The True MATH: Confirming Election Fraud 2000-2008 (TIA)

[tiptoe]

The True MATH: Confirming Election Fraud 2000-2008

TruthIsAll     source: http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/ConfirmationofPollingElectionFraud.htm

Mar 30, 2009

In analyzing historical election data, an ongoing pattern of statistical anomalies leads to two conclusions: the recorded vote does not reflect the True Vote, and the pattern always favors the Republicans. This brief summary of recurring anomalies since the 2000 Selection is powerful evidence that the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen and that landslides were denied in the 2006 midterms and 2008 presidential elections. The analysis does not include millions of potential Democrats who were disenfranchised and never even got to vote.

Uncounted Votes
There are millions of uncounted votes in every election. The majority (70-80%) are Democratic.

Late Votes
The Democratic late vote exceeded the Election Day share by 7% in each of the last three presidential elections.

Undecided voters
Historically, undecided voters break (60-90%) for the challenger.
Pre-election polls in general do not allocate undecided voters.
The undecided vote was strongly Democratic in the last three elections,.

Pre-election Polls
Registered voter (RV) polls include all registered new voters; likely-voter (LV) polls are a subset of RV polls and exclude many newly registered.
In general, only LV polls are posted during the final two weeks before the election.
LV polls are a subset of the total (RV) sample and have consistently understated the Democratic vote.
The RV samples are more accurate, especially when there is a heavy turnout of new voters — as in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
The Census reported that 88.5% of registered voters turned out on 2004.
The average projected turnout of 5 final pre-election RV/LV polls was 82.8%.
A regression analysis of Kerry’s vote share vs. registered voter turnout indicated he had a 52.6% share (assuming a 75% UVA).
Assuming the two-party vote, Kerry had a 51.3% share.
There was a strong 0.89 correlation ratio between Kerry’s LV poll share and LV/RV turnout.
In other words, the pre-election polls underestimated voter turnout by 6%. Newly registered Democrats came out in force.

New Voters
According to the 1988-2004 National Exit Polls, the Democrats won new voters by an average 14% margin.
In 2008, Obama won new voters by approximately 71-27%; in 2004, Kerry won new voters by approximately 57-41%.

The calculations below confirm that new voters comprise the difference (RV – LV) between registered (RV) and likely voter (LV) sample-size.
The Obama / McCain share of the difference was 73.3-26.7%, closely matching the 71-27% Final NEP new voter share.
The Kerry / Bush share of the difference was 57.8-42.2%, closely matching the 57-41% Prelim NEP new voter share.

The number of new voters is a function of voter mortality and turnout. It is estimated by the simple formula:
New voters = current election votes cast – (prior election votes cast – voter mortality) * prior-voter turnout

Applying the new voter formula based on 2008 votes cast (135.43m, estimate) and the 2004 votes cast (125.74m),
Given ~1.16% annual voter mortality (~5.83m over 4 years) and an approximate 98% turnout of 2004 election voters in 2008:
New 2008 voters ~= 17.9 million = (135.43 – (125.74 – 5.83)* 0.98) = (135.43 –119.91*.98)
New Voters recorded ~= 17.4m = 17.9 * (131.37/135.43) (based on total recorded vote).
According to the Final 2008 NEP, there were 17.1m new voters (13% of 131.37).

Applying the new voter formula based on 2004 votes cast (125.736m) and 2000 votes cast (110.826m), given ~1.19% average annual voter mortality
New 2004 voters ('DNV' 2000) = 22.3 million = 125.736 – (110.826 – 5.28)* 0.98 = 125.74 – 105.55*.98 = 125.74 - 103.44

There were approximately 3.8 million returning Nader voters. Kerry won 2.4 million (64%); Bush had 0.7 million (17%).
According to the 12:22am National Exit Poll, Kerry won 13.4 million new voters (57% of 'DNV'); Bush had 9.6 million (41%).
Of the 26.1 million new and returning Nader voters, Kerry won 15.8m and Bush 10.1m — a 5.7 million Kerry margin.
Since Bush won the official recorded vote by 3 million, almost 8.7 million more returning-Gore voters than Bush voters had to have defected.
But the 12:22am National Exit Poll indicated that 10% of returning Bush voters defected to Kerry, and 8% of Gore voters defected to Bush.

Final National Exit Poll
The Final NEP is always forced to match the recorded vote count.
In 2004, the returning Bush/Gore 43/37% voter mix was impossible.
In 2006, the returning 49/43% Bush/Kerry voter mix was implausible.
In 2008, the returning 46/37% Bush/Kerry voter mix was impossible.

2000
Gore won by 51.0–50.46m (48.38–47.87%).
The Census reported 110.8 million votes cast, but just 105.4m were recorded.
The Final 2000 NEP was forced to match the recorded vote.
Approximately 4 million of the 5.4 million uncounted votes were for Gore.
Therefore he won the True Vote by 55–52m.
The election was stolen.

2004
Bush won the recorded vote by 62.0–59.0m (50.73-48.27%)
Kerry won the unadjusted (WPE) state exit poll aggregate by 52-47%.
He led the preliminary NEP (12:22am, 13047 respondents) by 51-48%.
He led despite the implausible NEP 41/39% returning Bush/Gore voter mix.

The Final NEP (13660 sample) was 'forced to match' the 50.7–48.3% Bush recorded margin.
To force the match in the Final NEP:
a) Bush shares of returning and new voters were increased,
b) The returning Bush/Gore voter mix was changed to an impossible 43/37%.
The mix indicates an impossible 52.6m (43% of 122.3) returning Bush 2000 voters.

Bush only had 50.46 million recorded votes in 2000.
Approximately 2.5m died and 2.5m did not vote in 2004.
So there were at most 45.5 million returning Bush voters.
The Final overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 7 million.
Kerry won the True Vote by 8–10 million.
The election was stolen.

2006 Midterms
Democrats won all 120 pre-election Generic polls.
The final trend line projection was a 56.43–41.67 Democratic landslide.
At 7pm, the NEP indicated a 55–43% landslide.
The returning Bush/Kerry voter mix was 47/45%.

The Final was forced to match the 52–46% recorded vote.
To force the match:
a) the Bush share of returning and new voters were increased,
b) the returning voter mix was changed to an implausible 49/43%.
The Democratic margin was cut in half.
The landslide was denied.

2008
Obama won the recorded vote by 69.4–59.9m (52.9–45.6%)
Obama led the final pre-election registered voter polls by 52–39%.
The Final 2008 NEP was forced to match the recorded vote.

To force the match, the Final indicated an impossible 46/37% Bush/Kerry returning voter mix.
The mix overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 4 million — assuming zero fraud in 2004.
It overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 9 million — assuming the unadjusted (WPE) 2004 state exit poll aggregate (Kerry by 52–47%).

The Final indicated that an impossible 5.2 million (4% of 131.37m) were returning third-party voters.
There were only 1.2 million third-party voters in 2004.

The Final indicated there were 60.4 million (46% of 131.37m) returning Bush voters.
Bush only had 62.0 million votes in 2004 (assuming no fraud).
Approximately 3 million died and another 3 million did not vote in 2008.
Therefore there were approximately 56 million returning Bush voters.
Assuming no fraud in 2004, the Final NEP mix overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 4 million.
On the other hand, assuming that Kerry won by 52–47%, the Final NEP mix overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 9 million.
Obama's True Vote margin was cut in half.
The landslide was denied.

In summary:

If Final NEP weightings indicate a mathematically impossible number of returning voters, then simple logic dictates the weightings are impossible.
Since impossible weightings were necessary to match to the official vote count, then the official vote count must also be impossible.
Since the vote count is impossible, then all demographic category cross tabs must use incorrect weights and/or vote shares to match the count.

Census Voting Statistics
(in millions)

 

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

 

Total Recorded Votes
Dem
Rep
Other

Registered Voters
Change from prior year
4-year mortality
New Registered

Total votes cast
Change from prior year
4-year mortality
Percentages
Voting age, 18+
Registered voters
Change from prior year

Uncounted — % of Cast
Uncounted Votes
–Democrat (75%)
–Republican (25%)
–Net Democratic

92.03
37.58
54.46
0.00

116.11
11.07
6.04
16.62

101.88
8.81
5.30

59.94
87.75
9.47

9.66
9.85
7.38
2.46
4.92

91.60
41.81
48.89
0.90

118.59
2.48
6.07
8.52

102.22
0.35
5.23

57.40
86.20
0.34

10.40
10.63
7.97
2.66
5.31

103.75
44.91
39.10
19.74

126.58
7.99
6.38
14.06

113.87
11.64
5.74

61.32
89.96
11.39

8.88
10.12
7.59
2.53
5.06

91.27
45.59
37.82
7.87

127.66
1.08
6.33
7.46

105.02
-8.85
5.21

54.23
82.26
-7.77

13.09
13.74
10.31
3.44
6.87

105.42
51.00
50.46
3.28

129.55
1.89
6.32
8.22

110.83
5.81
5.41

54.70
85.55
5.53

4.88
5.41
4.06
1.35
2.70

122.30
59.03
62.04
1.23

142.07
12.52
6.82
18.84

125.74
14.91
6.04

58.30
88.51
13.46

2.74
3.44
2.58
0.86
1.72

Uncounted Votes

 

Census-Reported
Votes Cast

 

States-Recorded
Votes Counted

 

Votes
Uncounted

2008
2004
2000

na
125.74
110.83

 

131.37
122.29
105.42

 

na
3.45
5.41

 

Late Votes

2008
Election Day
Late
Total

2004
Election Day
Late
Total

2000
Election Day
Late
Total

Total
121.21
10.16
131.37

Total
116.7
5.6
122.3

Total
102.6
2.8
105.4

Obama
63.4
6.01
69.46

Kerry
56.4
2.6
59.0

Gore
49.5
1.5
51.00

McCain
56.1
3.81
59.94

Bush
59.8
2.2
62.0

Bush
49.3
1.2
50.46

Other
1.64
0.34
1.98

Other
0.40
0.80
1.20

Other
3.8
0.1
3.95

Obama

52.3%
59.2%

52.87%

Kerry

48.3%
46.9%

48.27%

Gore

48.2%
53.6%

48.38%

McCain
46.3%
37.5%
45.62%

Bush
51.3%
39.4%
50.73%

Bush
48.1%
42.9%
47.87%

Other
1.4%
3.3%
1.51%

Other
0.4%
13.7%
1.00%

Other
3.7%
3.5%
3.75%

 

Dem Margin
+  6.0
+21.7
 

 
–  3.0
+  7.5
 

 
+  0.1
+10.7
 

 

2000 Voter Mortality

Mortality Table
Age    AnnualRate

 

NEP
Age

Annual
Rate

Voter
Mort.

Votes
Cast

 
Mix

 

Final 2000 NEP

Gore

Bush

Other

 

Total Voter Deaths

Gore

Bush

Other

15-24
25-45
45-64
65+ 

0.09%
0.18%
0.71%
5.07%

 

18-29
30-44
45-59
60+ 

Total



Mort.

Deaths
4-year
Annual

0.10%
0.20%
0.60%
4.00%

1.22%



Total

5.38
4.88%
1.22%

0.019
0.064
0.199
1.064

1.346



Gore

2.71
50.37%
1.26%

18.84
32.13
33.24
26.59

110.8



Bush

2.55
47.38%
1.20%

17%
29%
30%
24%

100%
Total


Other

0.121
2.25%
0.84%

 

48%
48%
48%
51%

48.72%
53.98

46%
49%
49%
47%

48.01%
53.20

6%
3%
3%
2%

3.27%
3.62

 

0.036
0.123
0.383
2.170

2.712
5.02%

0.035
0.126
0.391
2.000

2.551
4.80%

0.005
0.008
0.024
0.085

0.121
3.35%

 

2008 Final Pre-election Polls — RV and LV

The Obama:McCain  'RV minus LV'  shares are 73.3–26.7%, closely matching post-election, Final exit poll  'New Voter'  shares, 71–27%.

The 1052 difference — i.e. the 3-poll RV samples (8581) exclusive their LV subsets (7529) — comprised 12.3% of the total RV sample.
Assuming 3% uncounted votes, there were approximately 17.6m newly-registered and other new voters (i.e., 'DNV' 2004) — 13% of 135.43m.

RV
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total


LV
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total

Sample
2824
2762
2995

8581


Subset
2472
2470
2587

7529

Date
11/02
11/02
11/01
 
100.0%
 
 
Date
11/02
11/02
11/01
 
100.0%

Obama
53
54
50

52.27%


Obama
53
53
49

51.63%

McCain
40
41
39

39.97%


McCain
42
44
42

42.66%

Spread
13
13
11

12.3%


Spread
11
9
7

9.0%

 

Other
 
 
 

1.51%


Other
 
 
 

1.51%

Undecided
 
 
 

6.06%


Undecided
 
 
 

4.79%

 

Pre-Election Final RV and LV Polls

 

Registered Voters (RV)

 

Likely Voters (LV subset)

 
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total
Share

Total
2627
2623
2666

7916
92.3%

Obama
1497
1491
1498

4486
52.3%

McCain
1130
1132
1168

3430
40.0%

 

Total
2348
2396
2355

7099
94.3%

Obama
1310
1309
1268

3887
51.6%

McCain
1038
1087
1087

3212
42.7%

 

 

RV–LV

 

"RV minus LV" Voters

Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total

Total
278
228
311

817

Obama
187
182
230

599

McCain
91
46
82

218

 

Obama
67.1%
80.0%
73.8%

73.3%

McCain
32.9%
20.0%
26.2%

26.7%

Spread
34.3%
60.0%
47.6%

46.6%

 

Post-Election   Preliminary NEP

‘DNV’ Voters

?

?

 

 

Post-Election  2:34p Final NEP

‘DNV’ Voters

71%

27%

 

 

 

2008 Undecided Voter Allocation

 

Pre-election Poll (%)

 

 

Undecided Voters Allocated

2008
Gallup
IBD
Zogby
Dem Corp
Ipsos
Pew

Average

 
 

Obama
53
47.3
51
51
50
49

50.22
 
 
 

McCain
42
42.8
44
44
42
42

42.8
 
 
 

Spread
11
4.5
7
7
8
7

7.42
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Polls Avg
Diff
UVA

 

Obama
55
51.5
54.1
53
53
52

53.10
50.22
2.88
62.9%

McCain
44
44.3
42.7
44
46
46

44.50
42.80
1.70
37.1%

Spread
11
7.2
11.4
9
7
6
 
8.60
7.42
1.18
25.8%

UVA 83.7% to Obama

Gallup
IBD
Zogby
DemCorp

50.6

43.2

7.2

 

 
Polls Avg
Diff
UVA

 

53.4
50.6
2.8
83.7%

43.8
43.2
0.5
16.3%

9.7
7.2
2.4
67.4%

UVA 57.1% to McCain

Ipsos
Pew
 
 

49.5

42.0

7.3

 

 
Polls Avg
Diff
UVA

 

52.5
49.5
3.0
42.9%

46.0
42.0
4.0
57.1%

6.5
7.3
-0.8
-14.2%

 

2004 Final Pre-election Polls

The Kerry/Bush vote split of the difference (1335) in sample between the RV and LV subset (57.8–42.2%)
matched the 12:22am Preliminary National Exit Poll  'New Voter'  shares: 57–41–2%.

The 1769 difference — i.e. 5-poll RV samples (10310) exclusive their LV subsets (8541) — comprised 17.2% of the total (RV) sample.
In 2004, there were approximately 21.4 million newly registered and other new voters (i.e., 'DNV' 2000) — 17% of 125.7m votes cast.
Of the 21.4 million, approximately 13.8m (11% of 125.74) were first-time voters. Kerry won 55% of first-timers.
The average pre-election poll projected turnout of registered voters was 82.8% (117m of 142m registered).
The census reported an 88.5% voter turnout (125.7m of 142.1m registered).

 

 

 

Actual Poll (%)

 

0.75

0.25

Undecided Voters Allocated

   RV
1-Nov
31-Oct
31-Oct
31-Oct
30-Oct




   LV
1-Nov
31-Oct
31-Oct
31-Oct
30-Oct

Poll
CBS
Fox
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total
Average

Poll
CBS
Fox
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total
Average

Sample
1125
1400
1866
3511
2408

10310
2062

Sample
939
1200
1573
2904
1925

8541
1708

Kerry
46
48
48
48
46


47.2

Kerry
47
48
49
48
48


48

Bush
47
45
46
47
45


46

Bush
49
46
49
49
51


48.8

Spread
-1
3
2
1
1


1.2

Spread
-2
2
0
-1
-3


-0.8

 

Kerry
50.50
52.50
51.75
51.00
52.00


51.55

Kerry
49.25
51.75
49.75
49.50
48.00


49.65

Bush
48.50
46.50
47.25
48.00
47.00


47.45

Bush
49.75
47.25
49.25
49.50
51.00


49.35

Spread
2.0
6.0
4.5
3.0
5.0


4.1

Spread
-0.5
4.5
0.5
0.0
-3.0


0.3

Projected
Turnout
83.5%
85.7%
84.3%
82.7%
79.9%


82.8%

 

Pre-election Polls Final RV and LV Samples

 

Registered Voters (RV)

 

Likely Voters (LV subset)

 
CBS
Fox
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total
 

Total
1047
1302
1754
3335
2192

9629
93.4%

Kerry
518
672
896
1685
1108

4878
47.3%

Bush
529
630
858
1650
1084

4751
46.1%

 

Total
901
1128
1542
2817
1906

8294
97.1%

Kerry
441
576
771
1394
924

4106
48.1%

Bush
460
552
771
1423
982

4188
49.0%

 

 

RV – LV 

 

"RV minus LV" Voters

CBS
Fox
Gallup
ABC
Pew

Total

Total
145
174
213
519
286

1335

Kerry
76
96
125
291
184

772

Bush
69
78
88
227
102

563

 

Kerry
52.6%
55.2%
58.8%
56.2%
64.3%

57.8%

Bush
47.4%
44.8%
41.2%
43.8%
35.7%

42.2%

Spread
 5.2%
10.3%
17.6%
12.4%
28.7%

15.6%

 

• If Final NEP weightings indicate a mathematically impossible number of
   returning voters, then simple logic dictates the weightings are impossible.
• Since impossible weightings were necessary to match to the official vote count,
   then the official vote count must also be impossible.
• Since the vote count is impossible, then all demographic category cross tabs
   must use incorrect weights and/or vote shares to match the count.

Polled Pre Vote: 10,310. 'RV-LV' sample: CBS + Gallup + ABC + FOX + Pew

 

Post-Election 12:22a Prelim NEP

‘DNV’ Voters

57%

41%

 

Polled Exit Vote: 13,046. Shares = 3.4m Dem margin  (17% DNV == 21.4m)

Post-Election   1:25p  Final NEP

‘DNV’ Voters

54%

45%

 

'Forced' to match the vote-count = Dem margin dis-count, 1.5m votes  1 2 

 

NATIONAL EXIT POLL

 

 

 

 

CATEGORY

Average
Total Votes

Max
Min

Gender
Party-ID
Vote Prev Electn
Region
Education

Race
Age
Income
Ideology
Religion

Military
Decided
Location

 

Kerry

50.85%
62.19 

51.63%
50.08%

50.78%
51.07%
51.20%
50.53%
50.43%

50.98%
50.26%
51.07%
50.18%
50.78%

51.20%
51.23%
51.40%

Bush

47.88%
58.55 

48.51%
47.24%

48.22%
47.85%
47.50%
47.95%
48.18%

47.61%
47.69%
47.75%
48.60%
48.01%

47.62%
47.93%
47.47%

Other

1.27%
1.55 

1.85%
0.69%

1.00%
1.08%
1.30%
1.52%
1.39%

1.41%
2.05%
1.18%
1.22%
1.21%

1.18%
0.84%
1.13%

 

Kerry

47.95%
58.64 

48.62%
47.29%

47.78%
47.89%
48.48%
48.24%
47.82%

47.81%
47.96%
48.13%
47.25%
47.99%

48.38%
47.50%
48.14%

Bush

51.08%
62.47 

51.62%
50.54%

51.22%
51.22%
51.11%
51.08%
51.24%

50.99%
51.28%
51.02%
51.54%
50.94%

50.44%
51.22%
50.73%

Other

0.97%
1.19 

1.46%
0.48%

1.00%
0.89%
0.41%
0.68%
0.94%

1.20%
0.76%
0.85%
1.21%
1.07%

1.18%
1.28%
1.13%

 

Obama

52.69%
69.22 

53.13%
52.25%

52.71%
52.67%
52.62%
52.76%
52.31%

52.82%
52.29%
52.96%
52.56%
53.07%

52.65%
52.67%
52.88%

McCain

45.57%
59.86 

46.14%
44.99%

45.35%
45.14%
45.94%
45.56%
45.93%

45.57%
45.71%
44.99%
45.88%
45.58%

45.50%
45.81%
45.41%

Other

1.74%
2.29 

2.24%
1.25%

1.94%
2.19%
1.44%
1.68%
1.76%

1.61%
2.00%
2.05%
1.56%
1.35%

1.85%
1.52%
1.71%

 
 

 
 

2004 PRELIMINARY NEP
1% Margin of Error

 
 

2004 FINAL EXIT POLL
'forced' to match the count

 

2008 FINAL EXIT POLL
'forced' to match the count

Vote Prev Electn

 

 

12:22am ( 13,047 )

 

 

1:25pm ( 13,660 )

 

 

 

( 17,836 )

Voted
  '00
DNV
Gore
Bush
Other

Share
 

Votes
  '04
20.79
47.70
50.14
  3.67

 

 

Weight

17%
39%
41%
3%

100%

Kerry

57%
91%
10%
64%

51.20%

Bush

41%
8%
90%
17%

47.50%

Other

2%
1%
0%
19%

1.30%

 

Weight

17%
37%
43%
3%

100%

Kerry

54%
90%
9%
71%

48.48%

Bush

45%
10%
91%
21%

51.11%

Other

1%
0%
0%
8%

0.41%

 

Voted
  '04
DNV
Kerry
Bush
Other

Weight

13%
37%
46%
4%

100%

Obama

71%
89%
17%
66%

52.62%

McCain

27%
10%
82%
24%

45.94%

Other

2%
1%
1%
10%

1.44%

 

2004 TRUE VOTE

Voted

2000

 

Alive

 

 

Calculated 2004 True Vote

 '00
DNV
Gore
Bush
Other

Total

Recorded

51.00
50.46
3.95

105.42

Uncounted

4.04
1.18
0.16

5.38

Cast

55.04
51.64
 4.11

110.8

Deaths

2.69
2.52
0.2

5.41

'04 

52.36
49.12
3.91

105.39

Turnout

97%
97%
97%

100.1

Voted
23.48
50.80
47.66
3.80

125.74
Cast

2004 Official
Vote Count 

 

Weight
18.70%
40.40%
37.90%
3.02%

100%
125.74

122.3
 

Kerry
57%
91%
10%
64%

53.14%
66.81

59.03
48.27%

Bush
41%
8%
90%
17%

45.51%
57.23

62.04
50.73%

Other
2%
1%
0%
19%

1.35%
1.70

1.23
1.00%

 

2008 TRUE VOTE

Voted

Unadjusted 

 

Alive

 

 

Calculated 2008 True Vote

 '04
DNV
Kerry
Bush
Other

Total

'04 Exit Poll

63.59
57.47
 1.23

122.30

Uncounted

1.79
1.62
0.03

3.45

Cast

65.38
59.09
 1.26

125.74

Deaths

3.14
2.84
0.06

6.04

'08 

62.25
56.26
1.2

119.7

Turnout

97%
97%
97%

113.7

Voted
19.32
60.38
54.57
1.17

135.43
Cast

2008 Official
Vote Count 

 

Weight
14.30%
44.60%
40.30%
0.86%

100%
135.43

131.37

Obama
71%
89%
17%
66%

57.22%
77.50

69.46
52.87%

McCain
27%
9%
82%
24%

41.11%
55.68

59.94
45.62%

Other
2%
2%
1%
10%

1.67%
2.26

1.98
1.51%

 

1988-2008 SUMMARY

 
'88-'08

 

Calculated True Vote

Dem

Rep

Margin

 

Recorded Vote-Count

Dem

Rep

Margin

 

Unadj State Exit Poll Aggreg

Dem

Rep

Margin

 

WPE

Recorded-EP

 

Margins Diff

TrueVote-EP

 

True Vote

Margin (mil)

Avg-'08
Avg-'04

2008
2004
2000

1996
1992
1988

 

51.82%
50.69%

57.5%
53.2%
49.4%

51.9%
48.0%
50.7%

42.54%
42.88%

40.8%
45.4%
46.0%

39.3%
35.0%
48.1%

9.29%
7.87%

16.7%
7.8%
3.3%

12.6%
13.0%
2.6%

 

47.90%
46.91%

52.9%
48.3%
48.4%

49.2%
43.0%
45.6%

45.96%
46.03%

45.6%
50.7%
47.9%

40.7%
37.4%
53.4%

1.94%
0.88%

7.2%
-2.5%
0.5%

8.5%
5.6%
-7.7%

 

48.82%

  na
52.0%
49.4%

50.2%
45.7%
46.8%

44.12%

na
47.0%
46.9%

39.8%
34.7%
52.2%

4.70%


4.9%
2.5%

10.4%
11.0%
-5.3%

 

-3.82%


-7.4%
-2.0%

-1.9%
-5.4%
-2.4%

 

3.17%


2.9%
0.8%

2.2%
2.0%
8.0%

 

11.11 (D)
8.81 (D)

22.60 (D)
9.79 (D)
4.24 (D)

10.50 (D)
14.82 (D)
2.67 (D)

 

TRUE VOTE CALCULATION

Election Calculator — 1988 – 2008

True Vote Calculations: 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 — incl Sensitivity Analyses: Turnout, Mortality, Uncounted
Introduction
Summary Statistics, 1988 - 2008
OH, CT, NY, PA, CA, NJ, FL
Graphs
2004 Pre-election polls, Exit polls and the True Vote
States 2008
2008 Final National Exit Poll - 35 categoories
2004 Edison-Mitofsky Exit Poll Estimates: WPE, Best Geo, Composite
2004 The Final 5.6 Million Recorded Votes
Historical Final National Exit Poll — Demographic Trend and Correlation Analysis
1988-2004 Recorded State Vote and Exit Poll Shares
U.S. Census: Reported Voting in Presidential Election Years by Region, Race, Hispanic Origin, Sex, and Age – 1964 - 2004
Links: Polling Analysis, Census Data, 2000/2004 County Vote Database, National Exit Poll Timeline,
Edison-Mitofsky 2004 Report, State Exit Polls (GEO Best Estimate), Election Incident Reporting Systsem (EIRS)

 

REGRESSION ANALYSIS: Kerry Vote share vs. Registered Voter Turnout

Two-party
y=.15+.41x
Kerry
47.8%
48.2%
48.6%
48.9%
49.0%
49.4%
49.9%
50.3%
50.7%
51.1%
51.3%
51.5%
51.9%

 
 
Turnout
80%
81%
82%
82.8%
83%
84%
85%
86%
87%
88%
88.5%
89%
90%

 

75% UVA
y=.012+.581x
Kerry
47.7%
48.3%
48.8%
49.3%
49.4%
50.0%
50.6%
51.2%
51.7%
52.3%
52.6%
52.9%
53.5%

Turnout
80%
81%
82%
82.8%
83%
84%
85%
86%
87%
88%
88.5%
89%
90%

 

Pre-election (5-LV poll) projected turnout






Post-election Census-reported turnout

 

 

2000 Final Pre-election Polls

 

 

Actual Poll (%)

 

0.60

0.40

Undecided Voters Allocated

RV
11/2
11/5
11/5




LV
11/2
11/5
11/5

Poll
Newsweek
Pew
Gallup

Total


Poll
Newsweek
Pew
Gallup

Total

Gore
44
45
46

45


Gore
43
43
45

43.67

Bush
41
41
44

42


Bush
45
45
47

45.67

Spread
3
4
2

3


Spread
-2
-2
-2

-2

 

Gore
52.4
52.8
51.4

52.2


Gore
49.6
49.6
49.2

49.47

Bush
46.6
46.2
47.6

46.8


Bush
49.4
49.4
49.8

49.53

Spread
5.8
6.6
3.8

5.4


Spread
0.2
0.2
-0.6

-0.07

 

2000-2008 Final Pre-election Poll Summary

 

 

RV Polls

 

LV Polls

 

 
2000
2004
2008

Dem
45.00
47.20
52.33

Rep
42.00
46.00
40.00

Spread
3.00
1.80
12.33

 

Dem
43.67
47.20
52.00

Rep
45.67
47.00
43.00

Spread
-2.00
0.20
9.00

 

 

UVA Projected

 

 

 

 

 

 

2000
2004
2008

52.20
51.55
56.96

46.80
47.45
41.54

5.40
4.10
15.42

 

49.47
49.65
54.63

49.53
49.35
43.88

-0.07
0.30
10.75

 

 

Recorded

 

 

 

 

 

 

2000
2004
2008

48.87
48.27
52.87

48.38
50.73
45.62

0.49
-2.46
7.25

 

48.87
48.27
52.87

48.38
50.73
45.62

0.49
-2.46
7.25

 

 

Diff: Proj-Recd

 

 

 

 

 

 

2000
2004
2008

3.33
3.28
4.09

-1.58
-3.28
-4.08

4.91
6.56
8.17

 

0.60
1.38
1.76

1.15
-1.38
-1.75

-0.56
2.76
3.50

 

2006 National Exit Poll Timeline vs. the True Vote (Generic Poll Trend)

VOTED

7:07p Preliminary Exit Poll

 

1pm Final Exit Poll

 

True Generic Vote

  '04
Kerry
Bush
Other
DNV

TOTAL

Mix
45%
47%
4%
4%

100%

Dem
93%
17%
67%
67%

55.2%

Rep
6%
82%
23%
30%

43.4%

Other
1%
1%
10%
3%

1.4%

 

Mix
43%
49%
4%
4%

100%

Dem
92%
15%
66%
66%

52.2%

Rep
7%
83%
23%
32%

45.9%

Other
1%
2%
11%
2%

1.9%

 

Mix
49%
46%
1%
4%

100%

Dem
93%
17%
67%
67%

56.7%

Rep
6%
82%
23%
30%

42.1%

Other
1%
1%
10%
3%

1.2%

 

2006 Generic Pre-election Poll Trend vs. the 7:07pm and Final National Exit Poll

National Exit Poll

Source
Unadj NEP
CNN-7pm
CNN-Final
NYT

Dem
56.37%
55.20%
52.20%
53.10%

Rep
41.33%
43.40%
45.90%
44.90%

Other
2.30%
1.50%
2.50%
2.00%

 

Reported National Vote

Wikipedia
CBS-Nat
CBS-State

57.70%
52.70%
51.30%

41.80%
45.10%
46.40%

0.50%
2.20%
2.30%

 

120 Generic Poll Linear Regression Trend

Dem   =
Rep   =

 46.98 + .0419x
 38.06 + .0047x

 

Substituting x = 120 and allocating 60% of the undecided vote (UVA) to the Democrats:

Dem   =
Rep   =

 Trend + UVA  = Projection
 52.01 + 4.42 = 56.43%
 38.62 + 2.95 = 41.57%

 

Graphics

2008 Election Model: Obama Electoral Vote and Popular Vote Share Trend

2008 Election Calculator: Obama Vote Margin Sensitivity to share of returning Kerry and Bush voters

2008 Election Calculator: Obama Vote Share Sensitivity to share of returning Kerry and Bush voters

2006 Pre-election Generic Poll Trend

Probabilities of Democratic House Gain

2004 Pre-Election and Exit Poll Vote Share Simulation

 

[laconicsax]

1. tl;dr

:hi:

[AndyTiedye]

2. K/R! Needs 1 More for the "Greatest" Page

:kick:

[Peace Patriot]

3. K&R x 1,000!

Throw Diebold, ES&S and all 'TRADE SECRET' code voting machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:patriot:

[Mithreal]

4. K&R nt

[HillbillyBob]

28. In Fla in at least one precinct

ballots were not spoiled they were shredded prior to counting let alone recount, they never even made it to the courthouse. They were shredded in truck mounted shredders. I have been saying it since the morning after the election.
I m still told that I must be mistaken...Um I have seen truck mounted paper shredders before that election, and one was parked in front of our polling place and the boxes of ballots were dumped into it. There were other eyewitnesses and a local fox affiliate there taking pictures, the tape was shown once only several days later claiming they were shredded post count which is a bold lie.

Given all the other crappy stunts that katherine harris and jeb bush pulled like dumping registered dems off the rolls to tht tune of 360,000.

[Bill Bored]

29. Tell them to shred THIS!

[autorank]

5. A MASTERPIECE k*r!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sancho]

6. Given all the "new" revelations that DRE's & tabulators steal and drop votes...

TIA's observations now have a viable explanation of HOW the elections were stolen. With computer programmers dying in mysterious plane crashes, even those who don't support conspiracy theories have to at least wonder about the weird coincidence. What's more, there were many "local" races here in Florida like Betty Castor's loss to Martinez and Jenning's loss to Buchanan where there was NO WAY that the vote count made sense. We should have more Democratic Senators and Representatives today than are actually sitting. For a fun read, see the American Statistical Association's "Chance Magazine" article:

Florida 2006: Can Statistics Tell Us Who Won Congressional District-13?

"The study by Frisina uses two methods to analyze the CD-13 undervote....Both show that Jennings was almost certainly the preferred choice among the majority of CD-13 voters."

Once I realized that undervotes and/or switched votes on SOME but NOT ALL machines and tabulators were determining elections, I tried to pretend to be a hacker and think of formulas that would be useful to steal the election. There's no way to know exactly, but my guess is that a hacker equation used simple data on the number of registrations by party as an input variable and targeted certain precincts. The program would likely switch or drop a preset randomly chosen number of votes. Depending on the available voting systems, some races were altered by dropping or switching votes on a minority of machines (not all) in some precincts (not all) with a parameter that the number of changes would not exceed a preset standard error. This resulted in difficulty identifying cheating since precinct-level data (including polls) is rarely or never available. When the registration data was inaccurate or the SE limit was reached or the turnout was different than expected; the GOP lost anyway as the number of "changes" was insufficient. In most cases in FL, my guess is that GOP election supervisors allowed DRE and tabulator access to the machines so that hacking was an easy act since the culprits were often election staff or employees of the DRE manufacturer. There was also a concerted effort to limit the overall valid vote by turning away selected voters in some precincts through ID and registration gimmicks when the excessive turnout was predicted to overwhelm the hacking equation.

The main evidence here are discrepancies in a given precinct. For example, a precinct might elect a Democratic state representative, pass a tax referendum in favor of a school tax, and then elect a GOP Senator?!? Combined with reports of vote switching machines (I personally witnessed one switching DRE during the 2004 election) and strange undervotes on some machines in some precincts - it was logical that the process was hacked. Unfortunately, there is insufficient precinct level poll or voting information to have statistical confidence of a hack - which was intent of the programing originally and likely explains the WPE that is weird and has no explanation (reluctant respondents just doesn't cut it for me).

Thanks for continuing the fight TIA! Poll data should be transparent! Parallel election polls should target random or suspicious precincts!

[OnTheOtherHand]

7. I missed it... where is TIA's explanation?

The problem with your CD 13 example is that, in fact, those statistical anomalies are fairly simple to detect. It's true that we don't know whether the CD 13 results were hacked or otherwise went awry, but AFAIK everyone who has looked at the data agrees that they went awry.

So when you say, "Unfortunately, there is insufficient precinct level poll or voting information to have statistical confidence of a hack," you seem to be missing the point of your own example. The reality is that if a minority of the voting machines are hacked or fail for any reason, the results on those machines tend to look different -- and we often do have access to those results, at least at the precinct level.

What's interesting, and puzzling, is that for all of TIA's vaunted concern about evidence of election fraud, I don't think I have ever seen him analyze precinct-level results.

[Sancho]

9. I've never seen sufficient precinct level data to do proper analysis of fraud...

what I mean is non-parametric regression (SEM or HLM) where one would have to see exit poll and voter responses on all races and demographics. I've never seen anything like that...

One way to detect manipulation requires that much of the polling data would have to be available instantly before the machines were moved from the station or rebooted!

Also, item response models would clearly show misfit by machine, precinct, race, or items on the exit polls including "reluctant responders" or survey errors. Only item level data aligned with each precinct's results could do that...so I could (and HAVE) identified an individual machine or precinct. In one case here in Pinellas county, when I observed a machine misbehaving and reported it, the poll worker (who worked for the DRE manufacturer) removed that machine, rebooted it and put it back. They also forced me to leave the observation area! In another case in Sarasota, machines that were used in early voting behaved statistically differently when the exact same machines were used in the same district for a regular election (undervotes, etc.). There is NO explanation for that other than a programming change!

In another case, I received a threatening email from the Election Supervior in Pinellas County (Clearwater, St. Pete) when I challenged her machine security (DRE's left unattended in pubic libraries and churches) and the counting of mailed votes. We've had documented reports here of the post office "losing" thousands of mailed ballots. Hillsborough County (Tampa) had a Jeb appointed crook who has now been tossed, but clearly manipulated access. Since we are on to the DRE manipulation here, the new strategy is to use as many mail in ballots as possible and manipulate the validity of the ballots. At least they know we are watching and it is tougher to manipulate if you wanted to down here.

In other cases post facto evidence of machine error was not allowed to be investigated by the courts (Sarasota) because the software was "proprietary". There IS evidence on some local levels of more than "error" because the results are systematic, but there are many legal and political challenges to getting quick and useful access to the data before the machines are reprogrammed or locations misidentified.

Good exit pollsters would ask questions that could be quickly compared to results during the election that would trigger immediate investigations. Also, the best way to do a criminal check of hacking the elections is a voluntary "parallel" election in random or suspicious precincts.

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. "proper" analysis?

So now it is your position that the analysis in The American Statistician was improper, and we really can't learn much about FL 13 unless we do non-parametric regression on the (essentially non-existent) exit poll data? Or are you perhaps moving the goalposts?

Pardon my indignation, but in the real world, we've learned a lot about the counting and miscounting of votes by analyzing -- yes -- vote counts. Your obsession with the much sparser exit poll data is difficult for me to understand.

In another case in Sarasota, machines that were used in early voting behaved statistically differently when the exact same machines were used in the same district for a regular election (undervotes, etc.). There is NO explanation for that other than a programming change!

That's quite possibly true, and also doesn't require access to (nonexistent) exit poll data -- although in order to know whether there really is no other explanation, I would need more specifics.

[Sancho]

12. There are many ways to skin the cat...

if there were person/item level poll data, some investigations using SEM would likely be more sensitive to patterns of interest than we've seen from the WPE/parametric analyses. I can imagine many ways that things could or should be done. In my 30 years experience with data analysis including surveys, if you have data that is "too sparse" in 2000, then you fix the problem in 2004 and 2008. We do have computers and things now. I believe that American Idol records 60,000,000 votes in two hours! I would love to see what would have happened if there had been a parallel exit election (voluntary) in Sarasota in the last decade. Everyone is so frustrated that I'd be a very large group of honest voters would have participated and identified the issues in a real and unquestionable way. It would have cost much less than all the court cases! It would also have called into question (possibly) several Presidential elections IF the results had demonstrated manipulation or significant error. The GOP election supervisor, secretary of state in FL, and Governor really, really don't want such a check on elections to occur here. That would require no more than descriptive and obvious analysis.

Sampling is something that is pretty well understood. The problem is "nonignorable nonresponse" (see Wainer).

Exit pollsters don't do what is necessary because their employers (as currently contracted) don't have that interest. WPE is less important with methods that are sample independent (like IRT). Pollsters and "vote counters" have not been using those methods as far as I can determine (I've attended and presented at ASA meeting, etc.). I think that traditionally, it's not in their tool box since those methods are more often used in medical field assessment, test item analysis, and professional license testing.

Likely, an exit poll process needs to be completely public and with the intent of checking on selected new voting processes (like DRE's).

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. well, there's still a basic disconnect here

I support experimentation with parallel elections, although I'm not sanguine about the results at least in the short run. (Have you tried to 'plug in' with Steve Freeman's efforts?) And I certainly don't oppose efforts to make the exit poll data more useful, although I'm not very sanguine about that either. My point is that we have almost more precinct-level data than we know what to do with -- although its availability varies widely -- and I wish that folks would spend more time looking at it.

[Sancho]

18. Yes, I have jioned with Freeman on some efforts...

I have not seen precinct level data that compared multiple (local) races, nor have I seen item (question) analysis data, nor person fit data, nor a number of other things. Perhaps you have access to something that I don't have. The national poll data that I downloaded did not have connectivity to perform IRT analysis.

If there were a parallel election, that would be helpful if you wanted to have evidence of manipulation or fraud. Transparent code, mirrored tabulators, etc. might be useful in preventing hacking.

I don't think this is unusual or new. Others have said so on DU and in more scholarly papers.

I would suggest that there are plenty of local races in Florida that appear to have outlier results while other races in the same precinct with the same machines do not. Jenning's and Castor's losses were examples. Usually, there were no local polls of consequence, but there were registration and participation numbers. If there were five candidates (for example), a majority Democratic voters casting votes, and two amendments in a precinct - and all but one GOP candidate loses and that one candidate also showed unusual undervotes and multiple complaints of machine malfunction in that district...well, it's possible that error or hacking was the cause of the unexpected results. If that weird error happens three election cycles in a row across different brands of DRE's in key precincts, then random errors seems less plausible. If the same party is always the beneficiary of the error, that becomes more suspicious. On a micro level, there is not statistical power. Logically, there is a possible picture. Again, see John Snow.

In Florida (and maybe Ohio), the state legislature and governor's control would likely have made a difference in the national Presidential elections. State control may have been part of the manipulation that rivals the national polls and TIA's suggestions.

I don't know of anyway to do 100% parallel elections or exit polls without lot of money and effort, but I do think that random precincts could be paralleled or extensively polled to put a stop to some of the issues we are seeing, simply because the potential hackers might fear getting caught.

The current polling system is not attempting to find error or manipulation and lacks the power to do so with traditional certainty. There are some methods that have not been used often by pollsters (like IRT), and maybe that would be worth a try if the next poll was planned to do so.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. hmm

It's often trivial to find precinct level data that compare multiple races, provided that one is looking for that, and not for "item (question) analysis data, nor person fit data," nor "national poll data."

"I don't think this is unusual or new. Others have said so on DU and in more scholarly papers."

I'm sorry, but I can't tell what "this" is here.

"I would suggest that there are plenty of local races in Florida that appear to have outlier results while other races in the same precinct with the same machines do not. Jenning's and Castor's losses were examples."

I don't know about Castor's case, but one needn't merely "suggest" this for the Jennings race: one can easily document it. I and others were crunching precinct-level data from that election almost immediately after election day. You seem to be making all this sound much more difficult than it actually is. Polling data may add additional leverage. But a more urgent question might be: if some jurisdictions are providing timely access to election data, and others aren't, what needs to be done to prod the laggards into line?

Moreover, if there are plenty of other examples in Florida, someone ought to document them. That could be you. I don't think it's happening now.

(Minnesota just may set the gold standard for access. The SOS was posting precinct-level updates for every precinct in the state, all night long, with quasi-continuous updates -- I've been told they exceeded their guarantee of updates every 10 minutes. The data cover not just the statewide races, but all races, as far as I can tell.)

[Sancho]

22. There have been challenges in Florida, but what causes a court to intervene?

Most of the time, reviews by an election board or investigation are restricted to a machine or set of machines or a precinct; or there is evidence of possible error across precincts or districts (like undervotes), but no way to conclude manipulation. You know this already.

Given how courts tend to restrict the review to only the machine, precinct, or ballot in question, it is hard to see a pattern of subtle manipulation. I would hate to try and explain some regression results in a court even if the exit polls demonstrated a "statistically significant" alteration from predicted results. This has been a problem that DNA probability computations often face (remember OJ?).

Occasional and selected "hacking" of DRE or tabulators is too sparse to make a legal case. If manipulation is occurring on this basis, it would be difficult to detect.

This is what I'm suggesting. If a parallel elections targeted some specific precinct or extensive exit polls included all races and participants in a few precincts; ONE CLEAR CASE of manipulation would possibly cause an investigation of the whole.

It was clear in Sarasota that so many people had personally witnessed DRE and counting problems, that the district voted the machines out. Going to a paper ballot was the voter intent, but there was never enough "proof" of purposeful manipulation to win in court. GOP resistance from the election supervisor, judges, etc. restricted evidence collection and allowed machines to be moved or rebooted before "testing". Tabulators were not checked and machine code was "proprietary".

In the 2004 elections in Pinellas (Martinez supposedly beat a popular Castor who had been Fl Sec. of Ed. and a University President) while some of the same precincts voted for all other Democratic candidates and approved a school tax hike, and defeated GOP constitutional amendments (like gambling). In seemed an impossible pattern. There were reports of vote switching, and I saw one machine actually switch from Castor on the first screen to Martinez on the review page repeatedly. I demanded the machine be removed, and instead the machine was rebooted by a tech and I was removed.

If someone (I don't know who) was prepared to take the complaints and early returns and spend the afternoon with a parallel election or extensive exit poll in those suspicious precincts, there's a good chance that a very large discrepancy would cause the election to be challenged. Of course, a revote would be the only remedy, and that would be a mess.

There have been local groups constantly observing, calling hotlines, and writing complaints. In response to increased scrutiny of elections in Pinellas, the election supervisor has switched to an almost 100% effort for mailed ballots. Now we have a different issue. There have been two local cases of large numbers of missing mailed ballots, and wide spread reports of rejected ballots. Most people don't know their ballot was rejected. "Volunteers" who are largely GOP hacks compare signatures or look for stray marks and so the target is moving to a different battle.

In the last elections, I was one of groups of volunteers who reported local results early to watch for patterns. It did in fact seem that some precincts or districts were out of line or that official tallies at the end of the day didn't always match up; but there were simply too many newly registered Democrats and any errors that occurred (manipulations) didn't change the Presidential election. It should not have been as close in Fl as the official results, but no one can say the "real" intent with DRE and tabulators that don't have a record. No one has enough evidence to challenge local errors.

Poll analysis (or parallel elections) would either have to "catch them in the act" or use a different analysis to cause a court to intervene or an election to be challenged. If there was an impossible "person fit" for example; if there was convincing poll evidence that a particular precinct's voters were almost impossibly likely to have voted the way it was being reported - well, there may not be electronic "proof" of manipulation once the machine code is wiped, but it might change the voting process or even cause a revote. There may even be reason to grab machines in mid-voting and keep them from being "repaired". A secure mirrored tabulator a second locations would be interesting also, but I'm not a computer expert. I get the idea.

A handful of national poll responses from a widely scattered sample might indicate potential "problems" such as TIA often describes, but is not useful to diagnosis the cause or even point to the specific point of error. I can imagine watchdog groups being prepared to go into random or suspected (but unannounced) precincts and attempt to poll everyone or make a parallel election convenient. Possibly, that would be sensitive enough to catch ONE clear case of manipulation - regardless of the voting method - and result in real reform of the system.

[OnTheOtherHand]

23. well, I wasn't talking about courts

Of course the ultimate goal is to be able to correct miscounts. Florida is taking a huge step in that direction by bringing back optical scanners statewide, but the mere existence of ballots does not suffice, we can agree.

But if there is strong evidence of miscount in Martinez/Castor, someone ought to be able to marshal it as it was marshaled in FL-13. Of course it would not alter the outcome, but it would still be an important contribution. And if there isn't strong evidence, that would be worth knowing too.

Incidentally, a few years ago a local election in New York (I believe in White Plains) was overturned based on a combination of the facial implausibility of a particular election district result, physical evidence that the machine had malfunctioned, and affidavits reporting actual voter intent. This example doesn't prove anything in particular, except that it's (1) possible and (2) not very easy to correct clear error. (Strictly, it doesn't even prove (2), but we all know that's true.)

[Sancho]

24. There has not been enough outcry to overturn elections here yet...but

-Hillsbourgh (Tampa) tossed out a GOP election supervisor originally appointed by Jeb and replaced him with an elected Democrat
-Pinellas has more Democratic registrations than gop for the first time in many years, and Pinellas elected a Democratic state senator (Heller) and the main state gop candidate was investigated and arrested for some banking issues
-Sarasota is ready for a Democrat to take Buchannan's seat in the next election

The west coast of FL is moving in the right direction - and I think that Gov. Crist is more centrist (he is from St. Pete) because he sees his home area changing rapidly. He has openly avoided criticizing Obama. All the election process complaints have been a key to get more activists, meet-ups, and registrations. In some ways, the problems of FL have helped spur the Democratic party here. There has NOT been much of an official party effort to improve elections, watch elections, or run parallel elections. Almost all the efforts have been individual progressive groups or individual complaints.

Even Clint Curtis running for office got some play and Tom Feney has hopefully lost all momentum to national office because of the accusations of hacking DRE's. I'll bet that there will be instant notice of large undervotes in the next election. People who would never have questioned the voting process a decade ago are now questioning openly that their votes count. I see more "retired conservative" folks arguing to change the process now, not just us "wild leftist hippies".

The idea of a parallel election or some kind of check on the process is likely necessary because there are people here who will cheat the system no matter what kind of ballots or machines are used. I knew that NY and some other places had challenged election results, but we have a decade of Jeb appointed judges and gop election supervisors that have made the same kind of investigations pretty difficult. That is likely a difference. If the Sarasota evidence had been presented in a NY or California court, there may have been an entirely different conclusion.

[Sancho]

11. TIA didn't offer an explanation...his results is consistent with possible problems.

There have been multiple reports lately of DRE analysis that shows possible dropped votes, etc.; and also there is no way to "trace" the actual voting. I said that those new reports on DRE misbehavior offer an explanation for how some of TIA's observations could have occurred. You can ALWAYS claim that there is not enough evidence for your own confidence or for legal "proof"; but replicability is one sign of a real effect. TIA shows unusual patterns over repeated measures (three elections), and the DRE/tabulator analyses show one possible explanation of miscounting. Pollster's non-transparent behaviors are questionable in many professional ways.

There are piles of anecdotal reports of switching. There are some local races with evidence of seating the wrong candidate.

After a while, like John Snow, reasonable people have to stand back and see the forrest. TIA has a global view and creative investigations; but is a little too dependent on parametric distributions. TIA lacks data at the unit of analysis that would be more diagnostic.

At the very least, I'd say there is confidence that Gore won Florida. I wonder (given Curtis's admissions), if the fight to prevent a recount here was more than just to win the election. Such a recount might have triggered a serious criminal investigation! In 2000, manipulations would have been less sophisticated and the Jeb/Rove folks were fighting to avoid being caught!

[OnTheOtherHand]

13. oh, I see how I misread you

We agree that TIA didn't offer an explanation -- I just misinterpreted what you wrote. I apologize for that.

The problem with linking TIA's analysis to DRE vote switching is that I think everyone concedes that in 2004, the largest average exit poll discrepancies by voting technology were in precincts that used mechanical voting machines, aka lever machines. That doesn't say much about the extent of DRE vote switching, just that by itself it can't do much to explain the exit poll discrepancies.

Yes, I think there is confidence that Gore won Florida based on a voter-intent standard, all the more so if voter intent had been accurately recorded. The precinct-level results have been pretty closely scrutinized, and I know of no strong reason to postulate vote-switching. There were many thousands of overvotes that have been attributed to voter error but are at least superficially consistent with punch card tampering, although I don't know of any evidence supporting the latter hypothesis. And of course there were many thousands of undervotes as well.

[Sancho]

19. I would guess that a hacker or hacker would not have "one" method...

Over the last 3 or 4 election cycles, if we hypothesized the hackers point of view; it is possible that an opportunity for vote switching would make more sense in precincts where registrations were close, and the purpose was to turn race (like Coleman - Franken).

Dropping votes (undervotes) would be more applicable if the precinct was majority one party, but the goal was to shave the state or district total as you would see in Miami on a statewide election.

That is why detection by statistical SEM would need precinct level data on a variety of situation in order to spot abnormalities across many possible combination. If the "hacker" formula was preset to a maximum SE in order to prevent obvious problems, other methods would be more sensitive.

[OnTheOtherHand]

21. yes, one should assume not

At the same time, we shouldn't make the problem sound less tractable than it is. Vote stuffing, vote deletion, vote switching -- in some sense these can be combined in infinite combinations, but they share some important commonalities.

Of course a lot depends on scale. In a race as close as Coleman-Franken, fraud or error large enough to alter the outcome of course could be very difficult to spot.

[tiptoe]

15. "I don't think I have *ever* seen [TIA] analyze precinct-level results." The following confirmed

USCV simulation and destroyed rBr:

The Exit Poll Response Optimizer confirms the USCV simulation — TruthIsAll

USCV (exit polls) and Richard Hayes Phillips (ballots) analyzed Ohio and came to the same conclusion: It was stolen.

 

[OnTheOtherHand]

17. sorry, no

Maybe TIA isn't familiar with the concept of levels of analysis. "Precinct-level results" would be results from individual precincts. TIA's piddling around with aggregates of 40 to 540 precincts don't qualify. (Also, the work doesn't make any sense, but I'm willing to set that aside if you are.)

It's true that Richard Hayes Phillips analyzed ballots and concluded that Ohio was stolen. The problem is that his evidence doesn't support his conclusion. Ditto USCV: the exit polls hardly support any conclusion, but they actually weakly tend to support the substantial accuracy of the official count.

Walter Mebane has made available -- for the last four years or so -- a dataset with vote counts from every precinct in Ohio. I'm curious whether TIA can think of one good thing to do with it, and if not, why not. I'd extend the same challenge to Phillips and whatever is left of USCV.

[pleah]

8. K&R

[tiptoe]

25. k nt

[byronius]

16. k&r.

[tiptoe]

26. When will the MSM release the 2008 Exit Poll Report? (TIA)

When will the MSM release the 2008 Exit Poll Report?

TruthIsAll      source: http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/2008EMReport.htm

June 8, 2008

Here we are in June and still there is no Election 2008 report from the exit pollsters. They released the Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 report on Jan.19, 2005.

We have the Final 2008 National Exit Poll ( Final NEP ).  As usual, it was 'forced' to match the recorded vote-count:  Obama had a 52.9% share and a 9.5 million winning vote margin. The Final NEP  forced  'Vote for President in 2004' category indicates a 46/37% split of returning Bush/Kerry voters of the total 131.37 million recorded in 2008. We are expected to believe that returning-Bush voters outnumbered returning-Kerry voters by 11.8 million ( 9% ).

Is that why the exit pollsters have not released the report? Are they gun shy, because it would just confirm what the National Exit Poll vote shares combined with a plausible returning voter mix tells us:  that Obama won by at least double the recorded margin?

The 2005 report showed that Kerry won the unadjusted State Exit Poll Aggregate by 52–47%. Since Bush won the recorded vote-count by 50.7-48.3%, the exit pollsters concluded that the 7% discrepancy (WPE) was due to the reluctance of Bush voters to be interviewed in exit polls — the so-called reluctant Bush responder hypothesis (rBr). This theory was refuted by the impossible  'forced'  Final 2004 National Exit Poll, which indicated that returning-Bush voters outnumbered returning-Gore voters by more than 7 million and that there were more returning-Bush voters than could possibly still be living. But the alternative possibility that the discrepancy was due to a vote miscount was never considered, even though 1) the Final NEP's forced match to that vote-count was impossible on its face and 2) the aggregate unadjusted state exit polls confirmed that Kerry won.

But let’s not be too hard on the exit pollsters; they work for the MSM. So releasing the report (and the unadjusted exit poll data) is not their decision to make. The MSM is holding up the works. The corporate consortium that comprises the National Election Pool — FOX,CNN,CBS,ABC,NBC and AP — not only hires "the national exit pollster" but also controls the latter's reportage (and, presumably in 2008, NON-reportage) of both the Preliminary and Final exit poll data. Exit Pollster Lenski himself commented in a Nov 4, 2006 interview ^1,2 at Pollster.com the extent of activity the five news organizations have, including "editorial control", besides input on polling-targets, sample sizes, questions, etc.:

...there is a group called the National Election Pool , and just so everyone understands who that group is, that is the pool of the five television networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox and the Associated Press — so it's the networks and the Associated Press who have formed this pool. We at Edison Research and Mitofsky International have a contract with those six members and we provide them with exit polling, sample precinct vote counts, and election projection information on Election Day and election night. The news organizations have the editorial control: they choose the races to cover, they choose the size of the samples, they choose the candidates to cover, they write the questions that are asked.

We at Edison Research and Mitofsky International implement that — we have a system in place where this year we'll have over a thousand exit poll interviews around the country at more than a thousand polling locations. We will have more than two thousand sample precinct vote count reporters at more than two thousand locations around the country. We'll be gathering that information during the day, distributing it to the six members and several dozen other news organizations that subscribe to our service and we will also be providing our analysis and projections of the winners of those races at poll closing and after poll closing as actual votes come in. The news networks and the Associated Press reserve the right to make their own projections based on our data and any other data they may collect, and they have their own decision teams in place to review any projections we send them. But basically the source of the data they will be using on elections are the exit polls and the sample precinct vote counts our interviews and reporters collect, and the county voter returns that are collected by the Associated Press and fed through our system into our computations and out to the members and subscribers.

I want to ask more generally about how things will be different this year. First, let's talk about the issue of when and how you will release data to members of the National Election Pool (NEP) consortium and other subscribers. In the past, and please correct me if I'm wrong, hundreds of producers, editors and reporters had access to either the mid-day estimates or early versions of the crosstabulations that you would do, and the top-line estimate numbers would inevitably leak. How is that process going to be different this year?

The news organizations are really taking this challenge seriously on how to control the information for a couple of reasons. First, each of these news organizations have made a commitment to Congress over the years that they would not release data that would characterize the winner or leader in a race before the polls have closed. So in essence, by this data leaking, it was undermining that promise that they had made to Congress.

The other thing is that we know these are partial survey results. No polling organization leaks their partial survey results. If it's a four-day survey they don't leak results after two days. Similarly if it's a twelve-hour exit poll survey in the field you're not going to release results after just three hours of interviews. So the data will not be distributed to the news organizations until 5:00 p.m. in 2006, and that's a change from all the previous elections. The goal is that this will be more complete data and also we will have more time to review the data and deal with any issues in the data that look questionable that we need to investigate. It will still give news organizations time for their people to look at the data before the polls start closing.

]In 2004 at least one network started posting the demographic cross-tabulations online for specific states. I believe these started appearing almost as soon as the polls closed, maybe shortly thereafter. Do you have any idea if they are planning to repeat that of if they will hold off on posting tabulations until most of the votes have been counted?

Again, that's an editorial decision by the news organizations, but they are well within their rights, as soon as the polls close within a state, to publish those results.
...

A Conversation about the 2008 Election

Dec. 25, 2008

What is the latest 2008 Recorded Vote Count?

There are 131.37 million counted and recorded.
Obama leads by exactly 9.52 million votes:

Vote Count

131.37m

Obama

69.46m
52.87%

McCain

59.94m

45.62%

Other

1.97m

1.50%

Who voted?

Returning Kerry, Bush and third-party voters, first-timers and others who sat out the 2004 election but voted in a prior election.

Can we estimate the number of returning Election-2004-voters in 2008?

The 2008 Final National Exit Poll ( Final NEP ) breaks down the Mix of returning & new-voter weights for the  exit–polled  vote  shares :

Category: Vote for President in 2004   (4,195 Respondents)

'08 Final NEP Mix Implications:

2004 Vote

 

Returning Voters

42.5%
52.9%
4.6%

Kerry
Bush
Other

48.61m
60.43m
5.25m

 

Did Not Vote
John Kerry
G.W. Bush
Someone else

Mix

13%
37%
46%
4%

 

Obama

71%
89%
17%
66%

(=
(=
(=
(=

12.13m)
43.26m)
10.27m)
3.47m)

 

McCain

27%
9%
82%
24%

(=
(=
(=
(=

4.61m)
4.37m)
49.55m)
1.26m)

 

Other

2%
2%
1%
10%

(=
(=
(=
(=

0.34m)
0.97m)
0.60m)
0.53m)

 

 

( 131.37m

 

69.13m
52.62%

 

59.80m

45.52%

 

2.44m

1.86%)

 

How could 60.4m (46% of 131.37m) have been returning Bush voters?

He had 62.0m votes in 2004. About 59m were alive in 2008. Assuming 95% turned out in 2008, only 56m voted. The NEP is off by 4.0m Bush voters.

And just 48.6m (37%) were Kerry voters?

How could returning Bush-voters outnumber returning Kerry-voters by 11.8 million? Bush’s 2004 vote margin was only 3.0m.

How could 5.2m (4%) have been third-party 2004 voters?

There were only 1.22m in 2004. The NEP is off by 4.0m third-party voters.

You're assuming that the 2004 Recorded Vote was equal to the True Vote.

Researchers have concluded that Kerry won by 8–10m. What about that?

Let’s not get bogged down by a discussion of election fraud. I thought this discussion was going to be based on the 2008 National Exit Poll and the recorded vote.

The 2008 Final NEP returning-voter-mix is implausible. How could that be?

Here’s how. There are three possibilities:
a)  Returning Kerry-voters misspoke to exit-pollers in 2008 and claimed they voted for Bush in 2004
b)  Returning Bush-voters misspoke and claimed they voted for third-parties in 2004
c)  The Final NEP was 'forced' to match the Recorded Vote-Count; the poll-category's Voter Mix and/or Vote Shares had to be 'adjusted'

Oh. Are you now going to claim that the 46/37 Bush/Kerry mix in the 2008 Final NEP was due to Kerry voters who indicated that they voted for Bush despite his current 22% approval rating? Is this the 2008 Kerry version of the 2004 Gore voter “false recall” theory? What would motivate returning Kerry voters to say that they voted for Bush?

Ok, they just forgot that they voted for Kerry. Not that they wanted to identify with Bush, mind you. They just forgot they voted for Kerry in 2004. And returning Bush voters did not want to admit they voted for him, so they lied and said they voted for a third-party candidate.

But the Final NEP is always ‘forced’ to match the Recorded Vote-Count, right? So why conjecture about the motivation of returning voters?

Yes, it’s always forced to match. You have a point there. In any case, the average national pre-election poll had Obama winning by 51–43%. Allocating undecided voters equally, that equates to 53–45%, exactly matching the vote.

The pre-election polls underestimated Obama’s vote for two basic reasons: 1) the challenger (Obama) typically wins 70-80% of undecided voters and 2) there are two types of pre-election polls: registered (RV) and likely-voter (LV). RV polls include new voters; LV polls do not. According to the Final NEP, Obama won 71% of new voters. The average RV poll had Obama leading by 10 points (51.7–41.7%); the average LV by just 7 (50.8–43.6%). After allocating the undecided vote, Obama led the average RV by 55.5-43.0% and the average LV by 53.8-44.7%. The average RV was close to the True Vote, which was calculated using the Final NEP vote shares and a plausible returning voter mix.

Well, that’s one way of getting the results you want. Question the pre-election polls to fit your argument.

Really? Then consider the following plausible scenarios based on the 2008 NEP vote shares that were used in matching the recorded vote (which you believe is correct). They only differ in the returning voter mix which is based on 1) the 2004 recorded vote (which you also believe to be correct) and 2) the 2004 unadjusted exit poll (which you don’t believe).

To determine the returning voter mix, the following assumptions were made for both scenarios based on documented statistics: 3.45m uncounted votes in 2004, 6 million died (1.2% annual mortality), and 113.7m (95% turnout) returned to vote in 2008.

Obama’s True Vote was 55.7% assuming the 2004 recorded vote was fraud-free; it was 57.5% based on the 2004 unadjusted exit poll (the election was stolen). Kerry won the poll by 52-47%.

 Scenario 1     2004 Recorded Vote Shares
a) Obama wins by 17.6m:   75.4 – 57.8 (55.7–42.7%) assuming 4.0m uncounted votes (3.0% of 135.4m cast).
b) Obama wins by 15.8m:   72.5 – 56.7 (55.2–43.1%) assuming no uncounted votes.

Recorded

 

 

Mix

 

 

 

Obama

 

McCain

 

'Other'

2004 Vote

DNV

 

16.0%

 

'New' voters

=

21.71m

 

71%

  =

15.4m 

 

27%

  =

5.9m 

 

2%

  =

0.4m 

48.27%

Kerry

 

41.1%

 

Returning Kerry voters

=

55.72m

 

89%

  =

49.6m 

 

9%

  =

5.0m 

 

2%

  =

1.1m 

50.73%

Bush

 

42.0%

 

Returning Bush voters

=

56.86m

 

17%

  =

9.7m 

 

82%

  =

46.6m 

 

1%

  =

0.6m 

1.00%

Other

 

0.8%

 

Returning 'Other' voters

=

1.14m

 

66%

  =

0.8m 

 

24%

  =

0.3m 

 

10%

  =

0.1m 

 

 

 

100%

 

 

 

 

135.43m

 

 

75.43m

 

 

 

57.77m

 

 

 

2.23m 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

55.69%

 

 

 

42.66%

 

 

 

1.65%

 Scenario 2     2004 Unadjusted State Exit Poll (WPE) Aggregate Shares
a) Obama wins by 22.5m:   77.7 – 55.2 (57.5–40.9%) assuming 4.0m uncounted votes.
b) Obama wins by 20.7m:   74.8 – 54.1 (57.1–41.3%) assuming no uncounted votes.

