilla that we would find if we could actually analyze the data. And there's no reason to suspect that the difference in preferences had anything to do with the figures about sales.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Mitofsky's impersonation...

Of a worm on a griddle continues.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

3. or...

Dubya voters were ashamed of admitting they had voted for the fool...

[jdj]

88. CNN did too air the initial exit polls. People got screen captures

and then also screen shots of the changed numbers.

They are such fucking liars.

I don't have the screen shots, does anyone care to post them that got them?

[mcscajun]

90. That would be my first guess…

…“plausible deniablity” vanishes if your neighbors see you being polled, or worse, you get on camera!

[jhain]

4. took them longer than usual

I expected these sorts of bold faced lies to appear by Nov 3rd...

[driver8]

76. I thought the bullshit spin would have started Nov. 3, also...

It took them that long to come up with a line of bullshit that they thought they could sell.

Criminals...and CNN should be ashamed of themselves acting as the Ministry of Propoganda.

[Stuckinthebush]

5. Interesting

Exit polling is much more accurate than pre election polling.

It is interesting to see how the actual results of the election are considered to be true and without error, and that the exit polling methodology must be faulty.

[underpants]

11. It is VOTES that count not EXIT POLLS!!!!

See how that neatly ignores which is more accurate?

[tigereye]

49. thank you underpants

[Stuckinthebush]

72. ?

:shrug:

[Stuckinthebush]

70. As long as the votes are counted

But I guess it doesn't really matter as long as we have a number - any number - at the end of election day.

[trotsky]

6. What sound reasoning.

We don't know why, but we are SURE that it was an oversampling of Kerry voters.

Because, obviously, there's NO way the vote could have been tampered with. We can rule that out from the start. :eyes:

[Imnottelling]

18. Exactly.

I would be curious to actually look at the full report. On the surface I don't see how it is possible to make a statement that the exit pollers oversampled Kerry voters. How can they know? If you trust the vote tally that is one thing, but how can you independently determine that Kerry voters were oversampled if you are not allowed to trust the vote tally?

[tigereye]

50. but didn't the piece above say that Democrats traditionally

tend to be oversampled in exit polls?

[w4rma]

55. Regular polls. Never ever exit polls. (nt)

[tigereye]

58. no, the quote says exit polls

taken from the initial post:

"The problem is not new -- in every presidential election since 1988, exit polls have overstated support for Democrats nationally -- but the discrepancy in 2004 was more pronounced than in previous years.

[louis-t]

98. "since 1988, exit polls have overstated "

I don't believe this is true. I believe the first time exit polls showed discrepancies was 2000. Dick Morris said "exit polls are never wrong".

[tigereye]

100. show me the data-

;)

[euler]

117. It would take about 15-20 seconds....

....using Google to find out that that the statement: 'since 1988, exit polls have overstated' is true.

[CoffeeCat]

99. Isn't this a contradiction?

Didn't the media report that the exit polls for Bush/Gore 2000 were accurate?

If so, how come we're just now hearing about this rampaging skew toward Dems that supposedly ALWAYS happens in exit polls?

This fabricated article is released on the eve of the coronation. Interesting.

Is CNN telling us that it's over, here's the rationale behind the exit-poll questions--now sit down, shut up and bask in the glory of the inauguration of our legitimate president?

[daleo]

101. This is from their own website FAQ, at the link above

"The mistakes made during the 2000 election were unusual. During the 10 years before that VNS and the poll before it made only one mistake from 1990 to 1998...very few mistakes during the 1970's and 1980's...no mistakes during the limited coverage in 2002...no mistakes made during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries."

[tigereye]

102. political history isn't my area of expertise

It might make sense for folks to read some past data and history, or consult those in our party with some experience in past campaigns, and then dispute what is said. For instance, a relative of mine worked for several congressmen and on a presidential campaign or two. If he were to tell me that this article were overstated, that would make sense to me.

It sometimes seems that some are all too ready to disregard facts, evidence and history and instead offer speculation. ( myself included)

[euler]

119. In one ear, out the other....

"how come we're just now hearing about this rampaging skew toward Dems that supposedly ALWAYS happens in exit polls?"

People have been posting this for at least a month right here in this forum. It doesn't fit the frame in this forum so it goes in one ear and out the other.

This is a general remark to this forum, and not aimed at you specifically. For all I know, you've been on a deserted island and unable to visit the forum for the past month.

[July]

19. That's what I noticed.

Because the only other explanation would be that Kerry was leading because he ACTUALLY WAS LEADING. Can't have that, can we?

[Donkeyboy75]

35. They actually do offer reasons this could have happened.

If you are claiming that BBV was to blame, you'll note that the same discrepancy between exit polling and actual results were found for ALL forms of voting.

[Imnottelling]

36. What were the reasons?

I glanced over the report and couldn't really find any reasons.

The report can be found at www.exit-poll.net if you want to take a look.

It seemed to me that there logic was that since Kerry was leading in the exit polls and the official tally declared Bush the winner then the exit polls oversampled Kerry voters. Well, no shit....or the official tally is wrong. The logic seems obviously circular to me.

One cannot use the offical result as evidence for oversampling of Kerry voters! Even if it sounds reasonable. It may actually be true but there needs to be an argument for it not merely a circular hypothesis.

[Donkeyboy75]

48. On quick perusal,

the one that looms largest is the fact that those precincts covered by interviewers with advanced degrees showed a higher completion rate. Since these individuals tend to live in urban, Dem areas, that could have led to overreporting of Kerry results.

[trotsky]

53. Sorry but this explanation just doesn't pass the "sniff test."

Why only this election did we see such discrepancies? Other elections have been as heated as this one, other candidates have seen their supporters be very enthused about the possibility of his presidency. But at no time in the history of exit polling in this country did we have such a monstrous failure as we did in 2004.

It just makes no sense.

[Donkeyboy75]

60. There was also a large discrepancy

in 1992, although not quite as large as this one. Look, based on the numbers you have to conclude that either a) fraud took place, but it was done using ALL voting methods or b) there was no fraud. The rest of the data points to a sampling error.

If fraud is to be alleged, there needs to be a lot more than exit polling numbers.

[daleo]

64. One can spot cheating, without knowing the method

If the dealer gets 8 straight blackjacks from a two deck shoe, you can be sure there is something not quite right.

[Donkeyboy75]

67. One can believe there is cheating.

But doesn't know it unless he/she has proof.

Of course, in your example, the dealer has a 1 in 750 million chance, so you'd probably have a beef. The anomaly here isn't close, even if the exit polls are correct.

[daleo]

75. OK, here are some more realistic numbers

There was a 5.5 percent difference from the exit polls to the election results (exit polls 3% for Kerry, vote 2.5% for Bush). Exit poll respondents are chosen as every nth person leaving the polls. They can either fill in the exit poll or not.

Suppose there is a 50% probability of anyone filling out an exit poll, all other things being equal. The Kerry voter has a 1.0625 "self-selection factor" (.51/.48) according to the above data, while the Bush voter has a 0.95 self-selection factor. So, in a sample of 1000 voters asked to fill in the exit poll, this would imply about 265 Kerry voters responded positively, but only about 235 Bush voters did.

That just seems like too big a difference to attribute to something as nebulous as "Kerry enthusiasm" or "Bush reticence". Among other things, I have never know Republicans, especially Bush supporters, to be the types to hide their light under a bushel basket. Quite the reverse, actually.

Is this conclusive? No, no statistical argument ever is, if the powers that be deem it to be insufficient.

[Donkeyboy75]

97. Right.

But if we're going to allege voter fraud, we must propose a plausible mechanism. It's hard to see one with the data.

A sample bias just seems more plausible to me than a fraud method that spans every single voting method.

[Imnottelling]

82. Agree with you there

You said: "If fraud is to be alleged, there needs to be a lot more than exit polling numbers."

In the end there needs to be more than exit poll numbers BUT the exit poll discrepency should be enough to convince a thinking person that the possibility of election fraud should be investigated. Exit polls were enough in the Ukraine.

Election fraud should not be laughed at and dismissed just becuase there isn't "convincing" evidence yet.

Maybe Bush won afterall. Unfortunately, I am not completely confident in the election results to believe that. I have lost confidence in our electoral system...I question it's fairness and it is un-auditable in many cases.

This must be our message and chant.

BTW, I believe that election fraud could have taken place using nearly all of our voting methods...not just BBV.

.....my secret pipe-dream is that the GOP is going to shoot itself in the foot over the governor's race in WA and expose the presidential election fraud on accident.

[mccoyn]

93. This should be easy to verify.

This should be easy to verify with the raw numbers. If what they say is true then they should be able to plot the response rate against the democratic vote rate and find a correlation. If they would publish the raw data it could be independently verified. I expect this is exactly what is in that 75 page report. Anyone know how we can get a hold of it?

[Imnottelling]

96. Got to www.exit-polls.net

You can download a pdf version of the report in all its 77 paged glory.

[orleans]

109. good one!

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

7. Bulls--t!

[jobycom]

8. Two easier suggestions on how they can fix the exit poll discrepancies

One, just don't release the exit polls until after the election, that way no one gets excited, two, check with the president beforehand to find out who is going to win and by what margin, and make the exit polls say THAT.

[tigereye]

54. yes

I did work for Move-on and poll watching that day in Pa. And I did see a lot of the folks that we talked to come to the polls. But exit polls are not terribly reliable, from what I understand.


I think we were out-gunned, out-marketed, what have you. There may have been voting discrepancies, and the whole "not accountable BBV thing" is scary. But I think the Reps just did a better job at getting their people to the polls, despite all the efforts on our side. I know this is not a popular view in some quarters...

I suspect if we had had Move-on type efforts in more states, we would have won more states. It definitely worked here in Pa.

Just my two cents.

[bemildred]

9. This is a non-explanation.

It boils down to the claim there was a sampling error.

[mccoyn]

87. A systemic sampling error.

It claims it was a systemic sampling error, refuting all those statisical analysis that people have done.

[Virginian]

95. A Sampling error?

Was that because Bush voters are mean and unapproachable?

[hughee99]

126. I find it more than possible that some people

voted for * because they were repukes, but didn't feel very good about it after they way * has treated the country over the last 4 years. They didn't want to tell anyone else the voted for that A-hole either, so they avoided the exit polls. Kerry voters, on the other hand, were more than happy to tell anyone who asked how they voted.

[MaineDem]

113. Exactly, but somehow it was the Kerry voters' fault

That's what the headline implies.

Poor writing, in my opinion.

[wicket]

10. such bullshit

[Warpy]

12. Bullshit

Exit polls are reliable historically.

Exit polls were taken as proof of fraud in the Ukraine.

Exit polls confirmed the results on the West Bank.

Just what the hell is wrong with CNN? Do they really think we're going to swallow this horseshit? Do you?

[TahitiNut]

15. And ... it turns out that VNS was CORRECT in Florida.

It was massive political corruption that gave Florida to Bush in 2000.

[Beetwasher]

13. LOL!!!! I Wonder WHY More Kerry Voters Participated....

Ummm, more participated BECUASE THERE WERE MORE FUCKING KERRY VOTERS!!!!!!!!

Fucking idiots.

[struggle4progress]

107. Bingo! eom

[bpilgrim]

14. I SEE A SEA OF ORANGE in DC TOMORROW

http://images.globalfreepress.com

peace

[RawMaterials]

16. because kerry voters were real people

bush's numbers were computer generaterd

"The report said it is difficult to pinpoint precisely why, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit poll than were Bush voters"

[Moderator]

17. budkin

Please be aware that DU copyright rules require that excerpts of copyrighted material be limited to four paragraphs. Also, when posting articles, please use the published title of the article as the title of the discussion thread.

Thanks in advance.

[LiberalHeart]

20. A puke-making falsehood to cover a failed election. n/t

[meow2u3]

21. It took the payola press TWO AND A HALF MONTHS to fabricate this excuse!?

The propagandists had to have been sleeping on the job! :eyes:

[KayLaw]

23. Pretty silly isn't it?

No, it's not silly, it's just plain dumb. At least they gave it a shot. I still haven't heard why the 2002(the year the computer voting came into full swing) exits polls were so far off we weren't even allowed to see them.

Why bother doing these polls if they're just going to make up goofy excuses about why they don't matter (in this country).

The exit polls say Kerry won but he didn't. It's the darndest thing...

[SOS]

33. Re the payola press

Imagine this scenario....

The Ohio vote was tabulated on secret software owned by George Soros. Soros promised to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes" to Kerry. Exit polls showed Bush leading, but the final result gives Kerry a 2% win.

How would the MSRNC article read under those conditions?

[KayLaw]

59. Your post

Is so on the money it deserves its own thread.

[The Donkey]

22. Ummmm,

So if I understand this correctly, the reason that the exit polls were off was because millions more people coming out of polling places all over the country said they voted for Kerry than the end results showed. Didn't we know that the morning after the elections?

Why did they need to spend this money to come up with this conclusion? Hmmmm - something's fishy, we can't explain it, but it must be the exit polls, because the election itself was pristine and should not under any circumstances be questioned.

:puke:

[old blue]

24. quote: "because more Kerry supporters participated in the survey than Bush

Uh, isn't that another way of saying "Kerry won the exit polls."????

[Robbien]

25. It couldn't be that there were more Kerry supporters

Oh no, not in the eyes of our so called liberal media who question nothing but just print what the GOP tells them to print. As the Washington Post says, we check what to print with the RNC.

[dbt]

26. Three words:

Bullshit.

VOTE FRAUD.

:argh:
dbt

[underpants]

29. The timing (the day before inauguration) does raise red flags huh?

Plus look who is reporting it CNN and MSNBC supposedly the liberal havens.

I told this to my wife and she immediately "Bullshit let me see the audit".

Neither one of us put too much into the vote fraud thing but the timing of this sets off the alarms.

[scarletlib]

43. that's two more words than I used.

[underpants]

27. REMAIN CALM!! ALL IS WELL!!!

<insert picture of Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller in Animal House>

[AzDar]

28. Dear God, is that the best that they can do??? Experienced criminals

that they are, one would expect better.

[Moderator]

31. Budkin

Per DU copyright rules, please only post a maximum of four paragraphs from a copied article.

Thank you

[ItsThePeopleStupid]

32. Show me the data!!!

I want to see the discrepancy *by precinct*, along with the voting machine type.

That would be the raw data, not the weighted-to-agree-with-the-vote crap.

[daleo]

34. Claims, but no proof

Claims like this wouldn't pass muster in the academic world, I think.

Why would any of these create a bias in favor of Kerry in the exit polling? These are just suppositions. That Ukraine guy should have thought of this dodge.

[daleo]

37. Not one actual claim that can be verified

Speculation and supposition that begins with the assumption there was no vote rigging in the election, therefore the exit polls just had to be wrong. Yet, this reasoning wasn't applicable in the Ukraine.

You can't just explain this away - they have to prove these claims somehow - e.g. that Democrats or women were more likely to be interviewed in exit polls. Any simple random sampling technique would eliminate this possibility, and I can't believe that they didn't have something of the sort in place.

The report is available from the link apparently.

