The vote was correct, the exit polls were wrong.

[mikelewis]

I know this election was stolen. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind. I believe. With that said, now begins the task of proving it and preventing it. I believe the most important thing we can do for '06 is to get our own exit poll group together. Right now, the vote was correct. Whether we like it or not, this is what we must deal with for the time being. The Usurper is firmly entrenched in the Oval orifice and there isn't a damn thing we can do but prevent it from happening again. There is a slim chance that we can find enough proof and convince enough people that our government will be forced to act and prosecute but I'm not holding my breath. If we had a government that consisted of Boxer types, I'd feel pretty confident that we'd have some chance at justice but we have a government of Allen and Frist types and well, nough said.

So we must look to the future and prepare. How do we know the election was stolen? The exit polls were the first indication. It is obvious to almost anyone who cares and isn't a Republican. So where did the shrub go wrong? The exit polls present the most credible indication that this was a stolen election. If the exit polls had been corrected earlier, many of us wouldn't be here. Would Conyers have launched his investigation? Would Boxer have stood up? Who knows. Enough evidence has been presented to show how they did it but it was the exit polls that started this ball rolling. I doubt they will be this sloppy again.

In the next election, I would be willing to bet that the exit polls will exactly match the vote. They didn't need to in 2000 or 2002 because there was less visibility on this topic than in 2004. In 2006, I would be willing to bet that this oversight will be addressed. That is why it is imperative that we get our own source for exit polls or perform the exit polls ourselves. I'm sure, in 2 years we can recruit enough people to volunteer to perform exit polls in precincts all across the country. We can learn what to ask and how to compile the data. We can post the data and keep it open for everyone to see. We can mail the completed and signed forms to a central repository and provide copies on-line for people to verify that the form they submitted was recorded correctly. All this can be done for a very nominal amount of money. We would need program administrators and volunteers. We need the forms and the web space which I would be glad to make a donation toward. I believe that this independent source of election verification must be established before the next major election or it too shall be another selection.

Sincerely,
Michael Lewis

edited for tiepoes

[Carolab]

1. I bet you could get votersunite.org to sponsor this and get the volunteers

eom

[Goldeneye]

2. I agree about getting exit polls done.

Exit poll data is another thing that shouldn't be proprietary.

[RaulVB]

3. Thanks, Mike

I agree completely.

[mikelewis]

4. Is there anyone on DU that has done this sort of thing before?

[Terre]

5. I think it's a terrific idea

but putting on the devil's advocate hat for a moment, how seriously would we be taken?

Who could we get or is "respected" enough, so that if there is a significant difference in results - OURS vs THEIRS - would our side carry some weight? Did that make sense?

Pre-planning and strategy sounds like something that should be a pre-requisite - considering the way the other side plays.

In any event, I'd be will to do whatever I could to make it possible.

[Yupster]

22. Perhaps a group like

The League of Women Voters would have the reach and the respect.

[4democracy]

6. I totally agree with you.

I took part in the survey on Conyers' web site then used the contact email to write him about some ideas about election reform the survey didn't cover.
One idea was to have independent exit polling accountable to the American public and not owned by the media since we all know they can't be trusted.
Other countries such as Germany, use paper ballots that are all hand counted but they know within hours who won because their exit polls are so accurate. Then they follow the polls up with open hand counting of the ballots that can take up to a week to complete.

Here is another point I made to Mr. Conyers, it would not take but just a few hours for each precinct to hand count their ballots. A lot of precincts only have a thousand or less voters and several election officials who can count them in a short period of time.

Each precinct should have to publish their totals in the newspaper, for example. Then the totals can't be manipulated after they are counted. All the officials in that precinct would know the total and would know by the publishing, if something different had been reported to the state total.

BTW on Conyers' survey it asks about early voting, and I put I was not in favor of that because it allows for more time to tamper with the votes. I am in favor of a national holiday for voting.
If we use hand counted paper ballots, we can inexpensively add many precincts to areas that might have a long wait time. We could have as many as we want because the machines are what dictates how many precincts now. Do away with them, and we can have all the paper and pencils we need to get everyone in and out quickly.

Anyway I am really glad to see your post because I feel the exit polling is a very important issue. I didn't mean to get carried away about the other issues, but as long as it took me to hunt and peck this out, I am not erasing it!!

[fliesincircles]

34. The precinct hand count is the answer

Any widespread fraud would be nearly impossible. The precinct size would need to be reduced. Not only to make voter access a snap, but also to make the handcount less tedious. More precincts would get more citizens involved with the process, counting and voting, which would lead to better representation. Everyone wins.

To use Ohio as an example. We are being ordered by Blackwell to purchase optiscan machines. For the same cost as the machine purchases Ohio could:
Reduce precicts to 500 registered voters.
Pay 4 more poll workers PER precinct to count votes.
FOR THE NEXT ELEVEN ELECTIONS!!

The cost arguments against handcounts are truly bogus.

[4democracy]

7. Couldn't Congress set something up or at least oversee polling?

If they had an oversite committee, at least maybe they could keep each other honest and it wouldn't be a matter of our poll against their poll. It would be harder to pull a fast one if people like Conyers and Boxer were looking over the pollster's shoulder.

[qwghlmian]

8. The polls are not done by government. They are done

by private organizations. What exactly would the "oversight committee" oversee? The government has no right to interfere in information-gathering activities of a private organization.

Exit polls, the way they are done today in the US, cost around $10M a pop (see hhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51692-2003Jan13¬Found=true about halfway down the page)

A German-style exit poll that would be suitable to detecting fraud would cost about $80 to $160 million - judging by the methodology used and comparing the sizes of Germany and US. (see http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/12/what_about_thos.html for the description of differences between the two types of exit polls) and may still not be as accurate, due to the US high non-response rates and the fact that German Census bureau does official demographic surveys inside polling places and nothing like that exists in the US. Even if they don't reach the level of accuracy of German exit polls, it would still be a big improvement on the US 2004-style exit poll.

Using volunteers may cut down the costs, but would raise serious doubts as to impartiality of the poll. Same thing with political parties conducting the polls - it would just not be taken seriously. So you need an outside, third party, non-political organization that would conduct the polling. If so, I don't think it could be done with volunteers.

So - get the two big political parties to pony up the money needed, and hire a third-party organization to conduct the exit polling using the methodology that is agreed upon by the two parties.

[mikelewis]

12. How on earth can they possibly cost so much? $160M?

I don't see how this could cost this much. I am sure we could get many volunteers, not only from DU but from the Freepers as well. As much as I think they enjoy deluding themselves, I believe they sincerely believe in a free election process. I bet we could get help from both parties with very little effort. Both sides have a stake in a free election. If we setup an exit poll system they may join in the effort to keep it "honest". As much as I dislike them, I do believe that many of them believe in democracy and would be willing to help.

Also, all we would need is forms and a website, maybe an office somewhere that can recieve and post the information as it comes in. This should hardly cost $10M. How many people does Mitofsky employ for an election? I bet we could triple that number at a tiny fraction of that cost.

[qwghlmian]

14. $160M was the high side of my estimate - but

here is the reasoning.

As the base take the $10M that the exit polls cost in the US currently. I presume that most of the cost is information gathering, and the information-processing is just a tiny fraction of the cost.

German population is around 82M. United States population is around 300M. Throw in the much smaller population density in the US, leading to more polling places in the elections, and you can safely multiply whatever Germans do by 4 so that it applies to US.

According to Mystery Pollster the main differences between US style of exit polls and German style are:

1. 22,000 interviews vs 11,000 in the United States
2. Double the number of interviewers
3. More training of the interviewers
4. Ability to stand right outside the exit doors of polls
5. Much higher response rates
6. The parallel German government demographic survey done inside polling places that allows much more precise calibration of the results.

