Exit Polls show Shrub not winning 1994 Gov race.. Any DU Scoop?

[Melissa G]

I asked this in the Texas Forum but since it is about Shrub and exit polls, I am also asking here for brilliant DU insight..


There is wonderment about the polls in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race? There is a question as to whether Shrub won that one legitimately.

There is a post in the comment section by PollStudent below along with a link to the article.
Any knowledgeable DU input here about possible exit poll shenanigans?
Thanks,
Melissa

http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/001298.html

A detailed exit poll analysis shows that GW Bush had a FRAUDULENT 25% added to his actual vote count in the 2000 Texas presidential race. Also, Bush had a FRAUDULENT 15% added to his actual vote count in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial race. Many other Republicans have a 15% to 20% error added to their vote totals. According to the exit polls, GW Bush LOST both of these races, but the large errors were added to his vote totals, which caused him to win the Texas governorship, and the US presidency.

The source of the exit poll data is the Roper Center's Voter News Service (http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elect_2004/past_state.html), and the source of the final vote count is the printed reference: "America Votes", volume 24,
ISBN 1-56802-600-5.

Next month, we can expect ALL Republicans to win, with "last minute upsets", as the vote counting is fraudulent.

Posted by PollStudent on Fri. 10/08/04 at 11:31 AM

[applegrove]

1. Think it is possible they play with the exit polls to keep dems from

voting late in the day? Those exit polls are not scientific samples. People could have marching order to lie or a busload of Repuke operatives could be going from one poll to the next & pretending to be exiting voters. Remember the law says something about the press (pollsters) being 100 feet from the polls. So it isn't like they see someone pass through the voting process, vote, then leave the poll.

These are tricky dickies. Games are fun for them.

[Melissa G]

2. I don't know where you live Apple but every polling place

I have ever worked it is very easy to see folks go in and out after voting. Repub bus loads would be noticed..100 feet is not much.

[applegrove]

4. So car pools parking three blocks away. These polls are not scientific

in nature. They have no control over who the person is who answers the poll.

[Fly by night]

3. Exit poll results are not released until the polls close. How would ...

... they affect late-day turnout in Texas or any other state?

[applegrove]

5. That wasn't the case in 2004.

[Fly by night]

6. Yes it was. It has been the case since 1980. Exit polls are not ...

... released in any state until that state's polls are closed. The stink over Reagan's victory being called before the West Coast polls were even closed is the reason for this.

[applegrove]

9. But rumour had spread that Kerry one by late afternoon. And of course

those polls were wrong.

[Melissa G]

12. Apple, in this particular Forum, there is no Of Course, those polls

where Kerry Won were wrong. Most of us here believe Of Course those Polls were Right! That is why we are still here having a discussion and action group.

[applegrove]

13. But you agree the GOP & Rove will use any trick in the book. So why

not the polls. Why were those left 'completely untouched' when every single other form or systematic element in the elections was used & abused.

Why were the polls left alone?

[Fly by night]

15. You really don't know about anything of which you speak. Otherwise...

... you would know that a major bone of contention (and discussion) on this forum since 11/04 has related to the stonewalling and months-long delay of the release of the exit poll results and the continued unwillingness of the exit poll director to release the "raw" data from those polls for independent analysis.

Isn't there somewhere else you'd rather be right now than making a complete and utter fool of yourself on this forum? Just askin'.

[Melissa G]

16. the polls were not left alone all the time..that is why we screen save

how do you miss this with all the time you spend on DU? The poll get a computer crash just before final result and whoops the republican wins.. are you not paying attention? Kerry/Bush and now Hackett?
We screen save the data before the crash and then after the crash there is an unexplainable repub shift in the data..

[applegrove]

17. I hear that. And it sounds funny. I just cannot jump on that until I see

some sources other than inhouse research. That is the way I am. I do agree with all other types of games: long line-ups, vetting some felons & not others, Vatican getting involved, strict ID enforcement for Liberal looking types, intimidation, redistricting....

So we are not so far apart.

[Melissa G]

20. we seem miles apart as far as i can see..

Get an advance copy if you don't want in house research
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0971043892/103-3974022-6649417?v=glance
Freeman's book comes out in October..
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1583226877/ref=pd_sim_b_2/103-3974022-6649417?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1742
http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book109h.htm

[applegrove]

26. I've read over lots. I know the machines were spewing out smoke.

I just cannot say if they were toyed with the change numbers. Who exactly, what, when, how.

We don't have those answers. I can speculate just like you. As i do on the exit polls being perhaps another spot Rove's GOp likes to play with during elections. And I am not alone. Read the rest of this thread.

The fact that the same thing took place in early Bush elections shows at least a pattern. We just don't agree on the exact details. As the exact details are not yet in.

[applegrove]

18. I mean exit polls. To be clear.

[Land Shark]

23. Polls are already becoming weighted more and more in favor of

republicans.... look at the gallup poll which had widely publicized criticism of its heavy pro-republican weighting before the election.

Note however, that polls are suppose to predict outcomes of elections, so if elections are subject to any kind of bias at all (whether from suppression, spoilage, irregularity or fraud) a "good" pollster will need to adjust for that bias in terms of discretionary weightings in order to be a "good" pollster who correctly predicts outcomes.

Since applegrove believes that because something "could" be, (it "could" be that there were people lying to pollsters) therefore he can freeze the debate (in his own mind at least) at a certain level where the analysis falters on that "could" premise.

There's no evidence to support this, such as people saying "yeah I lied to an exit pollster" and it would not appear to be any type of crime to admit to this, so we could expect such evidence to appear but it hasn't.