Expect low posters to be out in full force in the next 24 to 48 hours, explaining to us how this report is correct, and we should just forget about it.

[Donkeyboy75]

69. To be fair, you're not comparing apples to apples here.

The voting results/exit poll discrepancy was more than 15 points in the Ukraine. Not so in the US.

[daleo]

77. You are right.

Although 5.5 seems pretty big to me. Where do you think the cutoff point for concern should be placed?

[Peace Patriot]

38. I've never read such garbage from "the experts" in my life...

...and let me tell, I do read a lot of their garbage (I'm an environmental activist and paralegal).

First of all, in dealing with these corporate jokers who control our lives, our resources, the information we receive and our vote, you always need to go back to original premises, almost always having to do with who has the power. In this case

1) Mitofsky has yet to release his raw data. He can say anything he wants about it, but if it cannot be peer reviewed in its original form and reviewed by the public, so what? He is in the pay of the networks, who have screwed over the public on every issue from 9/11 to the war in Iraq to this second stolen election. And he has every reason to lie now--and put out an absurd report on why his exit poll was "wrong"--to save his ass with the BushCons and their lapdog press.

2) The TV BushCon lapdog networks have NOT reported on the various independent expert analyses of the exit poll discrepancy, and have hardly mentioned the matter at all, until now--now that the debunking has begun--despite major papers on this matter from leading statisticians throughout the country. (See below.)

3) The TV BushCon lapdog networks not only have NOT reported on this matter--on Election Night, they and Mitofsky ALTERED the Exit Polls, "adjusting" them to fit the "official results," so that Americans were DENIED THE INFORMATION OF A CONFLICTING RESULT--exit polls (Kerry won) vs. "official results" (Bush won). That's WHY we didn't have a Ukraine here. The Ukrainians could see the conflicting results and knew something was wrong.

3) The TV BushCon lapdog networks, most especially NBC, are WAR PROFITEERS!

4) The TV BushCon lapdog networks, and everyone involved--Mitofsky, AP (who handled the "official results"), the newspapers, the radio conglomerates, and the political parties all KNEW DAMN WELL that the US was testing out a new and highly controversial electronic voting system nationwide for the first time, with, among other things, the source code that counts all our votes held as secret proprietary information by BushCon voting machine companies (major Bush donors), and that the computers had been proven to be extremely insecure, unreliable and hackable. The situation CRIED OUT for an Exit Poll designed specifically to verify the election and check for fraud (as they do elsewhere in the world). Instead they did a voter choice/demographic exit poll which MUDDIED THE WATERS and gave BushCons an easy "talking point" to try to debunk the result that Kerry won, the easy "talking point" being that the poll was demographic--an absurd criticism! --there is no reason a poll can't be both demographic AND predictive.

5) And now this...

"Why Kerry ‘won’ the exit polls
"The main impetus for the report was the perception that the NEP exit polls were flawed because they consistently found more support for Kerry than was reflected in the final voting tallies.

"Not true, said the report, which found that no 'systematic problem in how the exit poll data were collected and processed' explained the inaccuracies.

"Instead, the report’s authors said, a variety of anomalies, some of them outside the pollsters’ control, added up to create a nationwide overstatement of Democratic support, especially in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Those factors differed from precinct to precinct, combining in various permutations to create 'a sizeable overstatement of the estimated percentage of the vote for John Kerry.'”

--------

"...Those factors differed from precinct to precinct, combining in various permutations to create 'a sizeable overstatement of the estimated percentage of the vote for John Kerry..."

That is gobble-de-gook. "...combining in various permutations...". Come on!

On the one hand, there is "no systematic problem" in the polls; on the other, "a variety of anomalies SOME OF THEM outside the pollsters' control, ADDED UP TO...."????

And: "...those factors DIFFERED from precinct to precinct COMBINING IN VARIOUS PERMUTATIONS..." ????

Read this article carefully and try to make sense of it. It reminds me of the 'Wizard of Oz" who tries to project himself as a scientific know-it-all and a powerful figure, while fiddling with knobs behind the curtain.

What a disgusting performance!

For a REAL analysis of the Mitofsky data (from screen shots that alert citizens did of the early CNN exit poll results, and the "leaks" that NBC et al are now going to suppress), see:

Dr. Steven Freeman 1st study: http://www.truthout.org/unexplainedexitpoll.pdf
(also at: http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/11/Expldiscrpv00oPt1.pdf)
Dr. Steven Freeman 2nd study: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
Dr. Ron Baiman: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997
Dr. Webb Mealy: http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm
Jonathan Simon:http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

Also of interest: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush in FLA (paper vs. electronic voting)
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley stats team: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu

Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info

Also see TruthIsAll's analysis, here at DU:
"To believe Bush won, you have to believe…"

Part 1
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1316010

Part 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1358806

Part 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x197878

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

One final point about this garbage from Mitofksy:

Re: "The main impetus for the report was the perception that the NEP exit polls were flawed because they consistently found more support for Kerry than was reflected in the final voting tallies."

Dr. Freeman addresses this point in his 2nd paper--the PRESUMPTION by those trying to justify the Bush election that the official results MUST BE RIGHT and the Exit Polls MUST BE WRONG. There is no reason to make this presumption--especially given what we know about who manufactures the voting equipment and owns and controls the secret source code that runs it all. Our election system is NOT NON-PARTISAN, whereas Mitofsky presumably IS. This is WHY they use Exit Polls in other countries to verify elections--because the presumption is just the opposite--that those in power have both access and motive to fiddle elections, and therefore the "official results" are held in suspicion and are VERIFIED by Exit Polls.

[daleo]

52. A variety of errors almost never add up in the same direction

Also, from their methodology webpage they say "An interviewer gives every nth voter exiting the polling place a questionnaire to complete...Participation is voluntary and anonymous."

So, the only real possibility of bias is that Bush voters were far more likely to turn down the exit poll questionnaire than Kerry voters. There has been a claim that fundamentalists did just this, and they turned out in numbers greater than previous elections. But, if they turned down the exit polls (and thus weren't counted) how could anyone know they voted in greater numbers than usual, since it is the exit poll questionnaire itself that gives us information on the religious affiliation of the voters. The two claims can't be true at the same time.

The methodology also states that "interviewing starts when the polls open in the morning, continues throughout the day until an hour before they close at night." Democratic voters have historically been more likely to vote late (the don't get time off from work), so if anything this should bias the polls against Kerry.

The whole thing just doesn't add up.

[TexasLawyer]

39. difficult to pinpoint / impossible to quantify

"The report said it is difficult to pinpoint precisely why, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit poll than were Bush voters. "There were certainly motivational factors that are impossible to quantify," the report said."

translation-- we've been trying for the last 2 1/2 months to scrape together a valid-sounding reason for the exit poll/final vote tally discrepancy. We couldn't come up with anything that would pass the laugh test or the smell test in order to explain away possible vote fraud. But we can't add any fuel to the fraud-scenario fire-- that would cause us to lose our future lucrative polling contracts. And BushCo would rescind our invitation to the "Look at the Balls We've Got" Ball.

SO, without further ado, and just in time for our glorious leader's inauguration, here's our reason of last resort for the discrepancy:

"Sh-t Happens!"

"See you at the Ball!"

[blm]

40. The SAME media said for months that Kerry voters were NOT excited

about voting for him, and now they are trying to say Kerry voters were TOO excited and it skewed their polls.

They are SO full of it.

[KingoftheJungle]

41. Mitofsky is in on it, we have links between him and Moon Unification/opus

well, more specifically, we have links that show many of his exploits to be heavily linked to Sun Myung Moon Unification Church, and the links to show that the Unification church is a parliament of Opus Dei. Unfortunately I am not a registered member of namebase so I can't personally view and copy the whole thing, but I'm getting someone who does to do it for me.

In the meantime, can somebody please go over the message I posted in a reply to this? I'm not a statistician so I'm not going to attempt to debunk/verify anything in it, but I think it could use the help of someone who knows what they're doing. Much appreciated.

[KingoftheJungle]

45. I need a statistician to verify/debunk/ammend this....

This was sent to me via one of my sources. Unfortunately, neither me nor him are statisticians so we aren't qualified to verify any of this, so if anybody here has the know-how, please do something with it.

Thank you.


=========================
The networks were in league with Warren Mitofsky, but after crunching the math, I came to some absolutely appalling conclusions.


Read the notes contained below, first we have the diagram of the pre-weighted exit polls.


According to Warren these came in before all results became weighted even though they stay up until around 12 midnight.

Pre-exit polls before the Weighted Results came in.

First I find the results of the questions absolutely appalling:

They are asking everyone if they are an evangelical/born again, and
other questions, which should never be on ANY exit poll I firmly
believe. Here it shows no one voted "yes" or "no"

Then we have the columns for church attendance. What in the hell are
votes based on your church attendance doing being sent out by Warren
Mitofsky? Look at this pitiful display.

"VOTE BY CHURCH ATTENDANCE BUSH
KERRY NADER
TOTAL 2004 2000 2004 2004

More Than Weekly (16%) 61% +42 38% 1%

Weekly (26%) 56% +23 43% 1%

Monthly (13%) 46% +33 53% *

A Few Times a Year (28%) 42% +18 57% 1%

Never (15%) 32% +23 64% 3% "

Those who go to church less or so made a huge break for Kerry putting
it in his favor.

Then we have the sickening division of religion:

"TOTAL 2004 2000 2004 2004

Protestant (53%) 56% +0 43% 1%

Catholic (27%) 49% +2 50% 1%

Jewish (3%) 23% +4 77% *

Other (7%) 20% -8 75% 4%

None (11%) 29% n/a 70% 1%"

77% of Jewish broke for Kerry, 75% of other/christian and unitarian
broke for Bush.

Evangelical IS NOT ADDED TO THE EXIT POLL. Do you notice this?

90% of Black voters swung to Kerry, and were most likely
Christian/Other.

Look at this appalling display.

