The Nashua Advocate: National Election Pool Exit Poll Has Been Manipulated

[nashuaadvocate]

Find the new article here --

http://www.nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/

The News Editor
The Nashua Advocate

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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

[EFerrari]

3. If the exit pollers are under enough stress, the poll is being skewed

after the fact.,

[Carolab]

2. And, what about THIS?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=265244&mesg_id=268031

[Carolab]

24. Here is the link I was trying to post above.

http://onlinejournal.com/evoting/010705Landes/010705landes.html

<snip>

When looking at the data that the networks do provide, things don't check out. According to the NEP website, 5,000 people were hired for Election Day, 69,731 interviews were conducted at 1,480 exit poll precincts. However, NEPs raw exit poll data has just been released on the Internet by the alternative news magazine, Scoop. It seems legit. It indicates that on November 2, the results of 16,085 exit poll interviews were published by 3:59 pm, 21,250 interviews by 7:33 pm, and 26,309 by 1:24 pm on Nov 3 (which doesn't make sense, maybe they meant 1:24 am). Anyway, that grand total comes to 63,664 interviews. But, that number may not be right, either. Edie Emery, spokesperson for the NEP, wrote an email to this journalist stating, "On Election Day, 113,885 voters filled out questionnaires as they left the polling places." Where did that number come from, I asked? No answer from Edie. She said that the networks would make more information available in their "archives" sometime in the first quarter of this year. That's not very timely. Perhaps, that's the idea.

At any rate, it appears that nearly a third of the results of the exit polls were not available until after midnight! Wow, Nellie! What happened to the stampede to "project the winner" right after the polls closed, like the networks used to do? What went wrong this time?

And that's not the only mystery. It looks like Mitofsky/Edison used two very different forms for their exit poll surveys. One survey is about what you would expect——aﾠdouble-sided single sheet of paper that the voter is supposed to fill out. However, the other form, which matches the Scoop data, is several pages long; it is huge. It is impossible to believe that anyone would take the time or trouble to answer all those questions on Election Day.

And then there's the second half of NEP's role on Election Day 2004. The NEP website states that vote totals were "collected" from 2,995 "quick count precincts". I don't know what that means either, because the NEP spokesperson refused to answer my questions. So, I'll theorize. Does that mean that nearly 3,000 mainframe tabulating computers were accessed directly by the AP? Although, the AP admits it was the sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain to this journalist how the AP received that information. They refused to confirm or deny that the AP received direct feed from central vote tabulating computers across the country.

Thankfully, American Free Press reporter, Christopher Bollyn was in the right place at the right time on Election Night 2004. He spotted an AP employee connecting her laptop to an ES&S computer at the Cook County (IL) election headquarters. But, was she downloading or uploading data? In an interview with this reporter, Bollyn said, "When I asked the AP "reporter" if she had "direct access" to the mainframe computer that was tallying the votes, she said yes and then Burnham (a Cook County official) stepped in and re-asked my question for me. Again the answer was, "Yes."

<snip>

[KatieB]

32. Motofsky's servers went down between 11:00 pm and 1:33 am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23580-2004Nov3.html

2 and a half hours data blackout due to Mitofsky's server going down..."
>> On Tuesday, new problems surfaced: a 2 1/2-hour data blackout<<

>>To compound the problem further, 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.<<

4% shift:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23580-2004Nov3.html
"Data corrected to Show Bush's Lead over Kerry by 1%..."
"Data before showed Kerry leading by 3% points at 8:15 PM..."
(Above are quotes from Dec 10) Corrected Washington Post language on December 12:
>>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.<<

[mdb]

4. Mitofsky, CBS, and the Washington Post can't agree on the sample size?

And this is from someone who conducted the first exit polls for CBS in 1967?

http://www.mitofskyinternational.com/company.htm

[Goldeneye]

5. So where does this non consensus come from?

The same exact mission statement...only difference is the number of people that were sampled...who changed it?


"The national exit poll was conducted at a sample of 250 polling places among 11,719 Election Day voters representative of the United States."

"The national exit poll was conducted at a sample of 250 polling places among 11,903 Election Day voters representative of the United States."

I'd send it to Conyer's ...they're still investigating.

[KittyWampus]

10. Oops

posted in wrong spot.

[pbartch]

19. Yes send to Conyers

[euler]

31. Can people please start doing their own homework.

It will save a lot of roller-coaster feelings: highs, lows, highs, lows - you know what I mean.

I found this explanation in just over 3 minutes. I accomplished this by using a untility known as 'Google.' To use this tool, go here:

http://www.google.com /

Once there, type in a word or phrase, then click the 'Google Search' button.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/01/fun_with_unweig.html

[enough]

6. Beautiful work, Nausha.

If this isn't still up at the top tomorrow morning, I'll kick it.

