Kerry won. Here are the facts

[Nordic]

http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=392&row=0

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent.  Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.


(on edit, put in a better link)

[everythingsxen]

1. The arguement against that:

Not that I am disagreeing; I am certain Bush stol the election again, but here is the counter to that arguement.

"The exit polls do not include everyone, nor do they include those who chose not to say their views (most likely humble Bush supporters, afraid their vehicles would be smashed by those evil libruls), sa as you can see: Bush won."

And sadly you can't prove that isn't the case.

Exit polls prove nothing.

Find me a note from the President, on White House Stationary, that says "BWAHAAHAHAHAAA WE WILL STEAL TEH ELECTION 4 SURE!!!11111" Or something like that. :D

[Nordic]

2. read the whole article

Here's another excerpt:

Whose Votes Are Discarded?

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts.

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes.  In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times.  Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks.

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz). Nor are they demanding we look at the "overvotes" where voter intent may be discerned.

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

(More at link)

Hm, wonder what ditch THESE votes are going to?

[high density]

6. I'm sorry but I'm really skeptical over that picture

It looks like a really bad Photoshop. For one thing the bumper sticker is really bright, almost like it's more reflective than the reflectors in the brake light yet it is farther away from the flash. The second thing is that the perspective of the sticker it does not appear to match the back window.

[hughee99]

11. Doesn't Ohio have a fairly strict, statewide standard

on what constitutes a vote? One that was in place well before the election? Unlike Florida, where standards were left to be decided locally, I don't think the "intent of the voter" comes into play because of these standards. I say F all punch card machines anyway, though. My district seems to have a pretty good system. I think they're called "optical scan" though I could be wrong...

You fill in a circle with a felt tipped pen, and it reads it. If you want a recount, you can manually do it with those votes. The votes do not degrade (hanging chads) over time, so you don't have to worry about the content being changed. I would be in favor of adding something like this...
Each vote, when entered in the voting machine has a time stamp and unique ID printed on it. The voter gets a receipt with that ID number (and the machine ID that it was printed on). If you really have a discrepancy, voters could demand to see their actual vote, but short of this, the voting would still remain anonymous. I know that no system is perfect, but this seems pretty good to me.

[TruthIsAll]

7. You are very naive. Exit polls are VERY ACCURATE.

They always have been. Why would they change for Bush?

They are people who actually voted. Theses are NOT public opinion polls. These are factual polls.

Opinion polls have a 3% MoE.

The MoE for an Exit Poll is less than 1%.

Take a course in statistics.

[hughee99]

13. If exit polls have a MoE of less than 1%

Then why did I see different organizations reporting different results? The Detroit Free press, for example, was reporting a MoE of 4%
http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/pm1128_20041103.htm

The CNN exit poll, with only 2,020 respondents has
* and Kerry split at 50/50 of the female vote (53% of the voters)
* leading Kerry 52/47 among the men. (47% of the voters)
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/epolls.0.html

If this is the case, then * should have won Ohio. Actually, shouldn't we have expected * to win by a greater margin?

If the exit polling is within 1% for Ohio, than shouldn't all exit polls be the same?

[Redleg]

14. That's an average MOE of less than 1%

Poor polling could be much less reliable. BTW, I do hope we can show that there were serious voting shenanigans in Ohio and Florida. The problem is, most people don't want a replay of 2000 where we Dems were made to look like cheating fools even though we were doing what was right.

[Nordic]

3. kick for anyone not screaming "fuck" at everyone else.

:)

[mzmolly]

4. IS ANYONE GETTING THIS INFO TO THE CAMPAIGN?

:shrug:

[Nordic]

5. everybody's too busy screaming "FUCK"

:eyes:

[phish420]

18. Someone tell me HOW to get something to the campaign

that isnt just replied to with a form letter

[Cleita]

8. So what good does it do us if Kerry won't challenge it?

I mean it still means Bush for another four years.

[m berst]

9. not about Kerry

It is our country, our Constitution. The Kerry campaign was one means to the end, not the end in and of itself.

[shelley806]

10. Please everyone read the excellent post by Faun Otter, on the

comparison of exit polling data and election results for paper ballots versus electronic cheating machines.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x11874

Exit polls analysis versus reported vote count

Faun Otter

There is an excellent graphic analysis of 9 states on this thread, posted by pandorasox. The paper ballots showed excellent correlation between the exit polling number, and the electronic voting machines showed B* wins when Kerry had won the exit polls.

[ContinentalOp]

12. Fucking hermaphrodites!!! I knew Kerry didn't do enough to win their vote

No offense intended to any actual hermaphrodites out there.

[IronLionZion]

15. it's not what we know, it's what we can prove

and that is fuck all


we know our voting system needs to be overhauled but how can we prove it and make it happen? Third world countries have more accurate methods of voting.

[RinaJ]

16. Right

I think that's why many of us are trying to look ahead to what we can do in the future. I'm not dismissing the possibility of theft at all, but there has to be irrefutable proof, which just hasn't been presented up to this point.

[Nordic]

17. doesn't seem like it would be too hard for someone

to count those "spoiled" votes.

???

Kerry conceding sure doesn't help.

[m berst]

19. thanks Nordic

Kerry conceding doesn't necessarily hurt, either.

I said this on another thread, and will repeat it. "Tin foil" and "conspiracy theory" do not apply to this issue. The burden of proof is on elections officials to show that these results around the country are fair and honest. If there is any doubt whatsoever the integrity of the elections is throwen into question and an investigation must be started, and there is a lot of cause for doubt. The burden of proof is not on us. We have a right to demand that these results are looked at. Together we can make that demand stick.

We have nothing to lose by fighting on this.

[Nordic]

20. I'm ignorant on this subject

How do we force them to prove their case?

I have absolutely no idea.