Remind me what folks in this Forum Think or Know about Votewatch

[Melissa G]

The advanced search is down and I'm doing some research.. getting old and not sure I can rely on my memory...PM me if you have info you'd rather send that way. Thanks in advance for your generous help and brilliant expertise!!!

Votewatch is now known as the Election Science Institute...Just in case that helps...
http://www.votewatch.us/Members/stevenhertzberg/report.2005-07-19.2452304843/view?searchterm=None

Edit for link and clarification

[Botany]

1. Ohio vote yes on issues 2, 3, 4, & 5 this Nov. Important.

I don't know if this helps but this very important to cleaning up
the vote in Ohio.


www.reformohionow.org

[Melissa G]

2. Hi Botany! I edited my message to provide a link to Votewatch now ESI

so those who were hazy like me could remember and comment...
Nice to see ya!!:hi:

[mod mom]

4. Botany, pls re-consider "EARLY VOTING", initially it sounds a a solution

for long lines, but it is a great window of opportunity for fraud given the time frame which cannot be closely monitored.

I am working for the RON initiatives but am not endorsing early voting.

I am suggesting to others to look further into this issue.

[Bill Bored]

9. You are right MOM! Early voting is a big scam.

There is also no secret ballot with early voting because the machines need to keep track of WHO voted early so they can't vote again on election day. They do this by associating individual ballots with individual voters. The ballot is not secret with early voting.

[Time for change]

3. Here's the way I see it

They come out with a big study that purports to prove that Ohio wasn't stolen. And they present some stuff at a conference to that effect, but for months nobody has access to the study itself, so it can't really be criticized.

That just doesn't seem right to me. I'm extremely suspicious, just on this basis alone.

[Melissa G]

7. Good points! Thanks for your insights TFC! n/t

[mod mom]

5. I PM-ed you with my thoughts. Also I suggest you do a DU search on an

interaction between SH and our own GaryBeck. It provides some insight. I's connect you but have to run-sick kid.

[Chi]

6. Here ya go...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x353045

Heya Melissa (waves)


That should be the thread where SH also refuses to consider the OH recount illegal on the grounds that there is no legal definition of 'random'.

edit - (here's another string with discussions, not sure why it's locked....)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=368051&mesg_id=368051

[mod mom]

10. thanks Chi-that's the one! I think it definitely provides insight. nt

[Chi]

11. Always glad to help (bow)

I thought it might be...but I wasn't sure.

I think SH came here just to try and create trust, I find it suspect they get the raw data.

Kinda like the election experts the Baker commission used to testify at their hearings.
But WTF do I know. 8)

[Melissa G]

12. Thanks Chi! You are so Helpful!!!

Melissa waves back:hi:

[Bill Bored]

8. Here's a quick review:

First they said the election in Ohio was not auditable.

Then they said the OH exit polls weren't a smoking gun for fraud without explaining their work for months. They made several mistakes in their eventual explanation, which AFAIK still have not been corrected (but I'm tired of looking at it so I have not done so for a while).

I also believe they post-dated the explanation to make it look as if it were published long before it actually was.

They used scatter plots comparing OH 2000 to 2004 with no evidence that the 2000 election was any more honest than 2004.

Nor have they proven that the outcome could not have been reversed with the scatter plots still showing significant correlations between 2000 and 2004.

Then, in the same statement about the exit poll study, they said there was no other evidence that the outcome in Ohio was wrong, but did not even make an attempt to substantiate this claim (except to imply that THEY didn't find any).

They are arrogant.

They don't like to answer questions.

They do seem to like to receive donations though.

They say they are "scientists" and then sign a non-disclosure agreement with an e-voting machine vendor whose equipment they are supposed to be testing and reviewing independently. But they never said they were ethical scientists so perhaps I'm making too much of that.;)

I don't think too much of them at this point, but I did have high hopes in the past.

Why do you ask?

[Melissa G]

13. See my PM....n/t

[Febble]

16. Well, they say they have submitted their paper

for peer review, so it will be interesting to see what it says when it comes out. We really need a methods section.