"VOTE BY RELIGION AND ATTENDANCE BUSH
KERRY NADER
TOTAL 2004 2000 2004 2004

Protestant/Weekly (16%) 67% n/a 32% 1%

Prot./Less Often (15%) 53% n/a 46% 1%

Catholic/Weekly (12%) 53% n/a 45% 1%

Catholic/Less Often (14%) 45% n/a 53% 1%

All Others (39%) 37% n/a 61% 1% "

Why are they now wanting to know which CHURCH you attend and how
often? What kind of garbage is this.

Still nothing happening, the final Exit Polls again shown.



Affiliations stay as they are, religious crossover remains.

Now a startling discovery in the weighted "final" exit poll.

"Cares About People (9%)
25%
n/a
74%

Religious Faith (8%)
91%
n/a
8%
*



Honest/Trustworthy (11%)
71%
n/a
28%
0%



Strong Leader (17%)
87%
n/a
12%
1%



Intelligent (7%)
9%
n/a
91%
0%



Will Bring Change (24%)
5%
n/a
95%
0%



Clear Stand on Issue (17%)
78%
n/a
20%
"

Religious Faith out of the middle of nowhere received a boost of over
90% bouncing for Bush, and 70% to say he was honest and
trustworthy!!! Out of literally nowhere, like it just dropped clean
out of the sky in the space of less than an hour.



Protestant (54%)
59%
+3
40%
0%



Catholic (27%)
52%
+5
47%
0%



Jewish (3%)
24%
+5
75%
*



Other (7%)
24%
-4
74%
2%



None (10%)
31%
+1
68% "

Kerry's numbers on religion dropped a tremendous number from out of
nowhere. Church Attendance numbers dropped automatically too, is this
some kind of a joke?

Finally the finale, like it or not Mitofsky's last Exit Poll added an
additional column.



Evangelical was added to the bottom of the Exit Poll. Its in the PDF
file and not surprisingly, over 70-80% evangelical boosted
the "altered exit polls" to an extra-ordinary number. Do you realize
the implications this has?

"Moral Values" disaster, not Moral Values.....

While I can not definitively draw a conclusion without forensic expertise, I can say that there is a fascist bias of supreme un-natural discourse in the exit polls and what led to "fixed" results.

Exit Polls available off of: Exitpollz.org
============================

[progressivebydesign]

42. That's stupid! More Kerry voters responded cuz there were more of them!!

I mean.. duh.

[cthrumatrix]

57. it took over 60 days to come up with this "bullshit".... that's all they

can say?

Don't worry Iraq's exit polls will be better

[newscott]

44. Congratulatins America

You've been had again!

[FlaGranny]

46. Oh yeah, right! n/t

[Raster]

47. So on the eve of the coronation we have a report attempting to

rationalize the "results" and legitimize bush*'s second term.

And yet another unbeilevable coincidence.

[w4rma]

51. Calling Capt. Obvious: "more Kerry supporters participated in the survey"

I smell a rat. The question is why did exit polls differ, for the second time ever in exit poll history within the United States (the first was in 2000. And they didn't even have an exit poll in 2002.), from the vote count.

Answer: Massive fraud.

[fooj]

56. Because Kerry received more VOTES! GEEEZZ!!!

:puke: Just another bowl of bullshit sucked down by the American public! OMG! This is all too wild...

[cyberpj]

61. It's on MSNBC, too -- I just heard it on TV as people laughed

about those of us who would like to believe otherwise.......

I'm afraid this will be the end of any more talk of vote fraud based on exit polls -- just as BushCo wants.


Exit polls say Bush won fair and square

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6840933/

Report on surveys finds system worked, even with errors
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC

Updated: 10:05 a.m. ET Jan. 19, 2005Overestimates of Sen. John Kerry’s support in presidential exit polls conducted on Election Day do not support allegations of fraud, according to an examination of the $10 million system released Wednesday.

The examination concludes that the exit-polling system worked properly, stressing that in the end, none of its clients — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC and The Associated Press — was misled into making an inaccurate projection of the winner of any race. “However, the estimates produced by the exit poll data on November 2nd were not as accurate as we have produced with previous exit polls,” it said.

[RedCloud]

62. Repugs were too ashamed or worse...

«The report said it is difficult to pinpoint precisely why, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit poll than were Bush voters.»

Repugs are generally ashamed that they voted for someone based on sheer stupidity. They avoid cameras and questions so they can go to other precincts and keep voting under assumed identities!

[cthrumatrix]

66. repugs too stupid to answer exit poll questions...new headline

[artv28]

89. Either too ashamed or too stupid

'I would rather have a beer with Bush' and 'Kerry is a flip-flopper' were not included as multiple choice options

[tom_paine]

63. They keep pushing the Exit Polls to modify for theft

Eventually, they will fully get their wish, and the Sovietization of Imperial Amerika will compete.

One day, as it was in the old USSR, things will be so fucked up that the truth won't even leak out in a local newspaper, or scrolled once across the bottom of the Pravda TV Screens so they can 'truthfully' say they reported something.

The Exit Polls are being (as the Nazis called it) "brought into line".
All Results will agree with Party Results.

[Democrats_win]

65. Heard this bullshit in November. DU should be talking about real issues

[GOPBasher]

68. How about in '06 and '08, we get voting machines that can be VERIFIED!

The thing is, Bush may very well have won fair and square. But there's no way that I can know that, because we cannot audit the voting machines. It's a crazy idea, but how about we get voting machines that can actually be verified? Then we can know for sure who won.

