Dr. Freeman's article in the SFTimes...

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/06/EDGOQAL6VA1.DTL

Please email the SFTimes comments on the article -- they are currently running 4:1 hate/positive mails :-(

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In three national elections over the past 13 months, the official count was sharply at odds with an independent national exit poll. As in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, U.S. exit polls projected a clear victory for the challenger. John Kerry was projected to win the national popular vote by a 2 percent to 3 percent margin and was ahead in nearly every closely contested state. Of course, the official counts, as in the other nations, showed an almost mirror image victory for the incumbent party candidate.

The citizens of Georgia and Ukraine refused to accept the official tallies, protested vigorously and , with international support, overturned the election, but U.S. voters have passively accepted the results of their election and gone back to business, oblivious to the discrepancy and blind to the implications.

A 5 percent shift in a poll like this is extraordinary. Exit pollsters do not have to guess about who is actually going to vote, or whether they might change their mind. Exit polls can achieve larger samples cost-effectively: the national election-day sample had more than 13,000 respondents, meaning that it should have accurately forecast the result within plus or minus 1 percent.

Polling error beyond statistical margins of error is possible, of course. That's why we actually count the votes, and why the count determines the winner. But when there are serious questions over how elections are conducted, we look to these exit polls.

[TruthIsAll]

1. We agree. Here's my analysis, based on 13,047 random sample, 1% MOE

From: The Washington Post Website: Nov. 3

Edison/Mitofksky notes at the bottom:
1.0% MOE for a RANDOMLY-selected sample.

The Odds: 1 in 547 million that Bush could deviate 3.01% from the poll to the vote.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=261825&mesg_id=261825

[Coexist]

2. done

[Duncan]

10. Thanks TIA

Please don't stop hammering this into the big dumb head of the world.

[EFerrari]

3. It's the Chronicle, btw. How do you know about the email? n/t

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

15. He sent me email in response to an inquiry from me...

(Sorry about the late response, but I was away the whole day.)

[kimpossible]

4. Done. And they have a great editorial today; link below -

SF Chronicle Editorial -

The Ohio objection

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/07/EDGOQALLPD1.DTL

[meganmonkey]

5. Feedback submitted

I commended them for covering this issue in a rational way.

[EFerrari]

6. In fact, they haven't. Wyatt Buchanan, the reporter on the story

was fed information and pointed in the direction of evidence for several weeks before I gave up on him. It was just uncanny.

This oped piece is the first real assembly of facts in this paper in all this time.

[meganmonkey]

7. I specifically referenced the Freeman piece n/t

[EFerrari]

9. Right. I was contrasting with their actual coverage. n/t

[StephanieMarie]

8. Just sent them a nice "thank you" n/t

[texpatriot2004]

11. kick

[euler]

12. This is bunk, and bizarre.

Freeman acknowledges in his paper that the man who was responsible for designing the 2004 presidential election exit poll - Warren Mitofsky -says the exit poll was not designed to verify the election, yet that is precisely what Freeman's paper attempts to do.

"The pollsters have taken great pains to argue that their polls
were not designed to verify election results" (page 3.)

This is bizarre in light of a footnote on page 3 of his paper that states: "Warren Mitofsky, the founder of Mitofsky International, is credited with having invented the exit poll."

The premiere exit poll expert on the planet says that his exit poll cannot be used to verify the actual election results and what does Freeman do ? He tries to use the exit poll to verify the actual election results.

Freeman is certainly no exit poll expert. Consider this quote from page 4:

"It’s an awful mistake, but entirely understandable – few of us realized that these data were corrected. Neither the CNN website, nor any other site of which I am aware, gives any indication that the data were anything other than what nearly all of us imagine exit poll data to be – data based solely on subjects surveyed leaving the polling place."

Yet, the fact that exit polls numbers are re-weighted by actual vote count is so fundamental to the way exit polls are conducted in this country that no expert could possibly say they did not 'realize' this or they did not 'imagine exit polls to be' that way. He does note that it's 'an awful mistake.' It *is* an awful mistake, and it's not one a real exit poll expert could make.

Other problems: Germany and US exit polls are apples and oranges. So says the man in Germany that conducted the German exit polls referenced by Freeman. That he equates them is indicative of other issues, that I may write about later.

Go here for the German - US exit poll comparison:

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/12/what_about_thos.html

[mattclearing]

13. Here's my letter...kinda harsh, but that's how I like it.

Thank you for your coverage of voting issues in Ohio. Most people don’t realize the extent of the problems, and I am sure you are getting a great deal of negative mail from people who don’t like your publication to begin with because of your coverage.

There are people, apparently even in the U.S. Congress, who do not believe Democracy can be improved, who say that no election is perfect and then make no effort to improve it. These are the laziest of thinkers, the most mediocre of patriots, and the least worthy of the votes our predecessors fought so hard to be able to cast.

Edit to note: Having read the article, it seems my reference to Ohio was in error, but the Chronicle is covering that too, and my letter didn't reference this particular story, so I guess I'm in the clear. :)

[snot]

14. Just sent SF Chron this letter

Gentlemen and Ladies:

Thank you for publishing the article by Dr. Freeman. His work and that of many others individuals shows that we should all be very deeply concerned about whether our election process is working as it should.

As you may know, before the 2004 election, President Jimmy Carter warned,

"asic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida. . . . The most significant of these requirements are:

"• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

"• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52800-2004Sep26.html; see also http://millercenter.virginia.edu/programs/natl_commissions/final_report.html for the actual report of the commission referred to and http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/hava.html for a summary of the latter report.>

It seems obvious now that Ohio suffered the same deficiencies that President Carter observed in Florida. We cannot afford NOT to focus attention on the need for election reform.