The 2008 Obama win-margin was close only to pre-election *LV* polls, not to four final *RV* polls.

[tiptoe]

From   Is the Media Cherry-picking Pre-election Polls by listing Likely (LV) but not Registered Voter (RV) Polls?

Real Clear Politics is not being real clear.  RCP does not list the final 4 Registered Voter (RV) polls that show an average Obama lead of  52.75 – 39.75,  a  13.00% margin (the latest RV poll listed is Ipsos from 10/13). Instead, RCP averages the 15 final Likely Voter (LV) polls:  52.1 – 44.5,  a  7.6% margin. The average of the final LV 23 polls was 50.84 – 42.68%, an 8.16% margin. This analysis will show that the LV and RV average discrepancy is to be expected. In fact, the 23 LV polls, when combined with Obama and McCain shares of new voters, match the RV polls — and confirm that Obama won by double the official margin.

But the question should still be asked: Why were these 4 RV polls not listed?

Poll

Date

Obama–McCain

Spread

Gallup

11/02

53–40

+13

ABC/WP

11/02

54–41

+13

Pew

10/26

52–36

+16

NBC

10/20

52–42

+10

RV polls include newly registered voters — mostly young Democrats.  Since pre-election LV polls do not include new voters, they underestimate the projected Democratic share.  From 1992-2004, Democrats won new voters by an average 14% margin.  In 2008, Obama won new voters by 43%.
...

How were Dems doing vs Republicans in new voter enrollees, who are always under-represented in samplings of Likely Voters, given Obama's unique registration campaign and an August announcement by one prominent Republican? The following figures were from just 28 states and only as of early Sept, i.e., two-months prior election-day:

Since the last federal election in 2006, volunteers...combined with the enthusiasm generated by the Obama-Clinton struggle to add more than 2 million Democrats to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344 thousand voters in the same states.
...
Nationwide, there are about 42 million registered Democrats and about 31 million Republicans, according to statistics compiled by The Associated Press.

Moreover...

...
Neither the RV nor LV polls allocate undecided voters. Assuming the third-party 1.5% recorded share, we can allocate the undecided vote.  Typically, undecided voters break strongly for the challenger.  Obama is considered the challenger, since McCain represented Bush's third term.

Poll

Obama

McCain

Spread

 

BO Proj

JM Proj

Spread

LV-19

50.84

42.68

8.16

 

54.20

43.80

10.40

RV-4

52.75

39.75

13.00

 

57.25

41.25

16.00

...
(source: "Is the Media Cherry-picking Pre-election Polls...")

So, it's not a single "TIA poll that says otherwise" about Obama's 9.5m win margin. And it's not a "TIA poll" but rather the NEP pollster's own 'forced' Final exit poll. There's more than just the Final exit poll's impossible results implicating the 2008 recorded vote count and Obama win margin as fraudulent (despite using 2004 recorded vote shares instead of True Vote shares for estimating returning-voters).

Still to come, hopefully, are 50 state and DC unadjusted exit poll (WPE) measures. In 2004, the aggregate of those polls showed Kerry leading Bush 52 – 47%.

 

[tiptoe]

1. small fix

In the opening excerpt, the LV poll count should read "19":

...The average of the final LV 19 polls was 50.84 – 42.68%, an 8.16% margin. This analysis will show that the LV and RV average discrepancy is to be expected. In fact, the 19 LV polls when combined with Obama and McCain shares of new voters, match the RV polls — and confirm that Obama won by double the official margin.

[Stevepol]

2. I can't believe a post like this can't get 5 recs.

It's as if now having won the election we can look away from the facts and can just rely on winning every election from now on.

I still think this is the biggest issue by far in America and the world. Unless and until we have fairly counted elections, noneo of the other problems will even be addressed, and it is absolutely certain we'll eventually have somebody worse than Bush in the WH. It will mean the end of the world as we know it.

[OnTheOtherHand]

3. I've tried looking at the facts here for years

TIA claims that "pre-election LV polls do not include new voters." That's nonsense, and rather obviously so. It's really not hard to understand why pollster.com posts LV numbers instead of RV numbers when a pollster reports both. And it's not hard to understand why RCP does the same thing.

But if you believe everything TIA says, because TIA says it, that's your privilege.

[Stevepol]

4. I'm not sure about everything from TIA.

He's certainly deserving of his day in court.

I have found that a good percentage of what I say turns out in the end to be false, so I don't believe everything I myself say or write. As I haven't read that much of what TIA has written, I don't believe "everything" he says. However, I agree with the gist of what he's saying; that is, I believe many of the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections were stolen, to a large extent by the misuse of voting machines. I also think that the elections in 06 and 08 and various other elections and referenda (i.e. OH in 05) were manipulated by voting machines so that the alleged results do not represent the real vote. To what degree or by whom exactly the results were manipulated, I have no idea since there's either no means of verifying elections or if there are ways audits are not required in most venues in the US.

[OnTheOtherHand]

5. OK, well, he has had many days in court

It seems that in effect, you consider it reasonable to K&R TIA's posts because you agree with his ultimate conclusions, regardless of the content of his posts. Saves a lot of time, I suppose.

I think that hardly any of the elections you mention -- perhaps none at all -- was "stolen" by the "misuse" of voting machines. I know my reasons. I don't know yours. So it goes.

[L. Coyote]

8. I can.

[riqster]

6. Without transparency and with incomplete data, one must draw conclusions as one can

...since we cannot verify the accuracy and legality of the electoral process, and we have a history which includes election fraud, it behooves us to be skeptical.

[OnTheOtherHand]

7. this I agree with!

Arguments that the polls show Obama was robbed of millions of votes isn't working for me on the "skeptical" front -- but we really need verifiable voting.

[Peace Patriot]

9. Thank you, TIA, once again for your very informative and difficult work!

If your naysayers would put a tenth of the energy they put into debunking you, into achieving verified and verifiable elections, maybe we would have them. I have to laugh at OTOH's repeated attempts to say nothing's wrong, when so many results of our elections so obviously are wrong, and the near total non-transparency of the system is so obviously a condition designed for fraud. Many people don't yet realize what that means, not just as to the wrong politicians being 'elected,' but also as to truly elected politicians becoming wrong-headed, because of the nefarious power of rightwing corporations and their 'trade secret' code over election outcomes.

Well, as with many of the wisest and best people in human history, you may suffer disregard now, but you and your work will be one day recognized, and may well become the critical factor in turning this dying empire back round into the vibrant, healthy, prosperous democracy that it could be.

Truth is all.

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. fact check

You have no clue how much energy I put into achieving verifiable elections. It's just another factually challenged call-out.

I have to laugh at OTOH's repeated attempts to say nothing's wrong...

Funny, you never have once. You've had no opportunity, because I have never once said nothing's wrong. So, another factually challenged call-out.

As to the substantive issues where TIA and I disagree, I invite you -- nay, I double-dog dare you -- to argue his side, substantively. Or, in the alternative, to admit (to yourself at least) that you just don't care very much.

[Peace Patriot]

11. I certainly do care. I just don't find your posts informative or helpful.

Let me explain specifically why. Your posts seem to me aimed at giving people a false sense of security about an election system that has been rendered almost completely non-transparent. In this circumstance, the election system and its results must be presumed guilty until proven innocent. It is dangerous to our democracy to presume anything else. Non-transparency in an election system--especially the near total non-transparency in ours--is not an innocent condition. It wreaks of fraud. It screams fraud. There is really no other reason for non-transparency in an election system except fraud. Efforts like TIA's to figure out what this non-transparency may have been used for are useful and laudable, because non-transparency is designed to deny us the very evidence that could prove the system innocent of producing wrongful results. We do not have that evidence. The votes are NOT counted in public, in a way that everyone can see and understand. Half the systems in our country have no transparency at all. No paper trail, no ballot. Those results cannot be verified. We have no way of knowing that they are true. And even in the best of states, only 1% of the ballots are checked--not nearly adequate for a 'TRADE SECRET' code system, owned and controlled by rightwing corporations. We are forced to guess. We have to look at whatever information there is, that is visible--voter lists, precinct numbers, evidence of voter suppression, private corporate personnel having access to off-limits election areas, pre-election polls, voter registration increases, numbers of undervotes, numbers of provisional ballots--or, in TIA's study, a parallel system, the exit polls--for clues as to what really took place.

We also cannot ignore context--Bush's Titanic sinking in opinion polls, starting on the very day of his second inauguration (and never recovering), the Democratic '06 Congress' 10% approval rating--parallel systems again--and evidence of crime and gross malfeasance by those who gained office in non-transparent elections, evidence of further secrecy (as with Rove's 5,000 'disappeared' emails) and that regime's obsessive secrecy on all fronts, evidence of the looting of government coffers, unjustifiable war, political proseutions, motives for election fraud, and so on. This context leads to even greater suspicion, added to the non-transparency--rightful suspicion, necessary suspicion--of the results. TIA brings additional evidence to this overall picture, by detailed analysis of one parallel system, of where, specifically, fraud may have occurred, and when. It may be that we need to look more to a variety of methods of election fraud, or to other methods (for instance, voter purges), to fully understand what occurred (non-transparency, plus abuse of power, plus corporate news complicity, etc.). TIA cannot prove election fraud. The evidence--the only final, determinative evidence--the ballots, has been denied to us, on a system-wide basis. Unless there is a recount somewhere--a rare event--in one of the systems that have an actual ballot, 98% of the votes are unavailable for inspection.

So, I am not very interested in tearing TIA to pieces, or in your efforts to debunk TIA. TIA's analysis is not the only evidence of election fraud. To me, it is just a guide. It points to possible widespread manipulation of the 'TRADE SECRET' programming code, over many states, in different elections--and that certainly makes sense to me, as to the condition of the system--non-transparent--and the cleverest way that private corporate access to the code, with no public review, might be used (a little percentage here, a little percentage there, spread over many machines, in many places) to reduce detectability. Some of his demonstrations and arguments are compelling, but they cannot say who did it (just who benefits from it), or produce a definitive "smoking gun." That evidence has been denied to him, and to me and you and to everyone.

I do try to keep an open mind. I think I have a strong component of "negative capability," as Keats called--the ability to see the other side of things. I try to keep testing my opinions against the facts and other arguments. But I have not found much help in your posts in my understanding of election fraud, or--and this is very important to me--in understanding the general condition of our democracy, and what we can do to repair it. I certainly don't want us to go barking up a wrong tree--and trying to fix something that isn't broken, and wasting our citizen energy. I have considered that, despite TIA's analysis, the problem may lay elsewhere, in all the visible fraud (voter purges, vote suppression, etc.) But I keep coming back to the non-transparency. What is it for? Why would anyone design such a perverse system, and fast-track it into place, with virtually no controls? It makes no sense to me (except in a context of putrid corruption), and TIA does make sense. This system is used to give the warmongers and corporatists an edge--an extra advantage, on top of everything else--because their policies serve the minority, and, the worse their policies get, the more fraudulent advantage do they need.

It's not that TIA can or does prove anything definitively. It's that his studies make so much sense in the greater context. I am not a statician, nor even particularly good at math. But I can follow these studies, and I'm good at detail generally. I find TIA's studies useful and interesting. I think he has made an heroic effort to understand what's going on, in conditions of massive government secrecy. And I feel he is on the right track. The non-transparency, and the necessity of using parallel systems, and outside information (rather than the ballots themselves, because there are no ballots in half the systems, and virtually no ballots in the other half) is at least half the "smoking gun." It is that that we must fix first, for it is fundamental to our power to fix anything else. If we are to remain in a perpetual state of not really knowing who won, with private corporations controlling that information, our democracy is over.

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. I see no sign here that you find TIA's posts informative

As it seems, you believe that he is on your side, and that I am not, and you post accordingly. You just wrote over 1000 words in response to my challenge, yet pretty much the only thing a reader can glean about TIA's argument is that he thinks there was massive fraud, and so do you. Perhaps the only other thing is that he writes about exit polls, and you don't think they're especially important. Thus, it seems to me that you've made my point, at astonishing length.

Your posts seem to me aimed at giving people a false sense of security...

You started with an ad hominem, and you could have stopped right there, saving yourself almost 1000 words.

But I can follow these studies, and I'm good at detail generally.

Show, don't tell. Because what I've seen is someone with a strong narrative sense, who likes to elide pesky details for the sake of the desired story arc. I think my first sentence above says it all. But I would be delighted to learn otherwise.

[Peace Patriot]

13. I did NOT say that exit polls "are not especially important." I believe them to be VERY

important. But they are one piece of evidence, in a broader context. They don't give us the primary evidence--the ballots--which is denied to us in this non-transparent voting system. They give us the discrepancy from the official totals which are tabulated in a 'TRADE SECRET' system that should bewhy TIA's analysis IS important. It gives us more information. And it gives us information about the whole system--all states, the national vote. Rove may be pulling highly visible vote suppression crap in one place, Ohio, causing a big stink and rightful outrage, but what Diebold, ES&S or Sequoia are doing in some other place, in obscurity, may be more important, or equally important. TIA provides information on that broader view--as well as exit poll analysis in specific states or congressionl districts or whatever. That is rare, informative and useful.

Why don't you attack Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, for their non-transparency, and their lavish lobbying for non-transparency, and their various refusals to provide information, and the high cost of their crapass, hackable machhines, instead of attacking TIA, an ordinary citizen, who's trying to figure out what's going on, on his own dime?

I find his posts useful and informative, as pieces of the bigger puzzle, and your posts on that subject pretty much a waste of time. I tried to explain why to you, and you criticize me for using too many words. Well, heck, it's a big topic, you know--all that you are ignoring in our election system and our country.

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. what information does it give you?

Peace Patriot, everyone can read your post. Everyone can confirm that you spent over 1000 words saying almost nothing about TIA's work. Anyone who has ever read (or written) a student essay trying to disguise ignorance of the subject matter knows how it works. It's conceivable that you've fooled yourself, but unlikely that you will fool anyone else.

TIA provides information on that broader view--as well as exit poll analysis in specific states or congressionl districts or whatever.

"Whatever," indeed. I'm still waiting for your first example. My double-dog dare stands.

I am laughing, but it's frustrated laughter, because I don't think your approach does a damn thing for election integrity. With so many well-founded criticisms of the machines, I have to question the judgment of people who insist on loudly repeating poor arguments, which they blithely refuse to defend in detail. I do not believe that you are actually trying to make election integrity advocates look like misinformed ranters.

Since I evidently can't get you actually to think about TIA's work on "specific states or congressional districts or whatever," maybe you will think about this. Why did TIA's work get so much attention after 2004 than after 2008? Here's an hypothesis. In 2004, a lot of people already believed that the election had been stolen, and TIA gave the impression of scientific evidence supporting what they already believed. In 2008, many fewer people are predisposed to believe in massive fraud, so they have no need or use for TIA's arguments. TIA's arguments haven't gotten better or worse; the substance of TIA's arguments never mattered at all. Those of us who tried to take the arguments seriously -- including TIA himself -- were missing the point.

[tiptoe]

15. k nt

[Kurovski]

16. Kick.

:kick: Thank you.