"Centre-left claims Italy victory"

[nicknameless]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/4897994.stm

Tuesday, 11 April 2006, 04:17 GMT 05:17 UK
Centre-left claims Italy victory
Italy's centre-left opposition has won a narrow victory in the lower house of parliament, official results say.

It won 49.8% of the vote against 49.7% for the governing centre-right.

The head of the centre-left coalition, former Prime Minister Romano Prodi, told cheering supporters in Rome: "Victory has arrived."

But the outcome of the Senate vote is still unclear. And Mr Prodi's claim has been contested by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.

Mr Berlusconi's spokesman Paolo Bonaiuti said his bloc would demand a "scrupulous" check of election ballots.

"Today, we have turned a page... We will govern for five years"
Romano Prodi

<snip>

And http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1751421,00.html

3.30am update
Prodi claims victory in Italy poll

Staff and agencies
Tuesday April 11, 2006

Romano Prodi speaks to supporters at a rally in Rome. Photograph: Patrick Hertzog/Getty

Romano Prodi today claimed victory in Italy's general election as his centre-left coalition won control of the lower house of parliament.

Provisional official results showed the centre-left won the lower house with 49.8% of the vote compared to 49.7% for Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.

<snip>

"We have won, and now we have to start working to implement our program and unify the country," Mr Prodi said at a rally in Rome.

But the claim was immediately contested by Mr Berlusconi's camp.

A spokesman for the sitting prime minister told reporters that the centre-right coalition would call for a "scrupulous" check of election ballots.

<snip>

1/10 of 1 percentage point.

[southwood]

1. Ring a bell?

Exit polls predict a clear win for the left by about 5%, and in the actual counting this figure evaporates. Sound familiar?

[Febble]

2. Except that it's the right

that is demanding a scrupulous recount.

[nicknameless]

4. Yes, very familiar.

Italy's first use of voting machines too. What a surprise.

Just ignore those who are paid to trash exit polls.

[foo_bar]

5. according to our Italian DUers, all the ballots were hand counted

there is no electronic voting here (yet) Just some counting, in 4 regions out of 20, as an experiment. All votes on paper ballots and counted by hand.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2218613#2219309

The Italian Government has decided to introduce some informatics in counting votes in the next general elections of April 2006. Votes will still be hand-written on ballot papers and manually counted by scrutineers at each polling station using the good old procedures.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2218613#2219637

At the closing of voting the electronic result is compared with the manual one and in case of discordance the official is the manual.

http://www.electronic-vote.org/TERMINI/italians_en.php

The machine count was redundant, if I'm reading this correctly.

[nicknameless]

6. Thanks for posting those.

I had seen a post about Accenture/Authur Anderson, but without the additional details.
Interesting. I wonder why the discrepancy then between the exit polls and the vote totals.

:shrug:

[Febble]

8. Well, that's the $64,000 question....

But I submit that it is possible that exit polls are vulnerable to bias....

[MADem]

10. Ballot box stuffing, perhaps? n/t

[nicknameless]

14. Hopefully the opposition in that country isn't as wimpy or cowed

as the opposition is here, so they'll be able to the bottom of what happened.

But the Mitofsky hirees will probably tell us that the conservatives in Italy are shy, just like they are here, and didn't want to answer the pollsters. :eyes:

[Febble]

25. Yep, I am happy to confirm

your prediction, and say that it is perfectly possible that there was selection bias in the poll.

If the poll disagrees with the count, either the count is biased, or the poll is.

If the discrepancy favors the conservatives, then any poll explanation has to postulate that conservatives were less well represented in the poll. If the discrepancy favors the progressives, then any poll explanation has to postulate that progressives were less well represented in the poll.

But of course it could be the count.

And let me state, on the record, that I have NEVER been hired by ANYONE to trash exit polls. I was, however, hired to try and find out why there was a discrepancy between the poll and the count in the US presidential election, November 2004.

[PATRICK]

30. The two systems

are a complex secret "secure" system favored by(guess who) the executive and Truevote which seems to be a simpler more transparent open code. It does seem a work in progress similar to here with the caution walking very easily the salesmanship and as little sense of inherent dangers and future abuses as we face here.

The direction world wide voting is going in is very perilous. france and others are experimenting with internet voting with the usual complete lack of consciousness about inherent lack of security. Worldwide most experiments seem the salesman of modernity with foot in door, safety provided(that we hardly get here and betrayed almost instantly with near impunity). The populations are less techy, the various governments vary and what American tech crook is going to just hand over those little secrets completely to foreign politicians?

I think, I guess that the trajectory of fraud- utterly regardless of good intentions, if any- will be to reward clients with tips on how to get the most out of the new systems(wink,wink). They will wisely try to put their own people and own systems in eventually, but the goal of the US or the mega-cartel or whatever, is to be able to keep a discreet hand on some part of the process, sending in teams, tapping in, to manipulate votes worldwide for our interests. What US interests are of course will have degraded to competing power cliques of God knows what origins and loyalty. As of now when you think about it, outside of the traditional small fraud franchises that comprise local and national GOP, there has to be the Big Whopper somewhere in Rove Central to tweak the big picture, mostly for their own interests.

Sure elections can be controlled with a few buttons, but who is doing it? You need communication, research and perps in the loop and you need to keep them above the mess out of sight. But if fraud is massive by a few the weakness is in being down by a few, but enough that the truth cannot be hidden forever. Already it is obvious enough to anyone sane to launch many investigations.

But the sales pitch, the glamor of technology marches on, the naivete of leaders and the people is spectacular, the legal and legislative bodies are blissfully dazzled and impotent- everywhere. Those very watchdog bodies and smart safeguards, such as the french love to logically comfort themselves with
are absurd and could vanish along with democracy in a short period. In the end the breakdown of this inherently dangerous voting reform will cause disaster globally, but it is seemingly all softly symptomatic of the wretched state of civil affairs in these critical times.

[Febble]

7. Can you provide a citation

for those who are "paid to trash exit polls", so that we know who to ignore?

But let me put this conundrum to you:

If the Italian exit polls are 5% off in Prodi's favour, and Berlusconi is demanding a "scrupulous" recount, does it not suggest to you that it is possible that the voting was NOT rigged in Berlusconi's favour? And that, if not, that perhaps the exit polls were, in fact, "trash"?

Or are you postulating that Berlusconi either doesn't know that his henchman tried (apparently unsuccessfully) to rig the vote in his favour, or that he is sufficiently confident that they used an untraceable pois... I mean rigging method? One that would be undetectable under the beady eyes of the winning opposition?

I mean, if I'd rigged an election, and still lost it by a bee's whisker, I'm not sure I'd be calling for a "scrupulous" recount (even in Italy).

Bottom line: don't trust elections without verification, but don't trust exit polls either.

[Land Shark]

17. Febble I think you know, don't you, that all this stuff about "henchmen"

is over the top?

Since you're starting statements in this thread with the phrase "...it is possible that" isn't it POSSIBLE that forces completely indendent of Berlusconi or any candidate arrange the rigging? Traditionally with respect to american mayors and county executives, it is construction firms that get involved with rigging or other shenanigans to install the politician that will get them the big construction contracts.

While it is possible the major or county executive knows specifically of these efforts, the more likely thing is that the mayor truly doesn't know the cheating going on in his name. This is more than "possible" it's the mostly likely scenario in any political race (that there's no "order from on high"). the number of other people with motive is huge in number compared to the candidate all by himself.

[Febble]

20. OK

It is also POSSIBLE that the vote was rigged, unknown to Berslusconi.

It is also POSSIBLE that the exit polls were biased.

This thread started with the supposition that the exit poll discrepancy was related to the introduction of electronic voting. It appears that this cannot be the case.

I simply do not share the widely held belief on this forum that whenever exit polls are discrepant from an election that it is the exit polls that are inerrant. Sure, as I keep saying, it could be the exit polls that are correct. But it is perfectly POSSIBLE that the vote is correct and the exit polls are biased. Exit polls not a good tool for monitoring elections.

And it appears that this election was conducted using paper ballots AND the apparent beneficiary of an fraud reflected in the exit polls is calling for a scrupulous recount. I therefore invite people to consider the POSSIBILTY that exit polls can be wrong.

[MADem]

9. Yeah, the difference was between five and NINE percent in the exit polls

And the spread comes down to less than a percent???? Is that a rat I smell???

Sylvio has to be pissed that someone fell down on the job...but he's still looking for a way to steal it back.

[Febble]

11. So why

is he demanding a scrupulous re-count? How do you think he will pull that off?

[MADem]

12. He'll stuff the ballot boxes and bribe a few people

They'll "find" boxes that were not counted. They'll switch ballots out--old Gennaro got tired, his eyes failed him, he got confused. He wrote down that these votes were for Prodi when he meant Berlusconi, poor dear. A year later, he's driving a new Alfa.

And whaddaya wanna bet that every son of a bitch living overseas voted for Sylvio and the rightie team? They haven't counted those ballots yet!!!

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=3804045&p=38x4x6x&n=3804137&x=

Italian election in balance as overseas votes counted :: latest

Italy’s parliamentary election hung in the balance today as the country counted ballots cast for six new senate seats by Italians living abroad.

Near-final returns showed opposition leader Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition winning the lower house, while conservatives led by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi held a one-seat lead in the senate, with results for six seats elected by Italians abroad still yet to be counted.

Prodi’s coalition claimed four of the six seats, giving it the necessary margin for victory, but official results hadn’t been released....


Hell, he owns most of the media. He controls what people know.

[Febble]

24. Well, I certainly hope

that the result is NOT overturned. I am extremely glad to see the back of Berlusconi. So sure, Prodi's team need to guard that slim majority as though their lives depended on it.

I just find it hard to believe that someone who cheated their opponent out of 5% of the vote would be calling for a scrupulous recount. It would be hard to hide fraud on that scale under recount conditions, I would have thought. Unless he didn't know about it, as LS points out.

[MADem]

26. Well, it would depend on HOW the deed was done

If he had people in place who could SWAP Prodi ballots for Sylvio ballots, then the numbers would be the same. There wouldn't be any pesky "uncounted" ballots that turned up, they could just accuse people of being sloppy in counting. Ole Sylvio also wants them to carefully scruitinize the overseas ballots as well as the "spoiled" ballots that didn't make it into the total...

[Febble]

27. Exactly

yes, I would worry about how those overseas ballots are counted.

But the premise of this thread is that they already rigged the votes, and yet they seem to want a recount. Swapping paper ballots is pretty difficult. Ballot stuffing is probably easier, but on the scale alleged, pretty hard to hide, I would have thought. If I'd done it, I certainly wouldn't want to be letting too much daylight in.

[Febble]

13. erm...

and if the exit polls were "between five and nine percent" off, what does that tell you about the accuracy of the exit polls?

Look guys, I know a lot of you believe that the 2004 US exit polls were scrupulously accurate, but there is plenty of evidence that exit polls are often off, including evidence from elections where different polls give different answers. And if you want to conclude anything from the Italian exit polls, then a good start would be the methodology of the exit polls.

And if you want to conclude anything about the vote, then a good start is checking the vote-count.

Neither polls nor vote-counts, sadly, can be relied on to be anything like perfect.

[southwood]

15. RBR

The explanation for the discrepancy given by the Rome correspondent on television here (Netherlands)last night was the "Reluctant Berlusconi Respondent"... No kidding. History repeating itself.

[nicknameless]

18. Yep.

See reply #14. So they got their coaching here. Funny how exit polls were extremely accurate until voting machines were introduced.

Thank you for letting us know what's being reported "across the pond".

[Febble]

23. Well, of course.

If it wasn't the count it was the polls. And if it was the polls, then Prodi voters participated at a higher rate than Berlusconi voters. So yeah, that would be the way you would phrase a poll-based explanation.

It's got to be one of the two, count or poll.

[MADem]

16. Well, something is fishy, that's for sure

A minute after polling stations closed, state TV and media mogul Berlusconi's own private networks broadcast Nexus exit polls showing center-left leader Prodi garnering between 50 percent to 54 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election, compared to 45-to-49 percent for Berlusconi's conservative bloc. Forty-five minutes later, another Nexus poll confirmed that....
In Italy, the polls had a margin of error of 2 percentage points -- an error factor that clearly kicked in in a big way.

Also in line with the exit polls were the results of a telephone survey of 10,000 Italian voters conducted by the Piepoli Institute broadcast on SKY TG24 TV at the same time the results of the first Nexus exit polls were released.

"We will be studying this for a long time," said the institute's president, Nicola Piepoli.

Ruperto said it was likely that the exit poll model "hadn't completely absorbed" the complicated workings of a new electoral law. Of course, there was the simple possibility that people simply didn't tell the pollsters the truth.

Aldo Pagnoncelli, formerly a head of the Abacus polling concern and now with Ipsos, noted that samplings are self-selecting, "given that some agree to be interviewed and some don't."
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/04/11/news/nation/15_01_564_10_06.txt

We will have to see what the overseas count brings. Also, Sylvio is calling for a review of all of the "spoiled" ballots....

[Land Shark]

19. erm, Febble, I don't think you're being fair here

given a discrepancy between exits and "results", there exists three general possibilities, but in all cases a real investigator would proceed as if both the election result and the exits were in question.

A. The election result is off.
B. The exit poll is off.
C. Both election results and exit polls are off.

While there can be statistical realities that cause some bias in exits (as you labor strenuously to tell us from time to time) the typical size and likelihood of that bias is smaller than the enormous motive, bias and opportunity to mess with election results that stems from the tremendous stakes at issue in elections.

Prodi, for example, is said to want to pull Italian troops out of Iraq. One inference (not the most popular one here) is that a family with soldiers in the military might want them home, and favor Prodi. As stated elsewhere, commonly the candidate would have no knowledge of any specifics or the existence of a plan in their favor.

But I'm wondering febble how you can ask a question that presumes that something is wrong with the exit polls because that ignores possibility A, above.

[Febble]

21. Well, I simply

think there is NO WAY one can estimate the likelihood that bias in the poll is smaller than the likelihood of bias in the count. I am not assuming there is something wrong with the exit polls. I am positing that it is perfectly possible that there is something wrong with the exit polls, and that, given that the election was NOT conducted on electronic voting machines, and that Berlusconi is calling for a scrupulous recount, in this case it is a perfectly plausible possibility.

Where, please, do I say anything that leads you to believe that I PRESUME there is something wrong with the exit polls?

I don't. I simply find a 5% bias perfectly plausible.

[OnTheOtherHand]

22. I thought she did

If you can find any textual warrant for implying that Febble did not proceed as if both the election result and the exits were in question, do please present it.

I thought the point was pretty obvious: if the exit polls disagree with each other by four points, then great confidence in any one of them is facially unwarranted.

I can't speak for Febble, but I for one am heartily sick of the binary "thinking" that any responsible analysis of the exit polls constitutes a call for uncritical trust in the election results. Is intellectual honesty allowed here? Also, are you a bit taken aback by post #4, or is that just an academic thing? Please advise.

[Land Shark]

28. I think that in post thirteen Febble presents this as a choice

that one may proceed to attack either one depending on one's predilections (not an exact quote). See also post 8, which does not imply that investigating the election is an option.

I think the point that both are open to attack and must be SIMULTANEOUSLY open to investigation is so important (if one agrees to a science perspective) that i want to see it in every post. You may not agree with that. But I concede that Febble has mentioned both in various ways, but i don't think it's proper (under her claims to scientific standards) to ever depart from language that fails to reflect the fact that we both agree on: discrepancies inherently call both the election and the exit polls into question, requiring investigation of both.

The post 13 states as follows, except that I've substituted "DNA Test" for exit polls just for fun and whatever illumination it may or may not provide. I think it does illuminate the importance of a priori assumptions about accuracy, which are high in DNA tests and also in some folks views of exit polls, but lower with criminal defense attorneys and some (perhaps many?) statisticians:

Febble wrote (with bracketed items involving changes necessary for clarity of analogy):

"and if the DNA TESTS were "between five and nine percent" off, what does that tell you about the accuracy of the DNA TESTS?

Look guys, I know a lot of you believe that the 2004 DNA TESTS were scrupulously accurate, but there is plenty of evidence that DNA TESTS are often off , including evidence <...> where different DNA TESTS give different answers. And if you want to conclude anything from the Italian DNA TESTS, then a good start would be the methodology of the DNA TESTS.

And if you want to conclude anything about the vote, then a good start is checking the vote-count.

Neither polls nor vote-counts, sadly, can be relied on to be anything like perfect."
0--------


To me, the DNA test substitution makes the language sound like the argument of a criminal defense attorney, the minute before it loses (because of the a priori assumptions of DNA test accuracy).

Based on the above clauses like that of "And if you want to..." I concluded that the view of THAT post (13) by Febble is that one can optionally pursue vote counts OR exit polls based on what one "wants", rather than being obligated to investigate and question both.

And to emphasize, this applies to those who embrace science, IMHO, but politics can and sometimes does ignore science, occasionally with justification but mostly to its detriment.

[Febble]

29. Well, I'm not going to get into

an argument about science versus politics. Of course I'm not saying that the polls must be in error, any more than I am saying that they cannot be. And I'm not going to go with your DNA analogy because I know enough about genetics (not a lot) to find it a poor one. But let's say that a crude blood test estimates my iron levels at 9. So the doctor repeats the test, and this time it comes out at 5. The first thing he can conclude is that I may be anaemic (it ought to be at least 14). But the second thing he can conclude is that his test is quite capable of being off by at least 4 points. He should certainly send me for a proper blood test; but he should also make a mental note that his test is pretty unreliable.