Thus, for the same population, you can see that Germans use two to four times more resources to do their exit polling (two times for the exit polls, and probably as much for the demographic surveys). Multiply that by 4, to account for higher US population and you get a multiplier of 8 to 16. So $10M becomes $80M to $160M. I would think it would tend to be close to $80M because of some economies of scale.

This is serious stuff. This is not done by "forms and a website and an office somewhere". You cannot manage training, deploying, monitoring thousands of interviewers, at thousands of precincts across the United states with a shoestring organization.

[mikelewis]

17. Then how do we do it? This is obviously something that needs to get done.

The professionals obviously would rather protect thier appearance than the truth. They have proven to be unreliable at best and downright crooked at worst. What sort of organization would be required to get this moving? What kind of money would a sustained effort require and what are the requirements for legitamacy? Keep in mind, I want to believe them too. I wouldn't care if the shrub won this one fair and square. I wouldn't like it but I would have accepted it.

[qwghlmian]

20. Mike, it is not the answer to try and build a polling organization

from scratch. That is an enormous task. What you do is get the two political parties to pony up the money that is required, maybe with MSM as a junior partner, and hire an existing polling organization. In return, both parties will be able to determine the exact methodology of the poll, to own the data it collects, and to be able to monitor the process of gathering the data. The more precise they want the exit polls to be, the more $ they will allocate to them.

You will never get the MSM to pay for anything more than they do now - the main purpose of the exit polls for MSM is to provide some fodder for the talking heads during the election coverage and for years afterwards, and the current exit polls satisfy that purpose.

I think it will require the fund-raising resources of the organized political parties to get enough money to conduct serious exit polling, and it has to be both major parties together in order to lend credibility to the numbers.

[mikelewis]

27. Good answer - and welcome to DU

That's what I was looking for. Okay, how do we get this started? Do we begin a petition to the DNC? Do we start a letter "blitz"? Any idea?

[qwghlmian]

28. Well, this will

get me flamed, I am sure, but one thing to do is to stop the accusations of "stealing the elections". As long as you charge the atmosphere like that, Republicans will not cooperate, even ones that may be sympathetic towards conducting improved exit polls, because that message tries to delegitimize the whole Repiblican party and you cannot expect people to cooperate in delegitimizing themselves.

If we want to reach cooperation with Republicans on the exit polling, the attitude should be "fraud may have happened, no one knows how much, no one wants fraud in elections, electoral fraud is hard to find, better exit polling can be done to detect it, that may be expensive but let's split the costs".

On edit: I don't really expect this to happen, at least not soon, because (at least judging by DU) too many people are still too emotionally invested in the past elections to see clearly what is the right thing to do in the long run. They should realize that any moves towards election reform have to have support of both sides of the political isle, or nothing will happen, and if you want good exit polls, even if you have the tens of millions of $ that it will take to do them, if only Democrats conduct those polls they will never be considered seriously.

[mikelewis]

30. Well, that's not going to happen on the DU - the DU has served

as a means to energize and organize the progressive base. For months we have worked day in and day out researching, reading and writing about fraud. To get us to sing a different tune would rob us of the force that drives us. Most of us here are fed up and disgusted by a system that has turned its back on the American Dream. I can't and won't speak for all but for me, the DU is a place where I can find focus and common purpose.

We also love to fight the Freepers. As distracting and annoying as they can be, they add a flair of controversy that makes the long hours of pouring over canvass reports and sifting through articles a little less boring. If that's possible.

I agree that we should approach the issue in a non-partisan manner but the Freepers absolutely refuse to believe that any fraud took place other than on our side. That's not to say that they are dishonest, most are not. They simply do not believe that they can be wrong. They believe in Bush and they believe they have finally come into thier own. To reach out to them right now is somewhat pointless. As time goes on, however, some of them are beginning to realize that they are being sold a bunch of crap and that veil is lifting, slowly but surely.

Just so you know, I used to be a quasi-freeper. I listened to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh religiously. I had no party affiliation but they were the only ones talking about politics on the radio. I read and watched the MSM and had no idea I was being lied to.

When I took the "Red pill", I became enraged. I couldn't believe the level of deceit and treason, it nearly knocked my socks off. If it wasn't for the DU, I would be living in Austrailia right now. I had a job and everything lined up. I was waiting to see if Kerry would win and then I was going to move my whole family out of this country if he didn't. I was filling out immigration paperwork when I found out that the election was stolen. I called Kucinich and started helping out in the effort and they led me here.

I don't want cooperation with Republicans, I don't care about republicans. I don't even care about politics all that much, but now, out of necessity, I must.

I believe in the goodness of the American people but thier will has been supplanted by a malignant cancer. They refuse to see it. Try talking to them if you like. Log onto the Freerepublic and see for yourself. Try posting a fact about fraud that involves a Republican and they'll go completely ape-shit. The conservatives have bought into a line of bull-shit that makes Amway look like a cheesy chain-letter scheme. Ironically, the Usurpers are using the same tactics on thier people that Amway uses on its disciples. It's all mind-control bull-shit. They aren't our allies. They're lost in some strange Jim Jones cult that is sweeping the nation and the Kool-aid is the idea of Freedom. It's amazing in some respects, terrifying in most.

I would love an alliance with the Freepers but our positions are so diamtrically opposed that there is no common ground. They are taught that we are ignorant and misguided by a liberal media that seeks to destroy the Republican power base. They see any opposing view as a threat. I would love to have a dialogue with one who hasn't lost themselves to some sort of rapturous devotion to the party but those are few and far between. It's just going to take time but thier transformation will not come as a result of comprimise, They see no need to comprimise. They believe they have won and we have lost but what they refuse to see is that we have all lost, at least for now.

I would love it if you could reach out and bridge that gap but I fear that you'll hit the same wall so many of us have already run into. But don't stress, when you do. They will come around all on their own and when they do, they'll need a place that they can throw all their rage and energy into a fight. It's the path that led me here and I must believe it'll be the path that leads them here as well.

[qwghlmian]

31. Mike, you asked in your post above

"how do we get this started". The "this" apparently referred to the idea expressed in my post about the exit polls being financed equally by Republican and Democratic parties. Then in your post now you say "I don't want cooperation with Republicans". My answer then - if you don't, why did you ask how to get it started?

[euler]

29. If you want a exit poll....

....that can be used to verify the election, you have to inteview a true random sample of voters. The cost of such a poll is enormous. Europe pays the price, we don't. That's why they can use the exit polls to detect fraud and we can't.

[4democracy]

23. I am not talking about the way it is now, We need a new way of

doing this.

Maybe we need the equivalent of the surveys done by Germany inside the polls. Doesn't that mean the government is involved since the Census Bureau is a part of the German government? So maybe our Census Bureau could get involved. Voter education on election fraud would probably increase participation in exit polling, because people would understand its purpose is to safeguard the results.

I still think we could have Congress involved in the polling. They are controlling all other aspects of voting through HAVA. It is anonymous,so privacy is not a problem and it would be in their best interests to have polling that detects fraud. Then our tax dollars would actually be paying for something that benefits all of us.

I agree with the idea that the majority of Americans,regardless of party affiliations,want honest elections. One way to insure they are, is with exit polls. These polls should be owned by the people and one way to achieve that is through Congress or some type of government involvement. It would have to be better than letting SOME of the government control it through the media, the way it is now.

As far as to what they would oversee, it could be some of the following:
Locations to be polled, number of pollsters, training of pollsters,
questions to be polled, times of day polling is done. Etc, Etc,

They could also oversee the tabulation of the results by statisticians such as Freeman and others determined by the committee. All the parties could have their chosen reps tabulating the results. Just like we have reps from each party on election boards,double checking each other.

Exit polling can be done differently than it is now, everyone just needs to keep throwing out ideas until something feasible comes up.
This is just one idea, I am sure there are a lot more out there. Maybe something will come up we can all get behind and make a reality
before 2006.