[Donkeyboy75]

71. I completely agree.

This is a huge problem.

[nodictators]

73. Is CNN telling a whopper of a LIE here?

From the CNN article:

Problems <read: Kerry winning> with the numbers first surfaced on Election Day, when exit polls showed Kerry with a 3-point lead nationally and an edge in some key battleground states. Those exit poll results were leaked and became widely known through the Internet. <And many states were correctly called with amazing accuracy>

CNN did not air those inaccurate <sic> results or post them on its Web site, and CNN's projections of winners on election night were accurate.

However, CNN did post Mitofsky-approved results that showed Kerry winning, and then, at about 1 am, removed those votes and replaced them with results that had Kerry's percentages adjusted downward and Kerry losing.

Mitofsky has claimed he "sensed" the Democratic Overstatement in mid-afternoon on Election Day, and that the late-night adjustments were necessary. In other words, he didn't really produce an exit poll, but rather a guess with the official results blended into the mix late at night.

[KansDem]

81. "he didn't really produce an exit poll, but rather a guess..."

If Bush can declare war and invade a sovereign nation based on a "hunch," then who knows...

As for CNN: after the "Yawning Boy" fiasco with the David Letterman Show, who can really believe them?

They are liars, pure and simple...

[suegeo]

74. Bullshit

I call bullshit on this study/story.

Please, make the propaganda stop. I don't know how much more this crap I can take.

[driver8]

79. The media believes that the average American is dumb...

...and will believe anything that they read or see in the media. After all, if it made "the news", it must be true.

The Re-thugs are very aware of this, and that is how they get their lies out. Hammer the public with it and when they see it enough times, it becomes "the truth".

Remember, "It isn't a lie if you believe it."

[Serial Mom]

78. Then why did "Moral Values" get a high ranking

if more Kerry supporters participated in the survey than Bush voters?

You can't have it both ways - if more Kerry voters participated than dubya idiots, how could the exit polls have been accurate in saying the highest percent of people polled said that Moral Values was the most important??

[KayLaw]

94. Damned good point!

Decent Americans are appalled by torture, lies, and all the other crap.

[patcox2]

80. Everyone here says polls are bullshit, except for exit polls in our favor.

This doesn't sound like bullshit to me, soounds perfectly reasonable. I know I was the most motivated voter in the world last november, I despise Bush and if anyone asked me how I voted I would have been happy to shout it to the rooftops.

On the other hand, I have republicans in my family, and I know for a fact that they voted for Bush very reluctantly, they don't really like him and they are not proud of him. They never bring him up and don't even bother to defend him around me. I could see a lot of Bush supporters refusing to take part in the exit poll out of shame.

But really, its amusing to see the double standard; polls showing approval for Bush are obviously bullshit, this poll or that poll is bullshit, there are even many who post here who, completely ignorant of the laws of probability, don't even beleive a poll of 1000 people can ever be accurate. But when a poll goes in our favor, all of a sudden the poll is perfect and any criticism of it is bullshit.

[daleo]

83. People do tend not to question polls results they like, that's true

But exit polls should be highly reliable, because the proper universe of people (actual voters) are available to the pollster, and the respondents are chosen with simple random sampling (every nth voter). This should be a very reliable methodology. The only real possibility of sample bias relates to the idea that Republicans just don't like to fill out polls while Democrats do. This is nothing more than an assumption in this case, so suspicions about the variance between the exit polls and the reported election results are well founded.

[euler]

120. Simple random sampling is the goal...

...but it isn't very likely given the way exit polls are designed and implemented in the US.

An example of what can go wrong:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=97506&mesg_id=97575&page=

[Stevepol]

133. Perhaps you could give me some idea about the difference

between how exit polls are "designed and implemented in America" and how they are "designed and implemented" in other countries? Or maybe there's a difference in the way the exit polls were designed in IL and in other states that had a paper ballot (where the results were quite accurate apparently) and the way they were "designed and implemented" in those states with electronic vote counting and where there is evidently a tacit understanding that there will be no audits to check the tabulations? As I understand it from posts from the exit pollsters themselves, those who are trained to do the exit polls are trained in the same way here as in other countries, and there's no difference between the way they're trained in IL as opposed to, say, OH or FL. Doing an exit poll isn't rocket science it seems to me. Figuring out how to explain the shifts and anomalies can be highly complex, especially when the mathematicians begin using irrational numbers.

[silvermachine]

84. Never....

NEVER have I seen or heard such an utter crock o' shite in my life. Even for our whored-out media, this one really takes the cake and pisses me off. Now excuse me while I go :puke:

[KamaAina]

85. Huh? Aren't they taken right at the voting sites?

Isn't that what makes them "exit" polls? I'm confused here...

Are they telling us that legions of Bush** voters were so ashamed of what they had just done that they clammed up and couldn't face the exit pollsters?

Y'know, that's actually plausible...

[daleo]

86. Essentially that's the claim.

In a nutshell.

[cosmicdot]

91. no author for this CNN piece?

will the author please stand up?

