(Bush) Pollster Pleads Guilty to Fraud (fabricating results)

[kskiska]

The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.

Tracy Costin pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Costin, 46, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when she is sentenced Nov. 30.

(snip)

FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified, the Connecticut Post reported Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.

more…
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/07/D8K01L503.html

[Eugene]

1. A Republican cheated? I'm shocked.

His real crime was stealing from the wrong people.

[MidwestTransplant]

4. No honor among thieves I guess

:)

[Igel]

5. She's a repub?

I must have missed that in the article.

[MethuenProgressive]

2. So, they were lying to Bush & Lieberman?

Good for them.

[Supersedeas]

3. polls changed to meet a filthy Neo-Con quota--no way!!

[jean]

6. this group probably has back-door links to counting our votes

[daleo]

7. It sets the stage for election fraud

A pollster manipulates results before the election. This would be very convenient if election results were going to be manipulated all along, in line with the made up polls. It sets the stage for election fraud.

Perhaps they were the famous Republican "internal polling shows us doing better than expected among women (or African Americans, Hispanics - choose any group you like)". Thus, incredible election results become "well, our polls told us this was happening".

Who else did this company work for? Were the manipulated polls released to the public, or kept confidential?

Lots of people think polls are never manipulated. This level of fraud is a bit surprising, it seems quite awkward. There are smoother ways of doing it. Still, I think this is very important news.

[Gormy Cuss]

8. She is small potatoes and dirty as sin

DOJ indicted her based on eleven separate surveys between 2001-2004 -- no indication which were polls or for Bush. These were for the most part small, cheap quick-turnaround polls, with interviews purportedly completed in a week or less. The most expensive survey cost $24,000. Most were in the range of $4000-6000. The falsified data ran the gamut from wholly faked interviews to post interview recoding of gender and other attributes to fill quota groups. I'm willing to bet that in every case this company underbid the competition in order to win the work.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ct/Documents/DataUSA%2520Indictment.pdf

From the company website I learned that they 'maintain' 50 CATI stations and some level of executive interviewing capacity. The only discussion of sampling touts the sample module in their CATI software, a product called OSCAR. I'm not familiar with it but the software probably produces standard cross tabulations and summary statistics but not much else. The company may not have any professional employees other than the owners and the phone room manager.

on edit: one problem with using this sort of vendor is it's easy for them to fake a few interviews to meet quota. Most don't, but there are always a few bad actors in every business. As a client when we farmed out work to this type of vendor we always used our own employees to verify a certain percentage of interviews as a precaution. Both the bid request and the vendor's contract would make it clear that we would do this.

[Tuttle]

9. Pollster guilty of fake data conspiracy

BRIDGEPORT — A polling company owner admitted participating in a conspiracy to falsify data in order to meet deadlines for clients, which included the campaigns of President Bush, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Mayor John M. Fabrizi.

Tracy Costin, 46, of Madison, admitted to U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall that she participated in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Costin, who owned and operated DataUSA, a survey and polling firm with offices in West Haven and Guilford, faces up to five years in prison when she is sentenced Nov. 30.

<SNIP>

FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified.


more
http://www.connpost.com/news/ci_4298956

...imagine that

Tut-tut

[Atman]

10. Oh, gosh! Fake Bush poll numbers? No, it can't be!

I am SOOOOOOO suprised. Not.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. No.

They gave fake numbers to the Bush campaign.

[Atman]

18. Right...fake poll numbers.

Why bother giving the emperor the real numbers anyway? Just make something up. BushCo does it all the time.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

20. Ya. And to Rosa DeLauro, too.

Stop trying to make this about Bush. These people were assholes and liars in their own right, Bush or no Bush.

[Demeter]

11. Who Decided Thursday Was Crazy Day?

I just love the thought of all these seriously disturbed politicians getting screwed over by their pollster!

[woodsprite]

19. The stars - supposedly Uranian lunar eclipse = Fireworks! n/t

[bluestateguy]

12. I think this kind of stuff goes on a lot more often than we realize

She just got caught.

[Captain Hilts]

32. No, it takes a lot of effort to fake numbers.

Trying to be accurate is easier.

It's the clients that commission the surveys that distort the released materials.

[jamesinca]

13. I think she should get probation at best

Why do I think this, because Bush has said he does not pay attention to polls. So it is not like they were ever going to read what she sent, none the less use it anyway. If you lie to somebody who does not listen to you, is it really a lie?

[nolabels]

15. How many other freaking paid off pollsters are there?

Wasn't there some stories about some slush funds the GOP and federal agencies use on corporate media operatives. I know there have been a few of the them reporters getting caught red handed with the cash

[City Lights]

16. Fake poll results will match fake election results.

:tinfoilhat:

Swell.

[texpatriot2004]

17. That's for sure nm

[me b zola]

34. It has already begun.

I believe that we saw the genesis of this after last year's election theft. Remember the spin of the pollster who adjusted the exit poll numbers to match the middle of the night shift to favor bush*?