[qwghlmian]

24. The government controls the voting process -

exit polls are not part of the voting process. Exit polls are done by private organizations. Anyone can do it. You cannot "oversee" it. If you personally stand outside a polling place and ask people questions, no one can stop you and no one can "oversee" you. The data you gather is yours and no one has the right to demand to see it, and if someone does demand it, you are fully within your rights to tell them to go jump in a lake.

The German government census bureau does demographic surveys inside the polling places. Note that they are not exit polling - it is just trying to ascertain the demographic make up of the voting population. The Government has absolutely NO business asking people who they voted for.

There seems to be this misconception that exit polling is something official, can be regulated and the data that is gathered is somehow in public domain. Not one of these statements is true.

[Mistwell]

9. Volunteers from here will not work

I agree we should have our own exit poll. But it cannot work with DU volunteers. It would be a failed experiment from the beginning. For an exit poll to have any ounce of reliablility the pollers cannot start with a bias.

If you doubt this...ask yourself if you would trust an exit poll conducted by volunteer Freepers. Right. See my point?

The best way to do that is to BUY an exit poll. People are a lot more apt to do their job right if they are getting a pay check to do it that way.

And the purchased exit poll would have to poll a LOT more people than the current one, and in a lot wider area as well. The current one is not of the size or scope of the international exit polls that are used to detect election fraud.

So, that means we need a lot of money. I'm thinking it would have to be funded by a big fish. It's not something DU alone could pull off...unless there are some hidden billionaires here. It doesn't mean we could not start the organization through folks here and have it ready so we can try and recruit some funders...just saying it would take more than we have to do it right.

[mikelewis]

19. I don't know any Billionaires but there are a few Millionaires

who would help. I know one who would gladly help out if there was broad enough support. Regardless, I bet we could raise enough if we put our minds to it.

[PATRICK]

10. the exit poll war

As sure as you have the idea be sure the other side will use it before we get any commitment to the obvious necessity for the party. Before TV the parties did their own polling in private. The competition NOW with the clamps being put down and the scuttling of public exit polling is to have alternate polling, reliable, verifiable and professional out on the web on election night despite the ludicrous concept of a "blackout" on election night by the National Propaganda Networks.

We at least have to KNOW what is going on so we won't have more lies cast over muddied waters or politicians hiding the truth(both parties) with their private control over a simple outside the box technique.

Further. It should be noted by DUers nationwide who and how many are conducting exit polls in a many precincts as possible.

Further. This should not wait until 2008 but employed in the next election and not narrow down to the presidential choice alone. If the party won't finance it someone else should.

The Ukraine liberation of the US should begin today.

More. The methods wearily documented nationwide should be heavily monitored in any way possible and fought early and hard, especially the controls over tabulation and computer voting. Ways to make them pay and sweat should be intensified with the current utter lack of legal penalties for cheaters.

The system has let us done almost completely. Any easy system such as truly independent polling will be used to take the fight outside. If we don't and shrug it off, be sure the other side, faced with a landslide defeat WILL phony up using this or any other method filled with falsehood to re-steal the election.

[mikelewis]

11. What about petitioning international organizations to oversee our election

Clearly it's in thier best interest to see America ruled by Americans and not some usurper. What is the likelyhood of getting substantial help and oversight from outside the U.S.? By leaving such an important part of our electoral system in the hands of people like Mitofsky, we are setting ourselves up for failure. What international organizations would be willing to help and how do we contact and petition them for assistance?

[Helga Scow Stern]

16. That's not a bad idea, but remember the OSCE has been "overseeing"

them since 2002 at the invitation of the State Department. The CBC wrote to the UN to monitor this last election, but the Republicans had a fit, so the OSCE was invited back.

[L. Coyote]

13. Nov. 1972 re: NIXON "there isn't a damn thing we can do ..."

I said that. I was younger then, and a fool to believe it.

You are wrong to say it today. It is, of course, a self-actualizing prophecy if you believe it.

[mikelewis]

18. I meant about his inauguration and a transfer of power to the Dems.

He is the President now. Nixon resigned and was pardoned. I hardly call that justice. Also, Bush has much more to answer for than vote rigging and an idiotic war. I won't stop until everyone knows what he has done, that treasonous Muther-Pucker

[rzemanfl]

15. Rent a lot of post office boxes. Give out postcards at the polls on

which each person who voted could mark their votes in major races , their initials, polling place and their voter's registration number and have them mail them to the post office box. Volunteers then count them and if there are discrepancies you have evidence to work with. You'd need to get 100% cooperation from people who are not won over to the dark side of the force.

If amateurs do exit polling they will be torn apart by bought and paid for "experts."

This will not work against ghost votes but will prevent switching and give evidence of intent if there are suspiciously high undervotes or votes going to third party candidates. To stop ghost votes you'd either need the poll books or have people count or video each person who enters the polling station.

This will only be needed if people are not so disgusted with Republicans by then that they couldn't get one elected dogcatcher. Remember that a lot of * voters had no idea what his real positions were on the issues and did not agree with his positions, they agreed with what they imagined them to be. (see the PIPA poll from before the "election.")

[bardgal]

21. WAKE UP!!! THE BIGGEST BATTLE WE HAVE IS GETTING RID OF E-VOTING AND

GOING TO ALL PAPER BALLOTS, STRICTLY HAND COUNTED, WITH TRANSPARENT OVERSIGHT, AND MANY OBSERVERS. PERIOD!!!!!

IT WON'T MATTER A DAMN IF WE HAVE OUR OWN EXIT POLLING WHEN WE GET THE SAME RESULT IN '06.

HOW F-ING LONG BEFORE EVERYONE REALIZES THIS? HOW MANY ELECTIONS DO WE HAVE TO LOSE????? WE'VE ALREADY LOST THREE IN A ROW - WILL FOUR BE ENOUGH TO GET OUR ENERGY FOCUSED ON THE FACT THAT E-VOTING JUST MAKES FRAUD THAT MUCH EASIER ON A LARGER SCALE??????

THE MORE TIME GOES BY IS JUST GIVING THEM MORE TIME TO PERSUADE THE MASSES THAT IT WASN'T STOLEN, AND PEOPLE REALLY ARE ALL BORN AGAIN FUNDIES - LOOK WHAT THEY TRIED THIS TIME WITH THEIR BOGUS MORALITY POLLING!!!!

THIS NEEDS TO BE PRIORITY ONE. AND YOU'LL KNOW YOU'VE HIT PAY-DIRT WHEN THE LOT OF THEM FIGHT YOU ON THIS EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

WAKE THE F-K UP!!!!!!

[brindis_desala]

25. I hear you and you're right although with reliable observers

a centrally located tabulater would be acceptable for the count.
As the exit polling proved Oregon State does it best

[mikelewis]

26. I appreciate your enthusiasm but the machines weren't the only source

of fraud.

I'm from Ohio where it is predominantly paper ballot puch-cards. Yes, there was some machine tampering but it was an entire mix of factors that worked in unison and not simply the machines. The vote machines can do the job as long as there is a clear audit trail and the source code is inspected and compiled prior to the vote. An open system can augment our election system and alleviate a lot of problems. It's not the machines but the crooks making the machines we need to watch out for. If you can trust a machine to dispense your cash, you can trust one to count a vote.

If you read the Conyers report, his emphasis is not strictly on the evils of the machines but on the entire gambit of disenfranchisment and fraud that ran rampant throughout my state. I am simply looking for a measure by which any fraud in any manner can be determined. Fraudulent elections have taken place throughout our history. Even JFK dabbled a bit, whether directly or indirectly. Remember it was Mayor Daley who brought back the dead to vote for Kennedy. He didn't need a computer for that.

http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-7.htm

The Frumious Bandersnatch has obtained the following memorandum from the Chicago political machine:
How to steal an election
Vote early and vote often
Our election get-out-the-vote effort was pioneered by Mayor Richard Daley in 1960 when he stole the election from Richard Nixon.

