Are EXIT POLL RESULTS really just elaborate FAKES?

[spooked911]

Read this article and tell me what you think:

http://onlinejournal.com/evoting/010705Landes/010705landes.html

[Postmanx]

1. Haven't you heard

Exit polls are MORE accurate than actual voting records.

[spooked911]

3. so they say

did you read the article?

[PROGRESSIVE1]

6. This is not a right wing publication, is it?

[spooked911]

9. No-- ONLINE JOURNAL is very lefty

I have no idea about the author though

[tk2kewl]

2. I will get to it later but sounds like RW propaganda to me

[RaulVB]

4. That's what right wing propagandists say (n/t)

[12345]

5. AP REPORTER CONNECTED TO COMPUTER?

Thankfully, American Free Press reporter, Christopher Bollyn was in the right place at the right time on Election Night 2004. He spotted an AP employee connecting her laptop to an ES&S computer at the Cook County (IL) election headquarters. But, was she downloading or uploading data? In an interview with this reporter, Bollyn said, "When I asked the AP "reporter" if she had "direct access" to the mainframe computer that was tallying the votes, she said yes and then Burnham (a Cook County official) stepped in and re-asked my question for me. Again the answer was, "Yes."

I called Cook County this week and spoke with Cass Cliatt, their spokesperson. She said that, after the polls close, any reporter can use the county's "connector cables" that allow them to download the latest vote totals. Cliatt said that this did not constitute a connection to the mainframe computer. She did admit that AP employees were there on Election Night and had cables dedicated to them specifically. But, she again insisted that the AP cables were not connected to the mainframe computer. Bollyn disagrees.

[12345]

7. "WAS SHE DOWNLOADING OR UPLOADING DATA?"

[12345]

8. I read an artilcle, can't remember where right now, that suggested that

the one organization that had access to the data was the AP, an organization with a lot of republican ties. Sorta overlooked it at the time, but this sounds kinda interesting in that context...

[newyawker99]

20. Hi 12345!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[troubleinwinter]

22. This appears to be a quote, please indicate and link to original.

[spooked911]

10. This MIGHT explain why even democrats are dismissing the exit poll results

as well as why Mitofsky is being so secretive about their methods.

[demo dutch]

11. Bologna! Exit polls are used all over the world especially the

problematic areas, so check election results. Jimmy Carter said this in a recent interview regarding Ohio!

[Imnottelling]

13. read the article.

It suggests that the exit polls in the USA are faked by the MSM.

[demo dutch]

15. I am getting really depressed, is there anything left that does

not suggest conspiracy!

[newyawker99]

21. Hi Imnottelling!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Imnottelling]

12. Yall should read this.

In the last paragraph he says exit polls are useless but his reason for saying that is quite interesting.

Considering the news about Armstrong Williams (and what most of us have been suspecting from the MSM for a few years now) it raises the possibility of what the author suspects.

The main point, in my opinion, is that Mitofsky et.al. needs to be forced to really explain why the exit polls were so far off. Why why why? There are only two explanations: (1) some part of their methodolgy was incorrect thus skewing the exit polls or (2) this was a fraudalent election. It is faulty logic to assume that there was something wrong with the methodology of the exit polls because they didn't match the results...that should be obvious to everybody with a brain.

Exit polls are not black magic, they are science. Of course, exit polls have errors but they can be controlled and predictions can be made. The off-the-cuff explanations, for example,GOP voters refusing to answer the poll, are just asinine. We need numbers. When was the poll administered? To whom? Where? How long was each poll? Exactly how many people from where participated in the exit poll? One needs to determine how random the sample was. I'm sick of assuming that since Mitofsky is a pro, his samples will be nearly random. Maybe he's a crackpot. Maybe he's a cheater. Maybe he's a faker. Nobody knows and we should find out :)

I haven't heard anything from Mitofsky that is remotely convincing as of yet as to why there was a discrepancy We cannot let this die and let this guy off the hook. I firmly believe there is a smoking gun in the exit polls somewhere. Something clearly doens't add up. If, at the end of the day, it is found the MSM fake their exit polls then that must come out in the open. (If it is found that the GOP knows the MSM fakes the exit polls then all the better.)


By the way, DID ANYBODY HERE TALK TO AN EXIT POLLER? I didn't. It is literally like finding a needle in a haystack (120,000,000 votes and 13,000 exit polled....that's only a 1/10,000 chance that any one of us were exit polled)!

