WTF?A Repuke just explained to me why the Exit Polls were biased for Kerry

[TruthIsAll]

He raised what he felt were very valid points:

1. Bush voters were too ashamed to say they voted for Bush.

2. Bush voters have the "F yourself" attitude toward some college kid asking them how they voted.

3. Democrats were so eager to get Bush out that they rushed to vote as soon as possible to get him out of their system.

4. Bush voters waited for the rain to stop (remember, it was cold and rainy in Ohio), then went to their nice precincts equipped with ample numbers of voting machines and voted late.

Because of all these reasons, exit polls mean nothing.

Sure makes a lot of sense - to a Repuke.
Especially for those who believe in Occam's razor.

To them, the most simple-minded explanation is probably the correct one.

[LisaLynne]

1. Yeah, that's been their line ...

Along with the "over sampling of women" because women inexplicably voted early because to Repugs, they don't have jobs or anything. Sigh. The point is -- they got nothin'!

[Cowboy Joe2k]

32. None of this Matters now. What we need to do is demand

The right in every Community Around the World to Vote Yes or no on WAR. This is your Duty as a citizen of this planet. If all the Community's around the world do this at once , think of the History to be made!!! not just these same old day time drama's But True and Lasting Freedom!!!

[Yupster]

54. I'd just be happy if the Congress voted

to declare war like the Constitution demands.

[berniew1]

74. The above premises have been investigated and found not valid

This is an old excuse, that has been investigated to look at the vote data and patterns seen in the voting process. None of these were supported by the investigations.

[texpatriot2004]

2. they are pretty simplistic thinkers

if you can call what they do thinking.

[ailsagirl]

4. Really-- they basically believe what they're told to believe

Free thinkers are anathema to these goons.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. The exit polls were only wrong

in key swing states. Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.

That blows the repukes' argument out of the water.

[KansDem]

22. That makes me wonder...

Why were the least experienced exit-poll takers sent to these states? Obviously their lack of skill in conducting exit polls lead to these mistakes...(/repuke)
:silly:

[googly]

28. Did I hear that the exit polling outfit was a brand new one ?

I recall reading that after the fiasco of 2000 when they called
for Bush and then Gore and then nobody, the media hired a new outfit
to do the exit polling. Please someone correct me if this is not it.

[Chimpanzee]

34. Yes, Voter News Service was replaced by Mitshitski and Edison

[jdots]

5. does this repuke want to buy a bridge ?

we have a special on the Brooklyn Bridge this week.

[floridadem30]

6. Shall we start to list the thousands of reasons we don't buy it?

[kerry2win]

7. #4 it was nice in am in cleve

but rained all afternoon thru mid evening. But everything else must be 100% correct except for 1.2.and 3.

[IAMREALITY]

8. It Never Ceases To Amaze Me What They Are Willing To Believe

That is just too funny TIA. I was just telling my heavy Repub sister tonight on the phone actually, that she knows I do heavy analysis for a living, and that she can believe what she wants but so far with all I've seen, all I've read, and all I know, that the hardest theory to swallow, and most far fetched theory to buy, is that in fact everything just went oh so lovely and as planned. When you actually do the digging, it becomes so friggin obvious there is no way things could all add up as they do if things just simply went untouched.

[Imalittleteapot]

9. Why were Bush voters too ashamed to admit they voted

for the Chimp? What a rediculous assumption. They are proud to be Merkins and proud to support God's chosen one.

[GRLMGC]

13. I'd be embarassed to admit it

but then again, i'd never vote for someone i'd be embarrased about.

[googly]

29. I live in repuke Clark county, and noticed a lot more Kerry/Edwards

yard signs than B/C signs. But the vote as usual went majority
repuke. So there may be some truth to that the repukes were
ashamed to vote for Bush.

[roseBudd]

10. Except it never stopped raining.

Still raining at 7:30 in Ohio

[Shalom]

11. Occam's Razor (Simplest Answer) is FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD n/t

[Igel]

43. Occam's Razor's reasonable.

When solving a problem, don't multiply entities.

If 3 factors account for your data, assume 3 factors, don't assume 4 or 5.

Come up with more data that the 3 factors don't account for, but 5 do, don't assume 6.

It's like predictive statistics, only as good as your data and assumptions.

[darthdemocrat]

12. Some Republicans will rationalize anything their "team" does or says!

Seriously. They'll explain it away, whatever it is. They are never interested in facts over fables. If there was video of shrub raping a twelve year old on an altar in the oval office with pentagrams painted on the walls in blood and a pile of dead goats in the corner they'd rationalize it somehow.

Doublethink has arrived.

[Red State Blues]

63. easy

"Seriously. They'll explain it away, whatever it is. They are never interested in facts over fables. If there was video of shrub raping a twelve year old on an altar in the oval office with pentagrams painted on the walls in blood and a pile of dead goats in the corner they'd rationalize it somehow."

Obviously this would be Clinton's fault.

[Gothmog]

14. This is crap

Exit polls were satisfactory evidence to establish voter fraud in the Ukraine but exit polls here are not reliable? This is just plain wrong.

[TruthIsAll]

16. Wrong? It's criminal. n/t

tia

[Generic Other]

15. Anyone who was ashamed to admit voting for Bush shouldn't have

So much for the moral values crowd. Does it occur to them that moral values means not doing things you are going to be ashamed of??

[farmbo]

17. But..but..but..Rove said the Exit Poll's "internals" showed too many Women

Damn...why can't these GOP experts stay on message now like they did during the campaign.

:crazy:

[ccarter84]

39. LOL good ol' rove

[Fortunato]

18. Have to love...

...frantic searching for support for predetermined conclusions.

If the polls had slanted Bush instead of Kerry, we could brainstorm just as many "valid" reasons as to why it occured.

1. Bush people love Bush so much they want to talk about him.
2. Bush people hate Kerry so they want to diss him.
3. Kerry people had to rush back to work, so didn't take time to do the surveys.
4. Kerry people were sure they were going to win, so why waste time doing the survey?

... and so on.

In the meantime, nothing challenges the predetermined assumption that the exit polls were slanted since they differed with the election results.

It's all backwards thinking: "The election results are valid, therefore the polls were skewed, therefore Bush voters must have avoided the polls, and here's why."

So much for Logic 101.

[unpossibles]

19. wow

I have heard these excuses, first from the "liberal" media, then parroted by the Bullsh supporters. Of the people I know and ran into who are pro-Bullsh (and it's not the majority), only one was reticent about Bullsh. All of them were so loud and proud about it, I was surprised they did not paint it on their foreheads.

As a matter of fact, my neighbor, who is a really nice guy, stuck a Bullsh sign in his side window facing my dining room. On the other hand, although I showed my support, I also did not scream and flaunt it the way they did, so I have a very hard time believing this garbage.

And as for the heavily asked women, the polls split by men and women - they are listed as separate stats.

Maybe they forgot #5: magic through prayer?

[libertypirate]

20. You have to tell them they are wrong.

Being afraid to tell the truth is the same as if it doesn’t exist. But doing so is liberating. The bad guys win when people don’t know the truth.

Conviction is the greatest weapon we have against conservatives. Look they are not taught to study and understand the world; they accept the world so they don't have to think about how it effects them. Logical analysis nope, what they live on is a diet of shallow assertions and hollow assumptions come on we have all landed on Fox; they speak to the assumption people. Tell them the truth but not like you "think" it is, like you "know" it is. Make them question their version of the world, because they have not yet done so.

They question we win, not the other way around people...

Just 2 cents

[skysurfer]

23. Very true libertypirate

The difference between us and Ukraine, I think, is that as soon as they saw the difference between the exit polls and the results, the Ukrainian people knew it meant fraud and right away they made their voices heard. On the other hand, when we saw the difference between the exit polls and the results, our media automatically jumped to the conclusion that the exit polls were wrong and tried to come up with every excuse under the sun as to why it was so. It's as if no one in the media wanted to even entertain the idea that the election results were what was wrong, not the exit polls. Since most people in this country don't look beyond what the media feeds them, they believe it. And here we are.....

[libertypirate]

25. Frame the media

What do they sell the truth or stories?

It's good business to invest in what continues to generate $$, a story is just a tool to get people to see the commercials; but I am sure we all already knew that.

Do you think the media as a business generates $$ from selling stories or advertisements?

The commodity in the relationship is the viewer, and they only matter when they are watching the ads not the news.

[tngledwebb]

21. TIA,

This repuk voter was told all this disinfo by which radio personality?
But give the guy points for remembering it all verbatim, unlike the good Commander Earpiece.

[blueatheart]

24. lies

All I know is I still see many more bumper stickers and signs in yards supporting Bush, hardly any for Kerry. Yet Nov 3rd everyone I bumped into was upset about Kerry "losing". You could see it in their faces. Yet these in your face Bushies say they did not want to talk about it. Bull! Lie after lie. So much for morals.

[newyawker99]

41. Hi blueatheart!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Nordic]

26. republicans can rationalize anything, and I mean anything

torture, rape, murder, it doesn't matter, they'll rationalize it and if that doesn't work, point the finger at somebody else.

They are never in the wrong. Ever.

[Cadence]

30. It's a large group of pathological narcissists

"Narcissists are driven by the need to uphold and maintain a false self - a concocted, grandiose, and demanding psychological construct typical of the narcissistic personality disorder. The false self is projected to the world in order to garner "narcissistic supply" - adulation, admiration, or even notoriety and infamy. Any kind of attention is usually deemed by narcissists to be preferable to obscurity.

The false self is suffused with fantasies of perfection, grandeur, brilliance, infallibility, immunity, significance, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience."
snip

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/10-20-2002-28566.asp

[jsascj]

27. And none of them mentioned the real reason...

Kerry really won but the Repubs flipped the numbers?

[Cadence]

31. I just wrote this on another thread but I should have

written it here.


I don't think the fundies feel shame...they don't think he's done anything wrong so why would they be ashamed of voting for him?
So the only possible explanation besides fraud is that the Christian right like to lie and manipulate (to make it look like Kerry won???)or they're too shy.

RIGHT! When was the last time you saw a Rightey that was afraid to say they were in love with Bush? SHY? Are you kidding me? This group is all about control and intimidation they aren't afraid. They aren't about to make it look like Kerry won at ANY time!

Also if this were the case wouldn't that trend of Bush voters lying to or evading polls have shown up in the pre-election polling as well?

That doesn't make any sense.

[Chimpanzee]

33. Sounds like desparate rationalizations not based in fact or history

[jhgatiss]

35. If they were too ashamed to say they voted for Bush...

WHY IN THE HELL DID THEY VOTE FOR HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE? IDIOTS!

I honestly don't buy this explanation for the exit poll discrepencies. The places that had lines in Ohio were primarily student and minority precincts. I don't buy the "rushed out to vote" line either. There were lines all day. No one was rushing anywhere. Everyone had to wait. And I suspect that Kerry voters waited more than Bush voters on average in Ohio. I will agree with the "F yourself" attitude though. That's how I feel toward Bush voters. I wish they would just "F themselves" rather than screwing the rest of us in the process!

[goodboy]

36. ok, well that's some bullshit....next?

[bleever]

37. Exit polling weights responses for party, sex, etc. If they were

getting way more dems than were proportionate to registration, they would know, and factor accordingly.

Also, exit poll procedures call for them to record all the people who decline the poll! These numbers are somewhere in Mr. Mitofsky's desk drawer, and he could pull them out if they really proved that the samples were "bad".

But they weren't, and he won't.

[Paligal]

38. So that basically means

1. Voting for Bush is shameful, and they know it, but they still did it...?

2. Republicans are hostile toward people integral to our election process, but Democrats are not

3. Republicans had little enthusiasm for Bush

4. Republicans respond to rain differently that Democrats (like the Wicked Witch... "I'm melting!"). (This is the most absurd one)

OK, they want to claim these things as their talking points, fine. They just look like idiots.

[jwmealy]

40. Exit Polls--It's the Pattern in the Red Shift, not Just the Fact of it...

Hey,

This is my first posting to this group. Thanks for your analyses of exit poll discrepancies.

I have an independent analysis that I think addresses all the "Repuke" explanations you quote, and others as well.

See http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm for the data and charts (MSExcel html format) of results.

The following chart encapsulates the thesis:



A summary of my analysis and results is below.

"THE BIGGER THE PRIZE, THE BIGGER THE DISCREPANCY"
Since we know that votes can be hacked at different stages of the casting and tabulation process, it was more interesting to me to look at the amount of Red Shift in relation to whether a state was a “contested state”, than it was to look at voting technology (e.g. touch-screen) versus Red Shift.
In general agreement with Jonathan Simon's results, I found that there was an average 2.49% Red Shift in the “contested states”, versus an average 1.72% Red Shift in the non-“contested states”. These results show that there was 45% greater, or nearly half again as much, Red Shift phenomenon in those states than in "safe" states. That’s a very suspicious difference.
That led me to ask, Is there any correlation between those contested states that went for Bush, on the one hand, and those with higher Red Shift numbers, on the other hand? I discovered no obvious correlation.
What I did discover was a dramatic correlation between those contested states that commanded the most electoral college votes, on the one hand, and those contested states with the most Red Shift, on the other hand. If I were trying to fix a vote, I’d surely put more of my efforts where there was the most to gain and to lose. Out of the 11 contested states, 10 had Red Shifts towards Bush, and Wisconsin alone of the 11 had a very slight Kerry-ward shift. The electoral college votes represented by the five contested states with the greatest Red Shift was 82, whereas the electoral college votes represented by the five contested states with the least Red Shift was 43. That’s 1.91 times as many electoral college votes commanded by the five contested states with the greatest Red Shift.
When I did the same analysis on all 50 states for which data was available, grouping them into the 25 with the greatest Red Shift and the 25 with the least Red Shift, I found that the top 25 Red Shift group commanded 18% fewer electoral college votes than the bottom 25. This trend is in the opposite direction of the trend among the contested states.
Frankly, I can’t readily think of any hypothesis other than electoral fraud to explain why the Red Shift phenomenon should be significantly greater in contested states, and, above all, why it should be dramatically greater, the more electoral college votes a contested state commands.

I'd appreciate any constructive criticism, and/or offers of statistical support--I'm not a statistician.
Best Regards,
Webb Mealy

[newyawker99]

42. Hi jwmealy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[TruthIsAll]

44. I have thought of doing a similar analysis. Glad you did it.

Its really obvious. FL and OH both had less than one percent probability of shifting as they did. These two states are necessary AND sufficient for a Bush "win".

The rest were shifted to pad the popular vote to make it appear that Bush won not only a mandate, but also to discourage any researchers from even considering that the election was close.

In fact, the padding is prima facie evidence.

Ii's a simple calculation to determine that the odds are 1 in 200 trillion that 16 states would move beyond the Exit poll MOE to Bush.

[jwmealy]

45. "Beyond MOE" calculation assumes "all things being equal"

Nice ta meetcha!

Your margin of error probability calculations, of course, assume that the error stems from the sample diverging from the entire data pool by chance alone--and not for some identifiable reason that would make the sample "non-representative". Fraud would obviously be one possible reason. Personally, I have remained genuinely open to the possiblity that there is a specific, and non-fraud-related, explanation for a certain amount of red shift phenomenon in general.

For example:

1. People who voted for Bush may well have been more likely to be embarrassed about their vote--because he has been such a lying, war-making, money-squandering president. Nonetheless, many people may have gone into the polls thinking that Bush was going to do something to their immediate personal benefit--such as cut taxes--but they knew at some level inside themselves that it was immoral, shortsighted and selfish to have voted for him on that basis. Hence they may not have felt like chatting with the exit pollsters. This could skew the exit polls by some measurable amount (say, between 3% and 6%) towards Kerry.

2. Let's assume that lots of voters belonged to that fabled group, the "undecideds". Many of these will have originally voted for Bush in 2000, but then got sick of him and thought they were probably going to vote for Kerry. Many, at the last second, may have flip-flopped and voted for Bush again, on the basis of "better the devil you know". (I recall this effect manifesting itself dramatically when Margaret Thatcher was re-elected in 1988, despite the fact that the polls had shown her to be doomed.) Just like the Britons, who re-elected Thatcher after she aggressively attacked Argentina, lots of Americans are probably inwardly attracted to Bush's policy of macho pre-emptive war, but they prefer not to admit that to themselves consciously. Such voters could come out of the polls wondering why they hadn’t followed through on their intention to "ditch Bush even if it means voting Democratic this time", and hence they mightn’t feel like talking to exit pollsters. This could also skew the exit polls by some measurable amount (say, between 3% and 6%) towards Kerry.

None of this, of course, explains why there should be nearly two-fold exaggerations of red shift where Bush stood to gain the most.

Peace,

Webb

[TruthIsAll]

49. Come on, you are much too intelligent to actually post this.

Are you here from The Onion?

[jwmealy]

52. Any advice on what statistical checks to run and where to publish?

as above. . .

Webb

[goldengreek]

65. Good Lord, Webb!

I can't speak for anyone else here, but as far as I'm concerned you're welcome to post here at DU anytime! This is awsome!!

[Ladyhawk]

46. LOL...they were ASHAMED they voted for Bush?

WTF does that say????

Jesus H. Keeeeerist!

[jwmealy]

47. Err, that a small percentage of Bush voters actually have compunctions

. . .against pre-emptive wars of choice, huge deficits, gutting the economy, and so on.

Having compunctions doesn't necessarily mean you will vote your conscience, however. People generally get embarrassed when they break their conscience.

Or is there a part of the joke that I am missing?

Webb

[Hello_Kitty]

48. Reason #1 amazes me

What does it say about your candidate when you're ashamed to admit that you voted for him?

[BlueDog2u]

51. Turdblossom

sez its cause the Democrats are so intolerant and mean that conscientious voters like himself are afraid to admit who they voted for. They're afraid that their Dem relatives will beat them up or call them nasty names on Fox. O yah! Talk about sociopathic projection!

[Alizaryn]

50. If they are that convinced they should encourage the recounts..

For the GOOD of the nation and the releases of the exit polling info I would think?

[ClintCooper2003]

53. ALL THOSE ARE PHONY REASONS

1. The LATE afternoon exit polls still showed Kerry with a lead in most of the swing states. It would have taken a monumental push from Bush voters to outpace Kerry voters. Additionally, empirical evidence shows that Republicans vote earlier than Democrats

2. There is NO EVIDENCE that Bush voters are "ashamed." In fact, I have yet to meet ANY Bush voter who wasn't proud of Bush. Bush voters are more than happy to tell you why they're voting for him.

3. Empirically, rain and bad weather in general suppresses turnout among Democrats more than Republicans.

4. Once again, there is NO EVIDENCE that Bush voters wouldn't give college students the time of day. This is not a reason at all!

[TruthIsAll]

55. Another: Dems are younger, they liked to talk to the young pollsters.

You know, they're just kids. Wanted to discuss the latest Eminem video.

[Matilda]

56. The Repubs probably think the exit polls were rigged.

That's something they can understand.

[JWP]

57. Write Zogby

They are worrying for a reason: They know the polls were right.

We need a post-mort poll. I sent this to Zogby and suggest others press him for the same:

The public needs you to do a post-mortem poll parallel to the notorious exit polls to see if it confirms the alleged "reality" that exit polls failed in only 10 of 50 states, all battleground states and all supposedly undervaluing Bush's "true" vote.

Edison et al are going to come out with excuses (in a month, I heard) as to what it did wrong. It would be nice to be forearmed with a post-mort poll asking "Who did you vote for" to prove the likelihood the excuses are statistically valid.

Here's another study confirming the improbability Bush won the 10 states without fraud: http://www.math.temple.edu/~paulos/exit.html

We'd also love to hear from you re the hypocrisy of this administration denouncing Ukraine based on the precise science of exit polls!!!


[e-mail]

[TruthIsAll]

58. Its not just the states that Bush won. Its the 16 states in which

his vote tally exceeded the Exit Poll margin of error. The odds are ONE in 200 TRILLION that would happen due to chance. No joke. I have posted the calculation based on the binomial distribution function.
There is not ONE instance of such a move to Kerry.

And don't forget: 41 out of 51 states moved from the exit poll splits in favor of Bush. Just 10 moved to Kerry. That's ANY sized move. The odds are ONE in 1.7 MILLION this could occur by chance alone. Its like flipping a coin 50 times and getting 41 heads.

[jwmealy]

59. The broad prevalence of Red Shift is what raises my doubts.

I find it somewhat unlikely that persons in a position to rig an election on a wide scale would expose themselves to exponentially rising risks by manipulating results across the board. I suppose you could say that introducing random Red Shift fluctuations all over the country could have the effect of introducing enough "noise" to the pattern to cover up, at least partially, the strategic intervention where it counted--in the swing states with the most electoral college votes.

But that idea has little charm for me because it requires me to imagine that some force that is totally hidden, nefarious, and free from fears of discovery, has positioned itself to intervene at will in the varied election systems of some dozens of states.

Perhaps until someone blows the whistle or finds a smoking gun, everyone is going to have to use their own smell test. Something is most definitely not right here, but my money is on a combination of effects, some traceable to ordinary human psychology, and some traceable to concerted election rigging.

I totally agree that there should be new polls to ask people yet again who they voted for. Perhaps such polls can be designed to smoke out any pattern in people's disinclination to say who one has voted for.

One idea along these lines, which may be useless, comes from a conversation I had recently with a rather ill-informed and tv-dependent conservative friend. This person was under the odd impression that it was improper for me to ask him who he planned to vote for. He had taken the idea of the right to a secret ballot, and transmogrified it into the totally erroneous idea that his vote was some kind of sacred secret that he wasn't supposed to share with anyone. Given the statistics demonstrating that Republicans are lower in average IQ and education level than Democrats, I suppose that notion could account for, say, a half a percent of Red Shift.

<shrug>

[Peace Patriot]

60. It's possible...

...that some of the red shift was due to R's giving the wrong answer, or to other factors, and I think it's good journalistic and academic practice to ask such questions. (What are the factors that could have screwed up the exit polls?) But no one has presented any FACTS to indicate any problem whatsoever. It's all just speculation--and sounds so much like Dick Cheney talking about Iraq and 9/11 (i.e., utter crap, but not innocent utter crap--utter crap that is cleverly manufactured to cover up crimes) that I think it should be put aside until and unless someone comes up with some evidence.

As Freeman discusses, exit polls are used worldwide to verify elections. No evidence of any kind has been presented to question their results in this case.

I think jwmealy gets himself into a corner that he really doesn't want to be in, arguing that R's might have given false answers to exit pollsters, and that Bush Inc. doesn't have the resources to pull off a nationwide vote heist. (What else might they have been planning for, by keeping control of the vote tabulation source code and insisting on no paper trail?)

jwmealy's study concentrates on the Electoral Vote part of the fraud plan--the most important thing Bush Inc. had to do (win the EV), and I think it will be very useful in understanding what they did and where, to win the EV. I think where he gets himself in a tangle is in defending his study as the only thing that Bush Inc. wanted (the EV)

But Bush Inc. had a second problem: getting Bush a decent popular vote. I'm sure it would have been unacceptable to the master planner of this election fraud to have a result like '00--Gore winning the popular vote, Bush getting the EV (via the Supreme Court). They didn't want any kind of controversy like that (and why let it happen, if you have control of all the vote tabulators?) They wanted to talk about a "mandate" the next day--so they had to have the pop. vote, too.

Bev Harris (blackboxvoting.org), Chuck Herrin (chuckherrin.com), and the Johns Hopkins study (http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/0725diebold.html) all establish how insecure and hackable this voting system is. One person well-placed (or with a backdoor in; or with wireless access), and a line or two of code. It absolutely would NOT have taken a big operation with lots of people and money. (This is one reason I'm not crazy about the Wayne Madsen allegation--the $29 million check, etc., and FBI/CIA operatives working for Bush Inc.--it just wasn't necessary. Not to say they didn't set it up, just in case, though.)

So requirement #2 (the pop. vote) had to involve manufacturing or stealing votes in multiple places, wherever the risk of detection had been minimized. And this is just what the Berkeley study shows in FLA--Bush Inc. either manufacturing votes for Bush or stealing votes from Kerry (100,000 to 200,000 or more votes) in the three biggest FLA Democratic counties.

The fraud doesn't have to involve ALL states or even the majority of states (although it could have, without that much difficulty). The evidence of weird anomalies, and imposssible numbers, in the Bush/Kerry totals seems to be coming from about 15 states, OH and FLA among them. But only certain states are right now getting intense analysis.

A few states with provable electronic fraud (whether for the EV or the pop. vote) will be sufficient to call the entire election into question. By provable, I mean acceptable in a court of law--and statistical studies ARE acceptable, and are used, for instance, in financial cases where pertinent documents have been shredded (no paper trail situations).

Freeman's study reveals four states (of the 11 he studied) wherein the Exit Poll data vs. the Republican-controlled electronic "result" shows a change in the outcome from Kerry (Exit Poll) to Bush (electronic "result") in the EV. (OH, New Mex, Nevada and Iowa.) With those 4 states, Kerry won the EV. (He also shows that in 10 of the 11 states, the Exit Poll vs. electronic "result" favoring Bush is impossible.)

And this is where OH becomes really important.

Fraud plan requirement #3 was the vote suppression in OH and FLA--to have a place, all prepped, and controlled by partisan Republican election officials, where the election SEEMS to come down to a relatively few votes (the "provisional" votes in OH).

Cobb and the Greens are wisely going for a full recount in Ohio. God knows what that will turn up. They are already pointing to weirdness in the totals of a judicial election, where an unknown Dem judicial candidate pulled far more votes than Kerry--as evidence of electronic fraud. (Jesse Jackson talks about this in his recent interviews.)

I think the Mealy study (and others) will be important in understanding, and making the case for, what happened in OH. (First, they wanted those EV's. Second, they wanted to pad Bush's pop. vote--and studying this in the broad context of the stolen election is helpful.)

Now the Berkeley study seemed to be saying that they didn't find the same kind of phantom Bush votes in OH as in FLA (by comparing the electronic vote to traditional voting methods). (--although the NC study found just that--a big descrepancy between the absentee ballot vs. electronic vote). I will check the Berkeley study to find out exactly what it says.

But perhaps in OH--a mixed bag of election systems--the intense vote suppression (of various kinds) took care of that potential discrepancy (paper or other traditional methods vs. electronic).

There is a lot of work still to be done, obviously. I hope my laying it out like this--in a working hypothesis--is helpful.

Fraud plan requirement #4 was public perception--and the TV networks were nicely helpful by starting to mix the Republican-controlled electronic "results" in with the Exit Poll data sometime between 4 pm and 6 pm on election night. This effecively hid Kerry's big numbers in the Exit Polls. And this, I think, is why we had no big Ukraine-type reaction by Kerry voters that night or in the days that followed.

The networks failed to disclose that they had polluted the Exit Poll data (showing a big Kerry win) with the electronic "results" (showing a Bush win). Kerry voters DIDN'T KNOW this. They (me included--for a couple of hours anyway) believed that Bush had somehow pulled off a win late in the day. Neither I nor any other observer knew what the networks had done (mixing the numbers). (In the Ukraine, they immediately knew that something was wrong--precisely because the EXIT POLLS told them so.)

This has been THE most astonishing journalistic disaster that I have ever seen--and we've had some doozies.

In addition to the analytical and vote suppression evidence--which is getting to be overwhelming--there is our intuitive feel for what happened in the campaign, and on Nov. 2-- that our democracy movement in fact SUCCEEDED in ousting Bush Inc., and electing Kerry--in the most amazing presidential election victory in our history.

And guess who didn't cover it? And guess who covered up the evidence that it was being stolen from us that very night?

[TruthIsAll]

62. Excellent Post. I agree 100%. Have you seen my post on the odds

of 16 states moving beyond the Exit Polls MOE in favor of Bush - and not one to Kerry?

Let me know what you think.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x86863

[Peace Patriot]

68. I put my posts on your odds...

...over there.

[jwmealy]

69. Statistical checks

If you'd be willing to consider helping me run some due diligence statistical checks on my redshift study, please contact me off-list (see the email address listed at www.selftest.net).

Thanks for your encouragement and dialogue!

jwmealy

[jwmealy]

66. One teeny tweak--otherwise fair dues.

Hi, Peace Patriot--nice conversing with you today!

My tweak is that I wouldn't assert and haven't asserted that Bush voters would give false information to exit pollsters. I have only referred to, and I only contemplate, the theoretical possibility that Bush voters could conceivably have walked past the exit pollsters more often than Kerry voters, for some identifiable reason or another.

Here's a nice conspiracy hypothesis--and eminently testable, too, if those wily Wolf News watchers (as in Out-Wolfed) are willing to go through the reels and check:

Media genius Kove Rarl plants a daily theme with Wolf News (as he does with clockwork regularity), right before the election. The theme is, your vote is secret, my vote is secret! So, Bill, says the pretty co-presenter, who you going to vote for? Wink, wink! Not saying! says Bill, with an impish smile. It's a secret ballot! Ha, ha! This is repeated in various ways for two or three days preceding the election. It's a cute joke, right? No. It's an intentional ploy to brainwash the 5% or so most-dull-witted conservatives (who can't quite get the joke) into thinking it's none of anyone's business who they voted for--such as exit pollsters. So, the carefully targeted election rigging is obscured amidst a country-wide wash of voter-induced Red Shift.

That would be a lot easier to achieve than intervening in 30 different states.

All the Best!

[Peace Patriot]

67. JW...

...I wouldn't put ANYTHING past Karl Rove--even screwing up the Exit Polls with pre-planted memes!

But I don't think we need to dwell on that. We have enough evidence of their diabolical schemes. Your study, if I understand it correctly, says that the biggest red shift occurred in 5 states that command twice as many Electoral Votes as the others (NH, OH, PA, MINN, FLA, Nev), thus providing evidence of fraud concerning their first priority, winning the Electoral Vote. This is the first evidence I've seen on this important issue. (It was only a guess that their first priority would be the EV.) Thank you for all your work on this!

I absolutely agree that we should try to avoid running down blind alleys (i.e., looking for stolen votes in unlikely places)--especially with this iron time frame for actually overturning the election. But we need to be aware also that the master planner of this fraud could pick and choose nationwide among many jurisdictions, for several purposes (the Electoral Vote, the popular vote and the misdirection re: vote suppression in OH and FLA). They had SET UP extremely fraud-friendly conditions, virtually everywhere (with control of the central vote tabulators) for this purpose, I think--to accomplish several goals, and to have flexibility and be able to respond to events and circumstances. Also, their need to create a popular majority was ALMOST but not quite as important as creating an Electoral Vote win. ('ignatzmouse' also mentions yet another goal, evident in NC election data, of gaining Senate seats.)

And why wouldn't they do so, if they could?

Your point that the total redshift differential, nationwide, still doesn't give Kerry the popular majority (a million votes short) doesn't take into consideration that they fiddled the election in many different ways that would not be reflected in the Exit Polls. For instance, the Sproul destruction of Dem voter registration forms, or "losing" 60,000 absentee ballots just before the election, or things like severely shorting black voters on polling stations and voting machines, creating 10 hour long voting lines. Greg Palast maintains that they suppressed about a million black votes. Many of these are people who DIDN'T vote, and therefore would not have been questioned by Exit Pollsters.

As for Bush Inc. audacity--taking the risk of detection in multiple states: when have they been held accountable by the news media, the Congress or the courts, for even the most audacious behavior (baldfaced lying to Congress and to the public on Iraq WMDs; torturing prisoners; dismantling the Constitution; defying international law; massive theft of taxpayers' money to enrich Dick Cheney and his friends)?

What would make them think that they would be held accountable for massive election fraud in multiple states?

Hubris is the only accountability for this crew. And I think they've finally done it--gone too far.

We have to bring some personal judgement into this analysis. It's not just about facts. WOULD they go too far? Would they step over the line of what ordinary people might presume is reasonable risk?

Read Euripides. It was more than a possibility--it was a certainty that they would. Men who seek tyrannical power always do.

But it remains to be seen whether we, the people, can hold them accountable for stealing the election. If not, they will destroy themselves in some other way, we can be sure--and probably with a lot more collateral damage.

[jwmealy]

70. What Happens When you Add the Votes Back In?

Based on the tabulated results numbers from the NYTimes website, Bush took the national popular vote by a margin of 3,480,122 over Kerry.

Starting with Jon Simon's last thing Nov. 2 exit poll numbers (published on DU list), and comparing them with the NYTimes final percentage numbers for Bush and Kerry, I adjusted each state's vote totals to the hypothetical numbers Bush and Kerry would have received if the exit polls had been correct.

I calculate that the result, under those conditions, would be roughly:

Bush 59,015,611
Kerry 56,882,112

If we totally disregard the "exit poll vs tabulated results discrepancy" in the case of those states in which the tabulated result favored Kerry, and use, in those cases, the tabulated results, rather than subtracting the discrepancy amounts from Kerry's totals and adding the discrepancy amounts to Bush's totals, the results would be roughly:

Bush 58,804,886
Kerry 56,982,717

This result is somewhat surprising to me. Does anyone reach a different result when they run this analysis?

[jwmealy]

73. Oops--error in the back-calculation formula--here's a better calc

Based on the tabulated results numbers from the NYTimes website, Bush took the national popular vote by a margin of 3,480,122 over Kerry.

Starting with Jon Simon's last thing Nov. 2 exit poll numbers (published on DU list), and comparing them with the NYTimes final percentage numbers for Bush and Kerry, I adjusted each state's vote totals to the hypothetical numbers Bush and Kerry would have received if the exit polls had been correct.

The formula for calculating the estimated vote totals reflected by the exit poll result for a state is:

Bush Result if exit poll is perfect = BushTabResult/(1+RedShift)
Kerry Result if exit poll is perfect = KerryTabResult/(1-BlueShift)
I calculate that the result, under those conditions, would be roughly:

Bush 59,044,574
Kerry 56,905,780

If we totally disregard the "exit poll vs tabulated results discrepancy" in the case of those states in which the tabulated result favored Kerry, and use, in those cases, the tabulated results, rather than subtracting the discrepancy amounts from Kerry's totals and adding the discrepancy amounts to Bush's totals, the results would be roughly:

Bush 58,830,222
Kerry 57,004,209

This result is somewhat surprising to me. Does anyone reach a different result when they run this analysis?

[peacetalksforall]

61. This person's list of reasons fails at trickery. Dud! Plop!

[goldengreek]

64. Uh... I guess "Occam's razor" is a magic chant to them.

Or something like that.

"Occam's razor!"

Poof!

(We said it's true therefore it's now true.)

Which I guess makes "Occam's razor!" the new "Open Sesame!"

But in the real world, as Shalom correctly points out, "Occam's razor" just means "the most straightforward answer." And even then you could be wrong.

Jesus. Do these people even try?

[Igel]

75. Hate to be a stickler,

but people should quote William of Occam correctly if they're going to diss the poor monk. He's not responsible for being misrepresented centuries after he died. It's just not that complicated.

"Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity," the straightforward translation of the William's Latin.

Generalizing just a bit, it means the simplest hypothesis that satisfies all the datais assumed to be the correct one. If you don't like it, you're free to find more data; you can also disagree as to what "all the data" means.

Sounds exactly like what DUers have been saying: exit poll history is part of the data (but not conclusive), the simple hypothesis proposed seems wrong, so look for more data.

[skids]

71. A fun "adjusted" exit poll inconsistancy (link)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=201&topic_id=5931&mesg_id=5931

[steve2470]

72. would hypothetical Democratic voter fraud be exposed ?

I guess I am trying to leave behind the last vestiges of my high school civics class: that the press/media would actually protect our democracy. If we (the Dems and our supporters) hacked the vote, would the MSM expose it ? Or is it ONLY the hypothetical Dem hack that would be exposed ? If the MSM will only expose one side of the truth, then we are surely in the United States of Fascism.