1. Cemetery Voters: Read the obituaries every day. One must keep track of everyone who dies, so that they can be registered in the appropriate cemetery precinct. We have voters in the Mt. Olive Cemetery who have been voting for 100 years. Relatives will often assist as keeping the dead voter on the rolls also keeps the Social Security checks coming in. If you know of someone who used to live in Chicago and who died, they are still eligible to vote.

2. Homeless Voters: Register the homeless at the Cook County Courthouse instead of General Delivery. All they have to do is hang out at the courthouse one day a year to claim residency. Then round them up and give them free cigarettes to vote. We used to give them bottles of wine, but they couldn't remember to vote our way.

3. Nursing Home Voters: Early (or absentee) voting has greatly expanded our capabilities of increasing the turnout. Take bags full of early ballots to nursing homes, and get everyone in the home to vote...especially the Alzheimer's cases.

4. College Students: College kids like to screw the system, and they'll vote more than once just for the sheer pleasure of it, especially kids at Catholic universities.

5. Voters Who Have Moved: Voters who have moved often can vote in the precinct where they used to live, and then in their new precinct. They will not be on the rolls in the new precinct, so they'll vote a "Questioned Ballot". Not to worry. When the ballot is questioned after the election, we will have our political hacks permit the votes to be counted.

6. Voters Passing Through O'Hare: Many votes can be obtained by soliciting voter registration at our airports. They are legally residents of Chicago, at least for a few minutes.

7. Motor Voters: Take license plate numbers of out-of-state cars passing through on the freeways, run them through DMV to get their addresses, and automatically register them in Chicago. Then vote them. They won't know, since they actually live in Wyoming.

8. Illegal Aliens: Some of our most reliable voters are the thousands of illegal aliens we have in the city. In exchange for not telling INS where they live or work, one can get a solid block of votes.

9. Newborns: Our children are more and more precocious, so we register them at birth. Maternity wards are some of our best precincts.

10. Recount The Votes: In the unlikely event our candidates don't win the first count, then demand a recount. Fill the recount room with loyal supporters, and tow away the cars belonging to the enemy. If you can't win a recount, then you are not a Chicago Democrat.

//////////////////////

And no need to shout, dear. I'm already awake.

[KnowerOfLogic]

32. Yes, we definitely need to get media-independent exit polls. nt

[passy]

33. That's if exit polls are not deemed illegal by 2006!

You seem to forget that you now live in a fascist state with the appearance of a functioning democracy.
*'s mandate will probably allow him to make things like exit polls and GOTV movements illegal by 2006. Repugs are already saying that they are useless and have failed in 2000, 2002 and 2004 and should be scraped. So I believe the answer doesn't lie in independent exit polls but rather in organized revolution, pick your history books and look at what method can be applied to ousting the despot.
In a sense the situation is similar to that of a colonial state where a few people rule a majority who have no rights and are not consulted when it comes to running politics and the economy. The privileged few have lost touch with the American people, they are looking out after themselves, the natives work for them and help make them richer. The government that they have helped bring to power is finding better and better ways to make tax money reach their pockets, from funding wars based on untruths to privatizing such institutions as Social Security to freely disperse all the cash that was accumulated by hard working Americans.
The enemy is the money, the money rules all aspects of American life: terrorist threats and wars are nice ways of keeping people servile in constant fear, making them accept financial and human sacrifices and blinding them to the fact that they are being robbed. Of course they use some of that cash to make nice TV so that you won't even have time to really consider the state of things.
So if your idea is followed how do you think it would change the situation when the media is not willing or interested in having fair elections, how would you propagate your information?
You say the Internet, but plenty of information about how fraudulent this election is, is available already and has been since Nov 2.
Now two months on what difference has it made?
I mean, tell me honestly how your approach will manage to reach more people who in the mean time have been told by the MSM that exit polls are unreliable over and over again.
I can see that you have hope, that things can change for the better but I very much doubt it. I'm afraid but some kind of revolution is needed unless some major f**k up blow *'s cover and the MSM decide that they don't want to go down with the sinking ship.