[spooked911]

16. Yes-- did anyone here get exit-polled or even SEE a real exit poller?

The article claims the exit-polls are really pre-election polls with some massaging. And this makes some sense.

This may also fit in with what another poster was saying a few days back-- that her boyfriend wrote software for exit polls and that the "exit polls" weren't meant to be used to call elections more-- they were more for demographics.

[Stevepol]

14. GET REAL: The exit polls are all we have anymore. Compare

the exit polls with the DREs and the election results. The exit polls are constantly updated and improved. Ideally, they are transparent, are subject to scientific discussion and steady improvement. Are used all over the world, in the German national elections e.g., where the average deviation from norm is about .25 of the margin of error. That's the average, so the wildest deviation is about the limit of the margin of error, and the errors go both ways.

The DREs are either not audited or can't be audited. The companies scream bloody murder if you want a voter-verified paper trail to just know that your vote was recorded and have even the means to audit. Recounts and audits are abhorred by elections officials, access to the records is highly discouraged, etc. etc. And the deviations for states with paper ballots, IL or WI or ME e.g. are right on the mark, deviations about the same as for the German elections. Yet in those states that use the DREs, the deviations from the exit polls are large, very often beyond the margin of error. It's the smoking gun, the only one that's really needed to know that this last election was fraudulent and that every election from now on that isn't audited w/ hand-counted paper ballots will also be fraudulent.

[idealista]

17. my two left-field theories: cheaping out, tricking exit poll staff

It sounds like a perfect scam - just make up a bunch of numbers, maybe do an actual exit poll here and there, save most of the money you're getting paid, and then refuse to divulge the actual locations, etc., so that no one can proof it.

That's just a very little garden variety scam. Tempting to the small businessman. "I'd be a sucker not to cheat if I can" - some people's credo. BUt if that were the plan, why report early numbers so favorable to Kerry? Because at that very hour, someone was trying to shake him down? "We'll let you win but only if you agree to....".

Some numbers could be genuine, alot made up, then the final totals drawn largely from actual election "results" - real or fraudulent. Now, that is a conspiracy involving more parties.

In any case, another reason to not divulge actual polling locations raw data could be so that any actual exit poll personel who remember what they reported in can't see if their real numbers were actually used?

I a ashamed of myself - talking like some conspiracy theorist!

[Carolab]

18. Lynn Landes has been investigating election reform/fraud for a while

And writing on it. She appeared at the first Conyers hearing: remember? She was the lady who argued with Nadler about paper ballots being more reliable?

I have my own theory. I think that perhaps this information that Lynn has should go to Conyers and I think they should query Chris Bollyn about what he saw and get an affidavit from him. I think that perhaps the AP directly linked to the tabulators to get the early numbers, which were the early results we have seen. I think they did this so they could see the direction the results were trending so as to calculate how much to shift the results and the exit polls to match. I think that might be why there is a delay in releasing the "raw data". I think they might be making up the difference between the low early numbers and the supposed 113,000+ people who were polled in order to "prove" * won.

[Emit]

19. I think she testified at one of Conyers hearings...

As one of the public witnesses who stood in line, I recall seeing her speak...the same day Jeff Fisher spoke. She has her own website about election fraud. I think she is an attorney, too. Edit to say, sorry Carolab, didn't notice you already mentioned this.

[anaxarchos]

23. With all due respect...

This seems like a genuine, tin-foil hat conspiracy theory to me. Because she is left-wing doesn't make her right. Instead, it sounds like Madsen. The means, the motivation, the players, the reasoning - none of it holds together. The effect is to attempt to undermine one of the most important indications that this election was rigged (the exit polls). Might as well make it a Rove conspiracy to cast doubt on the popular use of exit polls to discredit Bush's "victory".

For the record, I believe the election was rigged, I believe the exit polls were accurate in saying that Kerry won, and I believe that widespread election fraud and suppression exist. I also believe it is hard to "fix" exit polls except to the extent of massaging the data to match the "real" results.

This theory trades a conspiracy to steal democracy for an NEP conspiracy to cheat CBS and it sounds thoroughly lame. How does this advance anything?

[spooked911]

24. I don't believe the article anymore. I'm sort of sorry I brought it up

It was just this was the first I had heard of that idea and I was struck by the possibility. I thought it might explain some things.

And I think there was something fishy with the election resullts, too.