[KittyWampus]

7. Hey, Let's Nominate It For Home Page.

[Goldeneye]

8. how do you do that?

[KittyWampus]

14. There's a link on the bottom left of the opening post saying nominate

it goes alert/hide thread/nominate for homepage

[Liberty Belle]

9. Kick!

:kick:

We need a talk show host on one of the big media stations to blurt this out. Meanwhile send to the NY Times, Washington Post, etc and the foreign press--Reuters, BBC.

Ask them to demand answers:
Who changed the exit poll sample size, and why?

[In Truth We Trust]

11. Kick??? WTF???

[Liberty Belle]

23. "Kick" means a post moves up higher in the forum.

Welcome to DU!

Type :kick: to keep hot topics or important points up at the top.

Or you can click "smilies lookup table" just above the subject line, click on the kick icon and watch what happens.

[fearnobush]

12. Almost looks as if they are deliberately mucking up the samples

to make a (small) public statement claiming how bad they screwed up the polls. Seems as if they want to take any and all culpability away from Bush and peg the blame on themselves.

[TruthIsAll]

13. The WP 13,047 sample has Kerry the clear winner.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x273586

[TruthIsAll]

15. Here is the SMOKING GUN: THE 13,047 WP/NEP GRAPHIC OF 11/3/04

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x265121

[euler]

16. I'll wait for something official since...

...what you describe here is not unusual with preliminary releases of analysis describing the same event. Often, such discrepancies have purely innocent causes. I suggest you wait too.

[jsamuel]

20. How many rats did you give the antidote?

If you are doing a scientific study, like exit-polls, it is not a hard or confusing question to answer whatsoever.

Ask anyone who works with rats, they can tell you exactly the numbers they worked with for any particular study without any errors...

[TruthIsAll]

17. 13,047 EXIT POLL AGREES WITH THE AVERAGE OF 18 PRE-ELECTION NATIONAL POLLS

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x268692

[TruthIsAll]

18. THE 2000 NATIONAL EXIT POLL WAS PRETTY ACCURATE.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x271424

[EuroObserver]

25. TIA: have you been able to locate

this year's uncontaminated exit poll data broken down by state and 'racial' and 'gender' profiles, so as to be able to compare with 2000?

Since the 'final' "exit survey" data was contaminated with 'actual votes', I don't see how the profiled data as finally published can be valid.

See this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x271833

And also this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x274308

for the kind of interpretations being published perhaps based on contaminated or manipulated data.

{ed. links}

[TruthIsAll]

29. The WP/NEP 13,047 sample on the WP site is valid. Here is the weighting.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=203&topic_id=273586&mesg_id=274473

[Cheswick2.0]

27. in fact the only state that was wrong in 2000 was florida

of course we know now that Florida exit polls were right.

[Bill Bored]

21. True Nashua, but the BIGGEST discrepancy

in these bloody polls is that in the FINAL, FINAL version, released Nov. 3 at about 1 PM, they changed the ratio of Dems to Repubs from 38/35 to 37/37 nationwide, and even more than that in the West. There were no other major "weighting" changes in the final version.

This one change swung the election from Kerry by 3% to a virtual tie, and put Bush within striking distance and within the margin or error of the poll if you also allow for ballot spoilage and that sort of thing. The pollsters also switched a few votes around within each of these party affiliations and the Independents to make it match the reported vote count. I started a thread about this crap.

Bottom line: These polls raise more questions than they answer, but if Dem and Repub turnout was really equal and a small percentage of Kerry votes weren't counted due to spoilage, Bush could have won the popular vote.

[Goldeneye]

22. kicking

[enough]

26. kick

.

[democraticinsurgent]

28. kick

i was one of Mitofsky's 5000 exit pollsters. I had the 2 sided questionnaire. I felt lucky to get about half of the people I asked to agree to fill it out, even a 2 sider took several minutes to fill out. I wonder what the cooperation % of a several-page questionnaire would be?

I have said in previous threads that I was impressed with the tight ship they ran, relative to my position as a freelancer. They called me several times, trained me over the phone, constantly doublechecked to make sure I had everything I needed, and on election day, my phone calls to report data were quickly and efficiently handled.

That doesn't square with the still-lingering confusion, secrecy and Mitofsky's combativeness with those who question his work.

What are they hiding?

[keepthemhonest]

30. Thanks again

Nashua Advocate.Keep us enlightened

[euler]

33. Explanation for this.

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2005/01/fun_with_unweig.html

[mdb]

34. They won't release the raw data on the exit polls.

The exit poll data, is "still being analyzed."

This consist of a very complex mathematical analysis, by dozens of professional analysts ongoing for over 2 months now.

When things are all straightened out you may see it. What does that tell you?

[TruthIsAll]

35. Well, adding up 13000 numbers is a hard job, isn't it?

.

[KatieB]

36. kick