Italy has a murky enough political history that I would be suspicious of any election; I am also, like you, suspicious of electronic voting. And I am suspicious enough that a discrepancy of 5 to 9 points between a poll and a result would make me wonder. So I check it out, and I find: a) the vote was not counted electronically b) Prodi seems to have won anyway c) Berlusconi is asking for a "scrupulous" recount.

So I seriously consider plan B - that the polls were too crude to make a correct diagnosis. Indeed, that they were biased in the way that such polls tend to be - in favor of the more progressive cause.

Note, I do not rule out fraud as an explanation; I simply find an inaccurate blood-test/poll perfectly plausible.

But the reason I throw caution to the wind and post on this thread is that I find myself seriously alarmed by what I can only call an apparently Inerrantist view of exit polls. And the reason I am alarmed is that you guys are coming up to an election I want you to win. And if people insist on believing that the 2004 exit polls Inerrantly pointed to a Kerry win, and therefore to massive election theft, I seriously worry about the number of Democrats who will not bother to vote. It is already apparent from posts on DU that many people think this way. I expect DUers themselves will vote. But a wider the perception that the game is rigged, and not worth playing is a serious danger, IMO, and, I sometimes think, the smartest move Rove ever pulled off.

Now, it is possible that I am wrong, and the we are in the End Times, that the game is so rigged it is not worth playing. But I DO NOT THINK you can conclude this from your 2004 exit poll evidence. I think it is FAR MORE LIKELY that although Kerry fought a good campaign (and I really liked the man, and most earnestly desired him to become your president) that he actually lost (if not Ohio, then at least the popular vote). Which, if correct, is actually GOOD NEWS as it means that a better campaign from you guys (and a sufficiently crappy one from the Republicans) stands an excellent chance of success.

OF COURSE you need a decent election system. I have tried to chip in what I can over the kinds of audit legislation might be both doable and useful. Your 2004 election was an abomination, although many of the most flagrant ways in which it was an abomination will not be healed by audit legislation. Nonetheless audit legislation of some sort is one of the many things that is needed. But I fear that the belief in Inerrant exit polls is in danger of serously warping the campaign into what is wrong with your Democracy, and, indeed in damaging future Democratic efforts to encourage people to vote.

And I think for politics to ignore science to the extent of assuming that a poll is Inerrant, and that any discrepancy between poll and count Must indicate Massive Fraud, regardless of voting method, regardless of who won, regardless of who is calling for a recount, is to risk being damaging misled.

[OnTheOtherHand]

31. oh, get real

It is fine for you to bluster that people are "obligated to investigate and question both" vote counts and exit polls. But Febble is one of the very few people on DU who has actually done it. In fact, she has done more actual investigating of both than most people have done actual investigating of either one.

If you yourself "agree() to a science perspective," then I would say there are a few True Believer posts awaiting your earnest call for unfettered inquiry. And if you don't, then your post seems to reduce to a tendentious rhetorical exercise at Febble's expense. This I do not appreciate. I have made considerable efforts to take you seriously. Are they in vain?

[nicknameless]

3. No enough to woo-hoo about.

The rw of Italy will have to take lessons in election *flipping* from the rethugs.

If there is any ballot recount, here's hoping Prodi's people will be vigilant and outspoken observers.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[foo_bar]

33. is Lynn Landes a paid agent too?

Exit polls are completely non-transparent and unverifiable. They're as bad as voting by machine, absentee, or early. There's no meaningful oversight to either enterprise. Worse yet, a belief in exit polls is a trap that's had tragic consequences for elections around the world.

There's growing evidence that exit polls sponsored by the Bush Administration and the International Republican Institute were used to support rigged elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector, recently said that his information is that the Iraq election was fixed. Even the situation in the Ukraine is cause for concern as the Western governments used their own poll to discredit the first election and support the second one. It seems that the West's favorite candidate, winner Viktor Yushchenko, promised to privatize lots of government industries and services.

http://www.counterpunch.org/landes03032005.html

PSB's Venezuela poll raised eyebrows for several reasons: the opposition to Hugo Chavez seized upon it as proof that "the results from the vote itself were fraudulent"; the poll results "were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed," in violation of Venezuelan law; "members of Sumate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, the fieldwork for the poll"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn,_Schoen_&_Berland

Although the Organization of American States and the Carter Center certified the referendum, disillusioned protests continued (it should be noted that the Carter Center opposes exit polling in elections it monitors and did not address or rebut any other specific allegations about the election made by Penn Schoen).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_recall_referendum,_2004

[kster]

34. Jimmy Carter also had this to say

A few days before the November 2004 election, Jimmy Carter was asked what would happen if, instead of flying to Zambia or Venezuela or East Timor, his widely respected international election monitoring team was invited to turn its attention to the United States. His answer was stunningly blunt. Not only would the voting system be regarded as a failure, he said, but the shortcomings were so egregious the Carter Center would never agree to monitor an election there in the first place. "We wouldn't think of it," the former president told a radio interviewer. "The American political system wouldn't measure up to any sort of international standards, for several reasons."

What, after all, was to be done with a country whose newest voting machines, unlike Venezuela's, couldn't even perform recounts? A country where candidates, in contrast to the more promising emerging democracies of the Caucasus or the Balkans, were denied equal, unpaid access to the media? There were a number of reasons, in the sharply partisan atmosphere surrounding the Bush-Kerry race, to wonder whether campaign conditions didn't smack more of the Third World than the First. Every day, newspapers recounted stories of registration forms being found in garbage cans, or of voter rolls padded with the names of noncitizens, fictional characters, household pets, and the dearly departed. The Chicago Tribune, a paper that knows its voter fraud, having won a Pulitzer for its work on the infamous Daley machine, found 181,000 dead people on the registration lists of six key battleground states.

Bush opponents were all too inclined to believe, in fact, that the Republicans were about to steal the presidency, just as they believed it had been stolen the last time. The Republicans, for their part, laughed this off as conspiratorial nonsense, but they also weren't shy about announcing how hard or how dirtily they were prepared to fight if it came down to another Florida-style tug-of-war. Long Island's GOP congressman Pete King, caught on camera by the documentary maker Alexandra Pelosi during a White House function on election day, bragged even as the first polls were closing that Bush had already won. When Pelosi asked him how he knew, he answered, perhaps jokingly, perhaps not: "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."

Election day itself, at least in the battleground states, was a deeply jarring experience for America's trusting majority, which had led itself to believe that all was for the best in the best of all possible democracies. Everyone bristled with suspicion and mutual mistrust. The Republicans accused the Democrats of trying to sneak ineligible voters to the polls and threatened to deploy official challengers to sniff out the mischief -- something much discussed ahead of time but that ultimately failed to materialize on any scale, perhaps because of a flurry of negative publicity stirred up on the eve of the election.

READ MORE......... http://www.alternet.org/story/32084/

[foo_bar]

37. I agree with Carter

Since we're doing stream-of-conscious Google non sequiturs:

In the first place, their reliability can be questionable. One might think that there is no reason why voters in stable democracies should conceal or lie about how they have voted, especially because nobody is under any obligation to answer in an exit poll. But in practice they often do. The majority of exit polls carried out in European countries over the past years have been failures. This phenomenon increases in the countries that are in the process of transition, where the fear in the minds of citizens might be well founded. This can give rise to inaccurate data being circulated, provoking confusion in public opinion and making it difficult for the defeated candidate to accept the results.

In the second place, they might create situations in which problems of relative incompatibility regarding voter's secrecy could arise.

Because of this, these systems are not at all advisable in countries in a political transition, to the point that on occasions, they have actually been forbidden, as in Bulgaria in 1990.

Their effectiveness in consolidated countries is not clear either, where more and more advanced quick count systems enable real and fully reliable data to be obtained in a very brief period of time.

In short, the exit polls imply additional disruption of the processes in countries in a political transition. In any case, it is a short-lived, costly and rather unreliable mechanism.

http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/lf/lfd08e.htm

[Febble]

35. I've already asked you for a citation

who are you alleging is "paid "
to trash exit polls"?

Certainly not me, as I have said.

And, AFAIK, no-one else on this thread has been paid to do anything at all with the exit polls, let alone trash them.

If you don't have the integrity to say what you mean, don't say it. If you mean me, I'll say it one more time:

I AM NOT PAID TO TRASH EXIT POLLS.

Please support your allegation, or withdraw it.

[Febble]

36. Sounds like Berlusconi

is still refusing to concede, and demanding a recount:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1752159,00.html

In the senate, the upper house, a two-seat majority turned on the ballots cast by Italians living abroad, who were voting for the first time because of a change in the law introduced by Mr Berlusconi's government. He said there had been "many irregularities" in the vote.

"We believe that there is no one who can say today, as things stand, he is the winner," Mr Berlusconi said. The figures showed "many, many, many murky aspects. I would say too many," he added.