However, their plots, though badly (and actually wrongly) labelled, do tell us one absolutely crucial thing. Being a nerd, I don't worry too much about conclusions in papers, what I want to see is methods and results. I can draw my own conclusions provided a sensible hypothesis has been tested. And both method and result are clear when it comes to the important bit:

"Swing" to Bush (UK term - means percentage change in Bush's favor since the last election) was not correlated with red-shift in the poll. There are two plots which show this quite clearly.

http://www.votewatch.us/Members/stevenhertzberg/report.2005-07-19.2452304843/report_contents_file/

The thing about scatterplots is that you do not need statistics or interpretation - it's just the data. Statistics will just tell you whether a borderline effect could have happened by chance. But here it is just obvious.

In the last plot, "swing" is plotted against "red-shift". They don't call it that but that's what it is. And there is simply no relationship.

This is really important, however you want to interpret it because:.

A) Vote-switching in a polled precinct will cause redshift.
B) It will also cause Bush's swing to increase.

So if fraud is the cause of the redshift, redshift should be correlated with increased swing. And it isn't.

This does NOT rule out fraud. And it CERTAINLY doesn't rule out voter suppression. But it looks as though it rules out fraudulent Vote SWITCHING by some method NEW TO 2004. To be more specific, it is consistent with:

1. Electronic or other fraud that either deleted both Rep and Dem votes in high Dem precincts or multiplied both Rep and Dem votes in high Rep precincts (strikes me that the former would be less detectable, but the point is that both would keep the exit poll proportions intact - this was TfC's hypothesis and it is a good one, though untested).

2. Greater vote spoilage of Dem precincts in a similar pattern to what has been going on for years. There would seem to be good evidence for that. The point is that this would cause redshift, but not swing, because it happened last year. It might or might not include provisional ballot rejections depending on past history.

3. Voter suppression. For which there is ample evidence.

However, this would mean that the actual redshift was polling bias, vote spoilage, or a mixture of both.

So in short: when evaluating a research team, look at the output. So far the interpretation seems to leave something to be desired, as does the presentation. I hope the paper will fix those. But as far as the ethical values of the researchers go, it is worth bearing in mind, when considering the validity of the actual number-crunching, that Fritz Scheuren is President of the American Statistical Association.

[Bill Bored]

17. Well we all know how ethical presidents can be!

Look, my main problem with the whole affair was not the sloppy and erroneous reporting of their own exit poll analysis, but the fact that he said they found no other evidence that the count was sufficiently wrong to have affected the outcome.

In other words, we are led down a garden path that:
1. Exit polls did not prove fraud in 2004;
2. We found no other indications of fraud sufficient to change the outcome in 2004;
3. Therefore Bush won Ohio in 2004.

Scheuren's remark as stated in item 2 above had nothing to do with exit polls so why even bother to mention it, unless he can deliver the goods to prove that Bush won Ohio. After all, he never said that they were even looking for other evidence in the first place.

So I say put up or shut up. Stick to your scatter plots and leave the investigative analysis of who won the election to someone else, unless you or others in ESI have actually done some. And if you have, please share it with us so we can put this behind us.

If it's true that the ballots have no precinct codes and the order of candidates' names is rotated between collocated precincts, and Bush and Kerry's names lined up often enough for votes to be switched between them in large numbers per precinct, and therefore, even a manual recount can't prove who won the election, I fail to see how a statistician can say (or even imply) that he knows who won it.

When an average 5-vote per precinct swing could have changed the outcome, I don't think mere scatter plots and exit polls are the way to go about looking for "smoking guns." Perhaps this is ESI's point. But then WHY does Scheuren find it necessary to imply that he knows Bush won the election? These two issues are apples and oranges and should not conflated, even if he is the president of something.

[garybeck]

14. I do not trust their work whatsoever

Hertzberg has made several untrue statements and accused anyone who questions the results of the election of being a conspiracy theorist. He is x-military. he has no credentials to be doing what he's doing.

[mod mom]

15. actually DOD civilian, but your remarks are on target:

"Mr. Hertzberg spent the first several years of his career as a civilian within the US Department of Defense.  While serving as a Project Manager and Test Director for highly visible military development programs, Mr. Hertzberg received the U.S. Army’s Civilian Special Act Award."

How many progressives have a background in highly visible military development programs? and receive awards for their work at the DOD?

[Melissa G]

18. You Folks Are Magnificent! Thank You for all these Helpful Insights!

This Forum Rocks!:toast: :yourock: