To Believe that Bush Won in 2004, You Must Also Believe that…-- Mar 2 2008 Update w more info

[tiptoe]

To believe that Bush won in 2004 you must also believe that…

Updated March 2, 2008 by TruthIsAll    http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/ToBelieveBushWon2007.htm

1. The media exhaustively analyzed state and national pre-election /exit poll data and the documented evidence of vote suppression and miscounts. But raw exit poll precinct data has never been made public.
   
   
2. There are many explanations as to why the exit polls were wrong: Kerry voters were more approachable than Bush voters to be interviewed; interviewers sought out Kerry voters; returning Gore voters claimed to have voted for Bush in 2000 because they wanted to be associated with the “winner”; exit polls are not random samples; U.S. exit polls are not designed to monitor election fraud; early exit polling overstated the Kerry vote (women voted early); Republicans voted late; Gore voters defected to Bush at twice the rate that Bush voters defected to Kerry, etc. But none of these “explanations” are supported by the evidence. In fact, they have all been refuted.
   
   
3. The votes were fairly counted. But 2004 U.S. Census data indicates that 125.7 million votes were cast as opposed to the 122.3m recorded. And investigative reporter Greg Palast presented government data which documented 3 million uncounted votes.
   
   
4. Democrats failed to attract first-time voters. But according to the National Exit Poll, since 1992 the Democrats have won first-time voters by a 14% average margin. Ruy Teixeira wrote about it in The Emerging Democratic Majority.
   
   
5. Bush’s 48% Election Day approval rating () was not a major factor. But since 1976 all presidential incumbents with less than 50% approval lost re-election (Ford, Carter, Bush I) while those above 50% won (Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton). And there was a near-perfect 0.87 correlation () between Bush’s monthly approval rating and the average national poll. The correlation was confirmed when Kerry won the 12:22am National Exit Poll by 51-48%. According to Frank Newport, Editor in Chief of the Gallup Poll, “The president's job approval rating is an important indicator of re-election probabilities. But like so much else in this election, this measure isn't giving us a great deal of direction right now. Bush's job approval has slipped to 48% among national adults and is thus below the symbolically important 50% point. If we take that 50% line seriously, then Bush is in a less-than-auspicious position. No president since Harry Truman has won re-election with a job approval rating below 50%”.
   
   
6. Bush gained 9% over his 2000 vote in heavily Democratic urban locations and lost 3% in highly Republican small towns and rural areas.
   But that is an Urban Legend.
   
   
7. There is no evidence that the vote count was corrupted. So how did Bush win 51.5% of the first 115.8m recorded votes while Kerry won 54.6% of the final 5.3m, a 500,000 vote decline in the Bush “mandate”.
   
   
8. Final pre-election polls did not match the exit polls. But after undecided voters were allocated, pre-election state (Kerry 47.9-Bush 46.9%) and national (Kerry 47.2-Bush 46.9%) polls closely matched the national (50.8-48.2%) and state (51.8-47.2%) exit polls. The final Zogby battleground state polls () showed Kerry leading in 9 critical states.
   
   
9. Bogus assumptions were used in the pre-election Election Model simulation model which forecast that Kerry would win 320-337 electoral votes (). But the only input assumption was that Kerry would capture at least 60% of the undecided vote. The Election Model popular and electoral vote projections were confirmed by state and national exit poll analysis in the Interactive Election Simulation Model ().
   
   
10. There is no evidence that undecided voters break for the challenger. Historical evidence indicates that undecided voters break for the challenger over 80% of the time - especially when the incumbent is unpopular - and Bush had a 48.5% average approval rating. World-class pollsters Harris and Zogby reported their late polling indicated Kerry would win 60-80% of the undecided vote. According to the Gallup poll: “In the final USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP poll, President Bush held a 49-47 edge over Sen. John Kerry when the undecided voters were not allocated to a particular candidate. When Gallup, using a statistical model that assumes that 9 of 10 of those voters would support Kerry, allocated the voters, the poll ended as a dead heat with each candidate garnering 49%. The Gallup allocation formula is based on analyses of previous presidential races involving an incumbent”.
    
    
11. Bush was leading in the final pre-election polls. Not so. Kerry led Bush by less than 1% in the state-weighted average vote and held a 3% lead after allocation of undecided voters. Kerry and Bush were tied at 47% based on the final national 18-poll average.
    
    
12. Non-response bias in the exit polls () was the reason why 43 states red-shifted to Bush. But 3 million votes (mostly from heavily Democratic minority districts) were never counted - and Kerry won 70-75%. Response rates were lowest in Kerry urban strongholds.
    
    
13. It was just a coincidence that Oregon was the only battleground state which shifted to Kerry. But Oregon is also the only state which votes exclusively by paper mail ballots, and the shift was a fraction of one percent. Any discrepancy would be minimal and favor either Bush or Kerry.
    
    
14. There is nothing suspicious in the fact that six of the eight states which deviated to Kerry from the exit polls were strong Bush states. But the exit poll discrepancies were all within the margin of error.
    
    
15. Final exit polls are always matched to the recorded vote. But this assumes a fraud-free election and no uncounted votes. And since 2000, elections have been anything but fraud-free. Therefore, the final exit polls (state and national) cannot be correct.
    
    
16. There are reasonable explanations why Kerry led the National Exit Poll by 51-48% at 4pm (8349 respondents), 7:30pm (11027) and 12:22am (13047) and Bush won the 2pm Final NEP (13660) by 51-48%. But why do they defy the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem?
    
    
17. The margins of error used to calculate probabilities () of exit poll discrepancies were too low. But even assuming a 60% “cluster effect”, the probabilities were near zero. Assuming a zero cluster effect, WPE-adjusted state exit poll discrepancies () exceeded the MoE in 29 states for Bush and just one for Kerry. Assuming a 30% cluster, the margin of error in was exceeded in 24 states for Bush. Composite (12:22am) exit poll discrepancies exceeded the margin of error in 16 states for Bush; none for Kerry.
    
    
18. There is nothing suspicious about the fact that all 21 Eastern Time Zone states red-shifted from the exit poll in favor of Bush. But 14 deviated beyond the margin of error with virtually ZERO probability.
    
    
19. Exit polls are not true random samples. But Edison-Mitofsky state in the NEP Methods Statement that respondents were randomly-selected and the overall margin of error was 1%.[/b>
    
    
20. Bush voters were reluctant to respond to exit pollsters. But this was contradicted by the Final Exit Poll, which stated that Bush 2000 voters comprised 43% of the respondents, as compared to 37% for Gore voters. It was also contradicted by a linear regression () analysis: non-response rates increased going from the strongest Bush states to the strongest Kerry states which suggests that non-responders were Kerry voters.
    
    
21. The Final Exit Poll was correct in matching to the Bush 51-48% win. But the 43/37 weights indicate that either Bush voters were over-polled or the Final was rigged — a classic Hobson Choice. In any case, the rBr hypothesis was debunked.
    
    
22. False recall (of Gore voters) is a valid explanation for the Final NEP “Voted in 2000” weights. But Bush 2000 voters could not have comprised 43% (52.6m) of the 122.3m votes recorded in 2004; Bush only had 50.5m votes in 2000. Approximately 2.5m Bush 2000 voters died prior to the 2004 election and at least 2m did not vote, so 46m was the maximum Bush 2000 voter turnout in 2004 (a 37.6% weighting). The “Voted in 2000” question was asked of 3200 of the total 13047 respondents. How come the majority of the 10,000 respondents( who were not asked how they voted in 2000) claimed to have voted for Kerry? Why would they lie?
    
    
23. Although the Final NEP Bush/Gore weightings were impossible, the DU Game thread showed that Bush could have achieved his vote assuming feasible weights. But to compensate for the feasible weights, Bush vote shares had to be inflated to implausible levels to match the recorded vote.
    