Interestingly, in an election regime where data and analysis are both kept secret and we can only read from the entrails of the results, there are two general propositions that would make even those entrails utterly inscrutable and obfuscated:

1. the notion that people lie to pollsters (and allegedly rightwinger media people have urged this from time to time with no reported success) and
2. the notion that people in significant percentages don't correctly remember their votes (supposedly some "academic" research supports this but I doubt HIGHLY it could apply to the presidential race for example....

Speaking of faith-based voting, if either or both of #1 and #2 turn out to be significantly true than we are dealing with a system even more profoundly disturbing in its implications than "black box voting" is, as an image of the problem since if both of the above are true then instead of putting a sure ballot into a black box where we know not what happens to it, instead it is claimed we are putting in a ballot that (1) we can't remember what it even stood for and (2) to the extent we DO remember we are lying about it.

Talk about utter election nihilism... nothing exists.

[Melissa G]

25. well it all worked so well for Orwell in 1984.......

It reaally is charming to get the republican vote shift built into one's every improving exit poll methodology... goes a long way in legitimizing the heist of future elections..doncha know...

[applegrove]

27. I am not trying to stop the debate. I am saying keep your options all

open for where games may have been played. Why do you get to discount such a theory? I'm saying don't get tunnel vision. Every single structural part of the vote could be open to game playing.

And no - if it has worked for Repukes in the past to have dem # over-reported so working dems and dems with kids don't bother to vote - why would they admit to it?

You don't have to agree. But stifling the debate is one thing I am not doing.

Keep your mind open to all the possibilities.

[applegrove]

28. I am for tough transparency laws too. Just include exit polls in those

laws.

[Melissa G]

7. Fly is right Apple.. I have read many of your posts..

I am impressed that as much time as i spend here posting on DU you have 5 times as many posts as i do and you have only been here since Feb. WoW!
It is interesting to me how opposed you seem to be to the notion of valid exit polling? In this particular case, i am not convinced one way or the other and I needed some research input which is why i posted the two threads. why do you think folks spend SOOO much money on exit polls and keep commissioning them every election if they are without merit?

[applegrove]

10. I'm just saying it is one explanation & one reason why democrats

didn't show up at the polls at the end of the day in 2004. It was false reporting on a national level. I have no research. But others have said the polls were wrong. Instead of the 'excited Democratic responder' I believe there is room for nefariousness.

This person pointed out the same pattern happened in Texas under Bush. I'm just pointing out the similarity. And since we know they love to play games in tight elections..though we may not agree on exactly what games are played..I think it is okay if I mention the possibility.

[Fly by night]

14. "I'm just saying it is one explanation" ... "I have no research"

Apple Grove, you are wrong.

Admit it -- you have proposed something which you have been told is incorrect, and yet you persist.

Then you admit you have nothing to back up your supposition. But you persist.

My suggestion would be to sit on your hands a while and just read. If you don't know what you are talking about, consider that it shows.

As the old saying goes, "It is better to sit mute and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."

Or as my daddy used to say, "Son, you can never win an argument with an ignorant man (or woman, for that matter)."

Time to stop arguing with you. It may also be time for me to go to bed and for you to join that select group of "snoozed" posters on my ignore list, all of whom were prodigious posters themselves. I just don't have to listen to them anymore.

Nighty night.

[applegrove]

11. Also - I post because maybe I happen to have more time on my hands

than you. It happens. No reason why the exit polls couldn't have been toyed with the same way long line-ups and vetting for felons were in certain districts.

[Land Shark]

19. this yet another reason that there is no basis for confidence in elections

namely, when there are laws that arguably prevent even exit poll verification from being strictly valid (if that is indeed the case here). In addition, of course, to my general point that where data and analysis remain secret and undisclosed (ballots and their counting by trade secret software, in other words), there can BE no rational basis for confidence in such an "election" system. Faith is possible, and in some areas a great thing, but not in elections in a country that bases itself on checks and balances.

[Melissa G]

22. Thanks for your efforts to get our voting process more transparent

and verifiable, Landshark!:loveya:

[Stevepol]

8. As things now stand, exit polls are far more accurate than DRE's.

Until the laws are changed so as to mandate audits for every election, there's little chance the Dems can win, except in isolated cases where it's either too difficult or irrelevant to cheat.

I am very afraid for Byrd in WV. In a fair vote he will win handily but the same was true of Kerry in 04 or Max Cleland or Walter Mondale in 02.

[Bill Bored]

21. Polls could have been corrupted and so could the vote count.

Why couldn't Mitofsky even keep his servers running on election night?
It's not like he had 100,000 users.

And sure Rove would have loved to suppress the Dem vote by making it look like Kerry had won early. Looks like this may have actually happened in the West, per the regional Party ID weightings.

And Dick Morris came up with the cover story, which was that exit the polls were PERFECT, but the left wing media released them early to suppress the Bush vote! If anything it's the other way around and I've been saying that since Nov.

Look, it's not that hard to steal an election with paperless DREs, or unaudited optical scanners or central tabulators, or the Ohio punch cards that don't have precinct identifiers on them and yet have the order of the candidates' names rotated from precinct to precinct. But it's not too hard to hack into a poorly secured corporate network that runs exit polls and make all kinds of changes to that data either.

Now if either could have had the effect of swinging the election, or at least the popular vote, why is it harder to believe one than the other?

[TruthIsAll]

29. We KNOW the FINAL NEP was corrupted to match the corrupt vote.

You forget that.

It could be that even the earlier polls )which had Kerry leading) understated his poll numbers. It was a work in process. The ultimate goal was to match the corrupted vote. They had to switch 3 percent between 13047 and 13660 respondents. Kerry lead by 51-48 at 13047.
He probably led the exits by 52-47. They needed a 2% jump-start in the early exits to make up that 5% difference.

[autorank]

24. This is simply a STELLAR post. When CM covers this, it will be all over.

Holy Cow, as Bart would say!

:applause: