Another Hot (Paperless) Conspiracy Theory

[Rumple Foreskin]

You know, this conspiracy shit is fun. Right-wing reationaries have spewed out conspiracy theories about every Deomocratic presidential candidate from FDR to Kerry. Now they can have a turn in the hot seat.

Remember, as Matt Drudge and the other "attack first, prove later" reactionaries have demonstrated, a politically motivated conspiracy theory doesn't need proof, just circumstantial evidence and accusations. It's up to the accused to either take the heat or defend themselves.

The original text can be found at: The Blue Lemur

Rumple Foreskin

--

11/3/2004

Exit polls and ‘actual’ results don’t match; Evoting states show greater discrepancy

An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.

The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

An exit poll involves asking someone after they walk out of the election booth who they voted for. While not a guide for proving results, it can be a mechanism for ensuring voting accuracy and flagging potential fraud. Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.

Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.

In Florida, Bush led exit polling by CNN of more than 3 million voters by just 5355 votes. Yet he led by 326,000 in the end result. This morning, CNN changed their exit polling to favor Bush, saying that had overweighted African American voters.

In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.

In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.

In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.

Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.

Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.

Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.

Two states with paper trails for voting were within 0.5 percent margin of error.

New Hampshire, which has electronic voting but provides verified receipts, exit polling is within 0.1 percent of the actual vote. Kerry led by 3 percent in exit polling, and 2.9 percent in the actual vote.

Maine, the final state for which analysis of exit polling was conducted before the AP “resampled” their data, was in the Kerry column by 7.5 percent; the end result put Kerry up 8 percent, a variance of 0.5 percent. Maine has no electronic voting.

Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found.

Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush.

Allegations of voter fraud is not new to President Bush. On November 12, 2000, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting anomalies in the hotly constested state of Florida.

Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official of Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and found that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000 votes. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 … all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.

Early returns from Florida showed the Green Party candidate leading President Bush and Sen. Kerry in two Ohio counties. They later appeared corrected, but raised eyebrows among liberal bloggers.

Developing…

 

[Colleen Thomas]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Exit polling, long a key indicator of election trends, emerged on Wednesday as a big loser in the 2004 election after Internet pundits latched onto early data to mistakenly report a commanding lead for Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) in key states.


Analysts reviewing a chain of events on Tuesday that triggered a brief but doomed wave of euphoria among Kerry supporters and a sharp drop on Wall Street, concluded the phenomenon was driven by several factors.


Incomplete results from preliminary exit polling were leaked to the freewheeling world of the Internet, where online political pundits known as bloggers misread or took the information out of context, creating the false impression of an early groundswell for Kerry in key battleground states such as Florida and Ohio.


That view was telegraphed to the public through the mainstream media but proved wrong.


While pollsters, who conducted the exit surveys and news outlets that paid for them blamed others for mishandling the information, some experts found fault with the data itself.


"We have an exit poll crisis," said pollster John Zogby, whose own Election Day predictions that Kerry would take Ohio and Florida proved wrong. He said he had used the exit poll data to confirm conclusions he had based on his own polling.


POLLS CRITICIZED BY ZOGBY


Zogby, in an interview with Reuters, for whom he conducts polls, added, "As polling professionals, we test and judge our samples based on exit polls.


"The first and second rounds yesterday were not good. It used to be that whatever came out in the first round generally held, but yesterday the first round made it look like a Kerry landslide was in the works and he was sweeping states he didn't win, and that is troublesome."


The origin of at least some of online reports giving Kerry a hefty lead in crucial swing states was data collected by pollsters Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool, a consortium of TV networks and other news outlets.


"Some Web sites had data that claimed to be ours. Some of it may have been ours, some of it may have been made-up data, some of it may have been misinterpreted data," said Joe Lenski, vice president of Edison Research.


"A lot of this is whispered-down-the-line stuff, where someone grabs one piece of data and sends it to someone else."


Lenski said early results were more favorable to Kerry than they were for Bush, owing in part to the fact that more women then men tend to vote early in an election and that women in this race favored Kerry.


INFORMATION BADLY HANDLED

But he said the size of the Kerry leads attributed to exit polling was exaggerated by the bloggers, who also appeared to have ignored the caveats and analysis supplied with the data.

"You can tell that anything that appeared online was not interpreted by anyone that had a sophisticated understanding of the workings and limitations of early exit polling," he said.

Early exit polling can be by its nature heavily skewed to one side or another and is not intended to be used to project races or be reported to the public, especially before polls close, Lenski said.

Rather, it is used by news outlets as early guide posts to possible trends that may unfold later.

Harvard University political science professor Thomas Patterson said that for all the caution exercised by TV networks in calling races, they might be better off with scaled-back exit polling aimed more at assessing public opinion and demographics than predicting voting trends.

"I think they'd save themselves both money and headaches, but they're in love with this technique," he said.

While election watchers credited the TV networks with steering clear of early exit poll numbers in their own reporting, they noticed that partisans of the Kerry camp referred to those results in their on-air commentary, helping propagate the flawed information in the mainstream media.

Patterson said a similar pattern emerged four years ago, when preliminary exit polling gave an early edge to Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) in numerous states where it never materialized

 

[Weird Harold]

Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.

Nevada's Touch-Screen systems -- or at least the one I used -- won' even show you the "cast vote" button until you print and review the paper trail.

Sadly, you've accomplished your purpose of sowing division and doubt among the bush-haters who can't accept defeat at the polls and insist on fighting for a defeat in the courts as well.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Re: Re: Another Hot (Paperless) Conspiracy Theory

Nevada's Touch-Screen systems -- or at least the one I used -- won' even show you the "cast vote" button until you print and review the paper trail.

Sadly, you've accomplished your purpose of sowing division and doubt among the bush-haters who can't accept defeat at the polls and insist on fighting for a defeat in the courts as well.

What can I tell you, Harold? Now I know how much fun the Republicans had when they graciously accepted the defeat of Bush I and rallied around Bill Clinton.

Rumple Foreskin