[wabeewoman]

92. I'm convinced now

that Kerry won. I remember the networks showing bush looking like he was about to cry knowing he had lost, suddenly something changed and then he went on TV and Jennings said it was unprecedented for a president to do that with the polls still open and you could tell by his actions bush knew he had won. If any of the other nations spying on us happened to have those conversations on tape.....I admit, I had accepted he must have won with the large? popular vote lead but I doubt that now. Gawd! Robbed twice and not doubt, in 2002. Out of curiosity, was polling done back when Truman beat Dooey and what did it show?? Has the kind of anomaly EVER happened before?

[Sterling]

134. What does this say about Kerry?

It's rather obvious he did his job to make sure no one complained.

[Megahurtz]

103. Just a load of hot air.

:mad:

[DividedWeAre]

104. well, it's nice to know that

it's nice to know that history can be re-written because someday we will want to write out the idea that George W. was ever president. Noooo folks, it was just a bad dream. Years 2000 through 2008 never existed.

[BadGimp]

105. What a pantload of Fucking Horseshit

I wanna cry.

[Canuckistanian]

106. They may have a point

Kerry voters are likely to be more articulate and helpful. And they probably drool a lot less.

[leesa]

108. Oh Really. The Republican Party is amazingly corrupt!

[porkrind]

110. "because more Kerry supporters participated in the survey"

Gee, could it be because there were more Kerry voters than * voters?

So their argument boils down to: We think * won, but the exit polls don't show this, and we can't figure out why. (But we won't visit the obvious conclusion that * stole it.) :eyes:

[Generator]

124. You managed to sum it up

I'm a minimalist myself. That says it all.

They don't fucking have a clue-and sure some people were not proud of voting for Bush, and some were not thrilled to vote for Kerry.

Isn't the theory that it's random-and randomness would even it out to within the error margin.

Either exit polls work or they don't. This isn't a magic formula that suddenly doesn't work because..hmmm..what do 2000 and 2004 have in common boys and girls (see the first graders could figure this out)-Bush!

[kuozzman]

111. CNN Screen Shots-Liars!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=201x1144#1144

[Generator]

125. Those who control the information control everything

And NOW when you click on the CNN results-page not found.

But I saw those results. I was here that night and the next day. They are trying to change our frigging reality. Tom Paine is SO right-and when I first signed on to DU-I thought he was hyperbolic and now I'm wiser and sadder.

God in heaven, I want CNN tried for complicity in taking down our Democracy. They are the source of much evil-I can't say it enough.

Those who control the information control everything.

[Matilda]

112. Bushco and the attendant media stooges called for a revote

in the Ukraine, based on exit polling.

So what's different about US exit polls that they don't matter?

[Moe Levine]

114. who is surprised by this--authoritarin personality

denial and mendacity is one of the persistent traits of the authoritarian personality.

Bush voters are sick people, and I don't mean that they can be helped.

[ProfessorGAC]

115. Question: How Many Statisticians Were Fired?

Or social scientists? If the answer is zero, this report is fraudulent.

If people whose job it is to do statistically valid social science had a model so flawed that it caused an error beyond the 75% percentile, it is a sampling plan so fraught with mistakes that it was not worth spending the money on the poll.

So, who got fired for incompetence. I'm guessing nobody.
The Professor

[Emillereid]

116. Horse - hockey! To answer the basic question of who one just voted for

could be asked by a 12 year old -- and be accurate. And I can't for a second figure out a reason that a Bush voter would be more reluctant to reveal their vote -- unless they were suddenly overcome by sorrow and shame. Assuming that their conscience and good sense had not suddenly convulsed just after coming out of the polling booth and assuming they were no more reluctant to reveal their vote than had people who'd voted for Dole or Bush I in previous election when the exit polling was more accurate -- this so called explanation isn't. Oversampling of women is generally the case for day time exit polling -- which is corrected for with very simple distribution statistics. Their claim that their program made a mistake is incredulous. The maxim of good science is that generally the simplest explanation is usually the best, I propose the following explanation: the exit polls were right; that something about George Bush in the election changes the exit poll results and that something is probably fraud.

[buddysmellgood]

118. So the problem is too many Kerry supporters actually voted.

[Name removed]

121. Deleted message

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

[TankLV]

122. That's because MORE PEOPLE VOTED FOR KERRY!

DUUUUUUHHHHHHH!

The reason that they found more Kerry people in the polls is that more people voted for him - that confirms the polls!

Just what about the exit polls and the vote fraud don't they get?!

[deacon2]

123. Rep. Conyers responds to this mendacious malarkey

Sorry, in times of heightened incredulity I sometimes channel Spiro T. Agnew:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1112

Conyers doesn't buy the 5 point spread, and anyone who's played the ponies (or read book or two) shouldn't either. Now about that bridge in Brooklyn...

[Warren Stupidity]

129. John Conyers gets my undying respect (nt)

[Name removed]

127. Deleted message

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

[geniph]

128. Nothing to see here, move along now...

pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...

[fob]

130. Subheadline - Heavy vote by Kerry voters erased by Diebold

[leesa]

132. Too funny! We all know how shy Bush voters are!