[deminks]

21. Polling company owner pleads guilty to fraud, clients included Bush and Li

Polling company owner pleads guilty to fraud, clients included Bush and Lieberman campaigns

http://www.wbz.com/topic/ap_news.php?story=AP/APTV/National/a/a/PollFraud_a_a_-----

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.

Tracy Costin pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Costin, 46, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when she is sentenced Nov. 30.

FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified, the Connecticut Post reported Thursday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.

[mike_c]

22. LOL-- bubble-boy's bubbler has been busted....

:rofl:

When all else fails, MAKE SHIT UP.

[LA lady]

23. Not very current

This occurred in 2002-04

[JuniperLea]

24. You should be more precise in your criticism

The story of the owner who pleads guilty is new. The act of fraud for which she pleads guilty may be aged.

Still, a great story!




Damn those conspiracy theorists who talked about this so very long ago!! :sarcasm:

[MrPrax]

28. It's common for most polling...

and probably what occurred here is frequent and widespread. It seems that the falsification was done purely to fill out dempgraphics -- common problem. There is a strong public resistance to polling and most of these firms are producing fraud

Increasing Number Of Hang-Ups Has Telephone Pollsters Worried


"...More and more Americans are treating pollsters the same way they treat callers who try to sell them something. They use answering machines and caller ID to dodge the calls, and when all else fails, they slam down their receivers.

At a time when America's newspapers, computers and airwaves are filled with two or three political polls a day, the trend is beginning to alarm statisticians and experts. High refusal rates, as they're called, raise new questions about the validity of surveys that use responses from 1,000 or fewer voters to conclude, for instance, that George W. Bush is ahead of Al Gore.

...

No one knows to what extent the lack of participants threatens a poll's credibility and usefulness, if at all, said Warren Mitofsky, who started the CBS News/New York Times poll.

But members of the polling industry are troubled nonetheless, and some convened an international conference last fall to discuss the problem.

``The trust factor is waning,'' said Jane Sheppard of the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research. ``When the caller says, `Hello my name is . . .,' right away people think they are being hounded by someone who is going to sell them something. They're not giving it enough time.''

Common Dreams

I remember hearing an interview with a pollster in Canada that basically said they are becoming useless. Some Canadian cities (probably the same in the US) have hang up rates of 50% or more and trying to get a sampling of female 18-24 -- forget it....won't happen unless the firm has months to waste.

In political polling, the trend is towards focus groups to assess issues and related campaign profiling.

[Captain Hilts]

36. NO. Polling accurately is a scientific process.

You find out how accurate you are on election day.

You balance the sample so that it reflects likely voters. You have to do that because, otherwise, you'd have surveys only of the opinions of women over 35 because they're the ones that answer the phone.

[harpboy_ak]

40. I hang up on known Repuke pollsters

Fortunately, in a state as small as Alaska, you know which pollsters usually work for Repukes and which for Dems. I always ask who the poll is for. They usually won't tell you who the client is but they may tell you which polling firm.

So I hang up on the pollsters that use any kind of automated poll, or won't tell me the name of the polling firm or work for a repuke pollster. If I get an obvious "push poll" which is really a propaganda device, not a poll, I tell them that what they are doing is not a poll, it's propaganda, and that I intend to file a complaint with state or federal election agencies (which I have done in the past).

I also tell Dem campaigns calling me for money that I NEVER respond to telephone solicitations, to never call me again, and to send me a written request if they want me to consider a donation.

Candidates from both parties have been using autmated predictive dialers to call with recorded speeches, which totally turns me off. I would never use that as a candidate! Why needlessly annoy folks who support you?

[Liberal Dose]

25. Good thing the little cowpoke doesn't care about polls! NT

[whatelseisnew]

26. k&r

[w4rma]

27. They faked their internal polling? omg.

hahahahaha. That can really screw up a campaign. This couldn't happen to two more deserving campaigns.

Considering who two of those clients listed were, she deserves thank you letters. After her sentencing, of course. Maybe some good words for the judge before tho. :)

[Captain Hilts]

33. That's really sad, isn't it? nt

[Tuttle]

29. K & R

There seem to be dupes of this story from other sources here

Tut-tut

[urbuddha]

30. LIEberman and Bush are linked on many issues !!!

LIEberman is a Republican.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck.

:think:

[Mountainman]

31. Everyone around Bush is going to jail while he'll waltz the hell on out of

the White House scott free.

[Joanne98]

35. Someday we'll nail Kellyanne!

[Captain Hilts]

37. Fred Thompson already did. Oh! You're talking about fraud...

sorry, I got confused about the kind of polling you were talking about.

That was a very close client-pollster relationship...

[shanti]

38. AND THAT, FOLKS

is why i never believe in polls. wayyyyyy too easy to fudge.

[Canuckistanian]

39. Haha! Rush was featuring this story today

He must not have known that they worked for Pretzel Boy.

Rush was taking another angle saying, "what if this is just the tip of the iceberg?".

Meaning, of course that this would help to explain Junior's dismal approval ratings.

[Betty]

41. they fabricate results in the elections themselves

so I don't see why they wouldn't having matching poll "results"