    
24. This is how Bush won by 3 million votes: 14.6% of Gore voters defected to Bush in 2004; only 7.2% of Bush voters defected to Kerry; Kerry won just 52.9% of new voters. But according to the NEP, Kerry captured 10% of Bush 2000 voters while Bush won just 8% of Gore voters; Kerry won 57% of new voters and 71% of Nader voters.
    
    
25. False recall is a valid argument to explain the Final NEP 43/37 weights. But false recall is not a factor in pre-election polls. And the pre-election polls (after undecided voters were allocated) matched the exit polls.
    
    
26. An NES study suggests that a significant percentage of Gore voters told exit pollsters they voted for Bush in 2000. But only 3200 of 13047 NEP respondents were asked how they voted in 2000. Kerry won the other 10,000 by 51-48%.
    
    
27. Returning Gore voters misrepresented their 2000 vote because they wanted to be associated with the winner — Bush. But Bush had 48% approval on Election Day. The majority of new voters were Democrats and Independents; they gave Bush a 25-30% approval () rating. And Gore was the official “winner” in 2000 - by 540,000 votes.
    
    
28. Bush found 12 million new voters in 2004. But simple arithmetic shows he needed more than 16 million. Bush had 50.5m recorded votes in 2000. Approximately 2.5m died (assuming 1.2% annual voter mortality) and 2.4m did not vote in 2004 (assuming 95% turnout). Therefore, approximately 45.6m Bush 2000 voters turned out to vote. Bush needed over 16 of 25m new voters (64%) to go from 45.6m to 62m. But according to the 12:22am National Exit Poll, he won 41% — a 23% difference.
    
    
29. Bush won by 3 million votes. But how could that be? According to the NEP, Kerry won 57% of new voters (first-timers by 55-43% and other new voters by 61-37%); he won returning Nader voters by 70-20%. Kerry won 10% of Bush voters while just 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush.
    
    
30. The sensitivity analysis () which showed that Kerry won all plausible scenarios is overkill and does not prove anything. But given the adjusted 12:22am Composite vote shares and assuming 100% Bush 2000 voter turnout, Kerry needed just 73% turnout of Gore voters to tie Bush. Gore voter turnout had to be 64% in order for Bush to match his recorded vote margin. Using pristine, non-adjusted exit poll shares, required Gore voter turnout was even lower than above.
    
    
31. Bush’s share of females increased by 4.2%. But how did his share of the male vote decline by 0.2%? Females voted 54-45% for Kerry; Blacks voted over 90% for him; he won Independents by 52-44%.
    
    
32. Bush won Ohio. But there is plenty of documented evidence of uncounted and switched votes, besides massive voter disenfranchisement. Two election workers were convicted of rigging the recount. Fifty-six of 88 county voting records were destroyed. The final Zogby poll had Kerry leading by 50-47%. Kerry led the pristine Ohio exit poll by 54.1-45.9% (based on the average 10.9% precinct WPE). He even led the adjusted 12:22am Composite by 52.1-47.9%.
    
    
33. Bush won Florida by 52-47% (a 368,000 vote margin) even though the Democrats had a 41-37% registration advantage in Touch Screen (TS) counties and a 42-39% edge in Optical Scan (OS) counties. But Kerry won TS counties (3.86mm votes) by 51-47% and Bush won OS counties (3.43mm votes) by a whopping 57-42%. The Final Zogby Florida pre-election poll had Kerry leading by 50-47%. Kerry won the exit poll by 50.9-48.3%. In 2000, Gore won 70% of 180,000 uncounted under/over votes. If counted, he would have won by at least 60,000 votes. Dan Rather's exposé on voting machines proved that poor-quality paper used in Florida punch card machines was a major cause of spoilage in heavily Democratic precincts.
    
    
34. The New York pre-election poll matched the recorded vote (59-40%), while the exit poll was wrong (64.1-34.4%). But even if the exit poll was off (which it wasn’t), the 5% discrepancy is not significant. The margin of error for the 600-sample pre-election poll was 4%; there was a 95% probability that Kerry's vote could have been anywhere between 55-63%. Assuming a 30% cluster effect, the exit poll MoE was 3.2%; there was a 95% probability that Kerry's vote was between 60.9-67.3%. Therefore, a Kerry vote in the 60.9-63.0% range would fall within the margin of error of both pre-election and exit poll.
    
    
35. The NY 2004 recorded vote was fraud-free; lever voting machines are foolproof. But this implies that 100% of returning Nader 2000 voters defected to Bush. In 2000, the NY vote was Gore 60.5-Bush 35.4-Nader 4.1. According to the 2004 NEP Composite (12:22am), Kerry won Nader voters by 71-21%; 10% of Bush voters defected to Kerry; 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush. And Kerry did better in NY than he did elsewhere. Kerry won NY by 63-36% using weights based on the NY 2000 recorded vote, assuming his vote shares were two percent higher than in the NEP. Levers are highly vulnerable to fraud. Like touch screens, they don’t produce a verifiable paper record. NY votes exclusively on Levers; the WPE was 11.4%. CT, another heavy Lever state, had the second highest WPE (15.7%) of all the states. NY was number four.
    
    
36. Polling data was cherry-picked and assumptions set to favor Kerry. But no assumptions were made in the following four models which used three different sets of exit poll data which included response rates and within precinct error (WPE) provided by exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky. And they all produced equivalent results. The Exit Poll Response Optimizer confirmed the USCV simulation of 1250 precincts categorized by partisanship. Both models debunked the reluctant Bush responder (rBr) hypothesis.
    
    The Exit Poll Response Optimizer models used WPE and response rates for:
    1. 1250 precincts categorized by partisanship: Strong Bush, Bush, Even, Kerry, Strong Kerry. Kerry 52.15-Bush 47.85% (2-party)
       
    2. Location-size categories: Big Cities, Small Cities, Suburban, Small Towns, Rural: Kerry 52.15- Bush 47.85%
       
    3. The States: Kerry 52.3- Bush 47.7%
       
    4. National Exit Poll “Voted in 2000” category: Kerry 51.9- Bush 48.1%

Also, see: Election Fraud Polling Analysis: Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide

[Benhurst]

1. And exactly what have our "leaders", including Clinton and Obama,

done since retaking control of Congress in 2006 to prevent the third stolen presidential election in a row?

[tiptoe]

8. Here's what GOP election fraud beneficiaries do to sabotage Elec Reform by Dem Rush Holt of NJ:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9841.html

GOP objects to bill allowing recounts

By BEN ADLER | 4/25/08 4:50 AM EST Updated: 4/25/08 12:26 PM EST

Voting rights activists who hoped the federal government would help local governments pay for paper trails and audits for electronic voting machines have gone from elation to frustration as they watched Republicans who supported such a proposal in committee vote against bringing it to the House floor.

The result: The elections in November will likely be marred by the same accusations of fraud and error involving voting machines that arose in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential race.

When New Jersey Democratic Rep. Rush Holt’s Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act came up for a vote in the House Administration Committee on April 2, the Republicans on the committee gave it their unanimous support. But two weeks later, those same Republican members voted against moving the bill to the House floor. It would have taken a two-thirds vote to push the bill to the floor; with most House Republicans opposed, the bill didn’t make it that far.

Larry Norden, director of the voting technology project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school, called the vote “a sad statement on how little Congress has done on the issue of making sure elections are as secure and reliable as possible.”
...

[OnTheOtherHand]

2. at first glance

I'm not sure one has to believe any of these things in order to believe that Bush won in 2004.

If so, that's a truly impressive standard of error, even for TIA.

[BeFree]

19. But

Hardly anyone here belives Bush won. You do. So tell us, how did Bush win? What does one have to believe to believe Bush won?

Or is your post just a disruption and a hijack?

[helderheid]

3. Great minds!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5613129

[Zynx]

4. A lot of this is B.S.

First, the exit poll issue is addressed here: http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/donkeyrising/2004/11/do_the_exit_polls_indicate_vot.html and I also saw a Charlie Cook interview where he said that early exit polls are garbage and have never been taken seriously. They are always adjusted.

Pre-election polls: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html
They came damn close to reflecting what we saw. In Ohio, pre-election polls showed an average 2.1% Bush lead. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry_sbys.html

The incumbent rule is generally true, but not always. Reagan didn't underperform in 1984 and Ford performed right in line with his polling. Same goes for Nixon in 1972.

A statistical point, confidence intervals, such as the 95% confidence interval, only apply if methodology was correct and if samples are truly random and representative. Ruy Teixeira and others have said early exit poll methodology is almost never correct.

Also, the trend was virtually nationwide in shifts from 2000 to 2004 in the bulk of counties and states toward Bush, reflecting the national vote. This map: Blue is a shift to Bush, red to Kerry. They inverted the colors. There are a small handful of states and counties where Kerry gained versus Gore. If voter fraud existed, it was the largest conspiracy in history involving elections officials all over the country and secretaries of state who were often Democrats.

There's very little mystery to this if you don't buy into total B.S. In most urban areas Kerry gained over Gore with two notable exceptions and those were New York and L.A. In Chicago, Philly, DC, Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and so on in raw vote totals Kerry did better than Gore. Kerry slipped considerably in rural areas and also in the suburbs which really make me question these exit polls that show Bush's rural vote declining. I very little evidence of that.

[tiptoe]

5. "BS" is pollsters ALWAYS matching their Final Exit Polls to a Recorded Vote Count="100% Accuracy!!"

Good from the viewpoint of a business-man wanting to please his clients. Maybe not so good for Democracy, if the Vote Count is fraudulent, not even to mention suppression of voters whose votes are precluded a count.

Click "Exit Polls" in sig link:

[OnTheOtherHand]

7. you're being silly

You think the clients don't notice what the exit poll results are when the polls close, compared with the final results? Pshaw.

TIA never really did muster a response to this, and I doubt he ever will. It's a real problem for people who want to believe that the 2004 exit polls point to massive fraud. But luckily for them, no one can force them to read it and think about it.

[BeFree]

20. Of course the clients noticed

And then Miscountski came up with the bullshit that they missed Bush voters. And then tried to cover that BS up with the fraudulent numbers of too many Bush voters than was mathematically possible.

But you remember all that, so why do you keep up your silly protests? No one believes you.

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. yeah, pretty much

A few quibbles about what you wrote. First of all, this mostly isn't about "early exit poll methodology." What most people mean by "early exit polls" (I don't know what you meant) is the results that used to leak out during the day based on partial interview data, which certainly can be off the wall. But the complete interview data can still be off the wall, so it's potentially confusing to focus on "early." As for "methodology," we know how to do exit polls badly -- and asking so many questions, frankly, is not ideal -- but no method can ensure that supporters of the various candidates will be equally willing to fill out the surveys.

Second, "voter fraud" is generally construed to mean "when voters vote illegally." I think you mean "election fraud." Yes, given the actual results, it would have required a fairly wide conspiracy, although in some states one well-placed hacker could have wrought considerable havoc. (The exit polls actually don't support this, in general, although they certainly can't in all cases rule it out.)

I agree that Bush's rural vote didn't decline; I think that's an artifact of an inconsequential weighting error.

[kster]

9. We can't prove it and You can't prove it, Pretty sad

when in a democracy neither side can prove that an election was rigged or not. The debate goes around and around, right where our corporate masters want us.

A drive by election theft, and while the crooks involved in the election theft get sworn into office, we continue to pay their salaries and debate whether they won or not.

It goes On and On and On... All we have to do is MAN UP!!

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. well, I agree that it's pretty sad

That's why I'm working for verifiable elections. Maybe you are too, I don't know.

[BeFree]

11. You are?

That's news to me. Where is your proposal? Where is your legislation?

Why haven't I seen ONE thread started by you pertaining to verifiable elections. Not ONE.

Maybe??!?! Kster is working?!?!? Maybe?!?!? He's started threads galore.
Compared to some around here, he's carrying the load, and not backstabbing anybody except the thieves.

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. you think "starting threads" = "working"?

OK, that's revealing.

[Bonn1997]

14. What work have you done?

Just out of curiosity

[OnTheOtherHand]

15. I have worked on two fronts

First, I've done considerable work in election forensics. There is a tacit conspiracy among certain self-styled election integrity supporters -- presumably unintentional -- to undermine the movement by serving up facially risible claims and partisan (or anti-"establishment") rants. Like many other people, I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to demonstrate that one can take election integrity seriously without drinking the Kool-Aid. This work is tedious but essential, because election integrity is a majoritarian value and deserves majoritarian arguments -- arguments that at least merit the endorsement of most Americans. To speak credibly about threats to election integrity, one has to be credible. Lots of self-appointed leaders can't clear that hurdle. (Take Mark Crispin Miller, whose premise in Fooled Again is that Bush's reelection was "a miracle." There's no way he can sell that pile to most people, or most political scientists; he might as well paint a scarlet Q for Quack on his forehead.)

Second, I've worked on post-election audit design. (Really this is almost indistinguishable from the first point: audits are proactive forensics, more or less.) I coauthored an article in The American Statistician about statistically rigorous audits, helped to draft New Jersey's statistical audit legislation and testified on its behalf, participate in audit working groups in Ohio and Florida, and have helped informally with audit proposals in Colorado, Massachusetts, and California.

It isn't very much, but I think we could have gotten further if some people thought harder before they spoke.

I have to admit, "Bonn1997," I'm not very curious about what you've done. But if you want to share, maybe it's more interesting than I think. (ETA) Let me be clear about this: you may be doing excellent work when you aren't busy waving your hands about exit polls over here; if so, I applaud it. I'm just not very curious one way or the other.

[BeFree]

16. So

What you are doing is working to make the machine voting become safe to use.....

Newsflash, fella, you're wasting your time. We will be rid of the private vendors and all money flowing to people who are working hard to keep them in place will be out on the streets.

If you've ever worked to make really safe machine counting I haven't seen the first clue of it here.

[OnTheOtherHand]

17. what is "really safe machine counting"?

Getting rid of the private vendors might be a decent step. But if we're going to have machine counting, then we need to audit the counts, no matter who makes the machines. And despite many assurances that we are on the verge of returning to 100% hand counts, I'm not aware of anywhere that has made that move. As far as I know, the trend line continues downward. (We would be well advised to audit those counts, too.)

Incidentally, this thread isn't about my reform agenda; that is certain people's attempt to disrupt and hijack it. Or so it seems to me.

[BeFree]

18. Disrupt and hijack

You are the pro at that.

C'mon, put up a thread of your own and let me show you what I've learned from you. 'Course, the mods would delete MY posts.

[OnTheOtherHand]

21. were you going to respond to substance, or not?

If you aren't interested in elections, why post?

[BeFree]

22. Respond?

You have presented no substance to respond to.

Even here, you seem to imply that I have no interest in elections. The inference is so close to idiotic that no response is deemed in order, except that one could infer that you aren't closely following any of the conversations here.

Having a nice vacation, yet?

[OnTheOtherHand]

23. refer to post #17

Or don't. Whatever. I'm glad that you have an interest in elections, but your posts -- at least to me -- rarely have content beyond personal animosity. I attempt to respond to the extent that you actively distort reality, but to the extent that it's just your personal issue, I think it should remain private.

ETA: If you really want me to believe that you are serious about this, try providing some support for your wild claim in response to rinsd et al. I'm mildly curious whether you can demonstrate that you've even read TIA's work.

[BeFree]

24. Bring it on.

Publicize your feelings. Don't hold back. Bring it.

[Stevepol]

13. If the voting machines played a significant role, and they did,

why would it be necessary to assume that the stealing of the election would require a massive conspiracy? I think Mitofsky said the same thing at the time.

As you state it:

"If voter fraud existed, it was the largest conspiracy in history involving elections officials all over the country and secretaries of state who were often Democrats."

It's true that the voting machines have been favored by pols of both stripes and elections officials as well. But if the percentages were adjusted by the machines and the central tabulators, something that is, to use Steven Freeman's words "trivially easy" to do, only handful of people would have to know about it. The machines were used all over the country. They were and are programmed at the factory. This is exactly why I predicted before the election that Kerry would lose. In addition, Fitrakis's book about the OH situation, which is out now I think (self-published), pretty well documents in detail how the electionn was stolen in OH, and I think the same thing happened to a somewhat lesser degre in FL and in other places, especially the key states. A great deal of the theft depended, not on the voting machines, which provided only a small but dependable tilt, but on a lot of other methods that had nothing to do with a secret conspiracy but rather with a very open and transparent desire on the part of Republicans to win the election, esp the dirty tricksters who have mostly taken over the DOJ and the Repub election machinery.

Also, I find it hard to buy the idea that the exit polls don't reflect reality. As things now stand it's about the only indication we have of what the real result is. The "re-calibrating" isn't based on real weighting issues, IMO, but is based solely or almost entirely on the reported results. In other wds, the polls are sdjusted to fit the machine reported results.

I also take issue with the phrase used above of "voter fraud." Voters weren't primarily involved in the fraud. That would indeed take a massive conspiracy. Only a handful of insiders were involved and it was "election fraud," based on the use of unverifiable machines programmed by partisans and criminals at the voting machine companies, the same ones who fought tooth and toenail to keep the machines from using any paper at all, a red flag that would normally alert people to fraud immediately if it had happened in any other business situation. What legitimate company would fight tooth and toenail to keep from having their machines results verified? If the machines were recording correct totals, why not make more money and add the paper ballot print-outs? That in itself is enough proof of criminal intent it seems to me.

[truedelphi]

25. TruthIsAll is to be commended, awarded saint hood etc for his list

Of what you must believe in order to believe that Bush really won.

BUT BUT BUT he left out the most important concept - one so systemic that it is easily overlooked (much like the fact that few of us remark on the fact that we need to breathe air)


This is the statement that he omitted:
You can and will have free elections even though the State is an oligarchy by nature, and the media outlets are nothing more than the United States' version of a Ministry of Propaganda.

[thesquanderer]

26. Mixing points

While the stats about New York are interesting, and worth discussing in the context of accurate vote analysis, it seems kind of superfluous to the headline here, since Kerry did win New York, even if the margin is suspect.

[OnTheOtherHand]

27. TIA is in an impossible position

He appears to be committed to the view that the exit polls were accurate. The exit poll result in New York (Kerry +31.3) is far-fetched given pre-election polls, but TIA has to argue that it is plausible -- that Kerry outperformed pre-election polls by double-digits, and then the forces of Bushness stole back double-digits' worth of votes on the lever machines. This makes very little sense.

We could cut him some slack on New York (hey, there's always margin of error), but then he has basically the same problem in other states. Take PA, MN, and NH. In all of these, pre-election polls show Kerry with small leads, the exit polls give Kerry double-digit leads, and the official returns give Kerry narrow winning margins close to the pre-election poll results. So, there's the parsimonious inference that the exit polls were wrong, or there's the TIA inference that Kerry outperformed the pre-election polls by double digits and then the Bushites stole back those votes. It's like Ptolemy trying to salvage a geocentric model by inventing epicycles.

[wisteria]

28. There was reason to believe in the Kerry camp that he was our next president.

This was late election night- not early. I will always believe that the 2000 and the 2004 elections were rigged in Bush's favor. I don't know how it was entirely possible that so many looked the other way and allowed it to happen and why, but I will never believe Bush won both election fairly. All this information makes me sad for what could have been and angry over what should not have been allowed to happen. However, I feel helpless to really do much about election fraud and stolen elections.