Unadjusted

 

 

Mix

 

 

 

Obama

 

McCain

 

'Other'

Exit Poll

DNV

 

16.0%

 

'New' voters

=

21.71m

 

71%

  =

15.4m 

 

27%

  =

5.9m 

 

2%

  =

0.43m 

52.0%

Kerry

 

43.7%

 

Returning Kerry voters

=

59.13m

 

89%

  =

52.6m 

 

9%

  =

5.3m 

 

2%

  =

1.18m 

47.0%

Bush

 

39.5%

 

Returning Bush voters

=

53.44m

 

17%

  =

9.1m 

 

82%

  =

43.8m 

 

1%

  =

0.53m 

1.0%

Other

 

0.8%

 

Returning 'Other' voters

=

1.14m

 

66%

  =

0.8m 

 

24%

  =

0.3m 

 

10%

  =

0.11m 

 

 

 

100%

 

 

 

 

135.43m

 

 

77.88m

 

 

 

55.28m

 

 

 

2.27m 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

57.51%

 

 

 

40.82%

 

 

 

1.67%

You make assumptions for uncounted votes, mortality and voter turnout to buttress your case.

Is that so? The assumptions are based on historical data. Check out the census for total votes cast in the last 5 elections (the MoE is 0.30%).The percentage of uncounted votes has declined from 10% to 2.74% in 2004. And the majority (70-80%) are Democratic. You can check the U.S. mortality rate tables yourself. As for the 95% turnout of 2004 voters, that is a reasonable assumption based on historical data. In any case, sensitivity analysis shows that changes in the assumptions have minimal impact on Obama’s True Vote share.

For example, assume that 91% of Kerry voters returned to vote in 2008 compared to 95% of Bush voters. In this scenario, Obama’s vote share is 57.2% (a 21.7m vote margin). In the base case, Kerry voter turnout is 95% and Obama’s base case vote share is 57.5% (a 22.6m vote margin).

Here’s another example: In the base case, annual voter mortality is 1.2%. What if it is 0.8%? Obama’s vote share is 57.3% (a 22.0m margin).

And what if Obama’s share of returning Kerry voters was 87% instead of the 89% given in the NEP? His vote share becomes 56.6% (a 20.2m vote margin). But the 2% deviation is very unlikely. The margin of error is 1.14% for a 4195 sample and 89% share (assuming a 20% cluster effect). The probability of the deviation is 1 in 3500.

Showing off again, eh?

And what about this factoid? Since Election Day, Obama has won the final 10.2 million votes (late absentee, provisional, etc.) by 59.2–37.5%.  Kerry and Gore also won late votes with 7% higher vote shares than they had on Election Day. What does that indicate to you?

Not a damn thing. Obama won on Election Day by 52.3–46.3%; 10 million is too small a sample to draw any conclusions.

Now, what about the unadjusted 2008 state exit polls?

We don’t have those numbers yet. Exit Pollsters Edison-Mitofsky should release a summary precinct-based report in a few months.

The 2004 Final NEP voting mix was also impossible. The 2004 Election Calculator also had to determine a feasible returning 2000 voter mix. It indicated that Kerry won the True Vote by 53.2–45.4% (67–57m) — a 13m difference in margin from the recorded vote. Obama’s True Vote margin of 23m is also a 13m difference from the recorded vote.

So what? The Election Calculator was wrong in 2004 and is wrong again in 2008.

Didn’t the Jan. 2005 Exit Poll report indicate that Kerry won the state exit polls by 52–47%, based on the within precinct discrepancy (WPE)?

Yes, but there was a catch.

Are you referring to the E-M claim that the ridiculously high WPE was due to Bush voter reluctance to be interviewed. Wasn’t the rBr theory refuted elsewhere in the report and by the Final 2004 NEP 43/37 Bush/Gore returning voter mix?

Yes, rBr was refuted. But the WPE was due to “false recall” on the part of returning Gore voters; they misspoke when they indicated they voted for Bush.

Oh, so now you’re going to resurrect the “false recall” argument. Why would Gore voters not tell the truth about their vote?

They wanted to identify with the Bush, the winner of the 2000 election. “False recall” is still a viable hypothesis. It may be implausible to believe that Gore voters misspoke, but you cannot prove otherwise. Subconsciously, Gore voters wanted to identify with Bush anyway.

Come on. Everyone knows that Bush stole that election. “False recall” is an implausible joke. It wasn’t a viable hypothesis in 2004 and it’s not one now. Look at the facts. Gore won by 540,000 votes and Bush had a 48% approval rating. Not only that, the 2000 Census reported 110.8m votes were cast — but only 105.4m were recorded. Assuming that Gore won 70-80% of the 5.4m uncounted votes, his true margin was close to 3 million.

The evidence strongly suggests that Obama won by 17–23m votes not by the recorded 9.5m.  Why are you in a state of denial?

There you go again. Back to your old conspiracy theories, just like in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006.Obama won. Get over it.

Conspiracy theories? It’s a catch-22.  Without the raw 2004 exit polls, you can’t prove that returning Gore voters told the truth about their vote.  Without the raw 2008 exit polls, you can’t prove that the final adjusted exit polls, which were forced to match the vote, were bogus.  Without a paper ballot, you can’t prove that touch screen votes were rigged; the evidence is lost in cyberspace forever.  Without a full recount of paper ballots, you can’t prove that optical scan votes were miscounted.  Without the “liberal” mainstream media focusing on the statistical and exit poll anomalies, the majority of the public will remain ignorant about the full extent of election fraud.  Without interviewing whistleblowers like Stephen Spoonamore and Clint Curtis, who have already testified in Congress under oath, the public will never ask why there have been no indictments. The only thing that you can prove is that the voting machines can be hacked, and experts have already done it.  Let’s HAVA drink.

 

[tiptoe]

27. The Dilemma we Face in an Era of Right Wing Control of our News Media (Time for change) - x

The Dilemma we Face in an Era of Right Wing Control of our News Media — Time for change

Most Americans do not share the values of the Republican Party, blue dog Democrats, or our corporate news media: Most Americans would like their government to provide a national health care plan; most believe that women should not be branded as criminals for choosing to have an abortion; most believe we should have laws to require a higher minimum wage than we have; the list goes on and on. So right wingers need something other than their policies to get the votes they need to win elections.

Our Founding Fathers, recognizing that a free flow of information is essential for the maintenance of democracy, enacted the First Amendment to our Constitution in order to address that need. Such a free flow of information would be instrumental in exposing the Republican Party and its allies for what they are.

But the virtual monopoly by supporters of the Republican Party on the ownership of major news sources in our country does much to stem the free flow of information. In the lead-up to the Iraq War, our corporate news media failed to explain to the American people that the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq was based on little or no evidence; even now they refuse to inform us in any detail of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from our invasion and occupation of their country.

During both the 2000 and 2004 elections they did everything they could to elect and re-elect George Bush to the presidency: They failed to follow-up on clear evidence that Bush had failed to fulfill his National Guard commitments; and they failed to explain to the American people that the proposed Bush tax cuts would benefit only our wealthiest citizens. In marked contrast to their protection of Bush, they did everything they could to destroy Gore’s and Kerry’s candidacies: During the 2000 Presidential race, Al Gore, one of the most decent men to ever run for the U.S. Presidency, was recast as a liar and an egomaniac. His resounding victory over George W. Bush in debate after debate was recast by our corporate media as a humiliating defeat by repeatedly emphasizing his sighs, rather than the numerous Bush lies that were the cause of those sighs. In 2004, John Kerry, a legitimate war hero, was recast as a fraud, through the constant repetition of lies promulgated by an organization with close (but unrevealed at the time) ties to George W. Bush.

The rise of the corporate (phony) news media in the United States

Though national news in our country has always been slanted in favor of the privileged over the vulnerable, it has nevertheless long been recognized in our country that the use of the public airways is a privilege rather than a right. That is why, as early as 1927 our government began requiring licenses for use of the public airways, in the Radio Act of 1927, which was expanded in the Communications Act of 1934. Since then, the underlying standard for radio and television licensing has been the “public interest, convenience and necessity clause”, which is explained here by Sharon Zechowski:

The obligation to serve the public interest is integral to the "trusteeship" model of broadcasting – the philosophical foundation upon which broadcasters are expected to operate. The trusteeship paradigm is used to justify government regulation of broadcasting. It maintains that the electromagnetic spectrum is a limited resource belonging to the public, and only those most capable of serving the public interest are entrusted with a broadcast license…

But with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, we began to see a rapid decline in the quality of the news we receive. By relaxing rules that prohibited monopoly control of telecommunications, that Act led to the concentration of the national news media of the United States largely into the hands of a very few wealthy corporations, to an extent never before seen in our country. This, more than any other event, has allowed the content of the news received by American citizens to be determined by a small number of very wealthy and powerful interests. Hence the pervasive blackout of meaningful news.

David Podvin and Carolyn Kay explain how Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, put this process into play at NBC:

The new dimension that Welch introduced was the concept that the mainstream media should aggressively advance the political agenda of the corporations that own it. He did not see any difference between corporate journalism and corporate manufacturing… Business was business, and the difference between winners and losers was profit… From Welch’s perspective, it was insanity… for the corporate owners of the mainstream media to restrain themselves from using all of their assets to promote their financial well being. In general, he saw corporate news organizations as untapped political resources that should be freed from the burden of objectivity.

The implications for democracy

The implications for national politics have been quite unfortunate, as Democrats feel the need to move further and further to the right, lest they risk being ignored, mocked, or attacked by our corporate news media.

This situation is intolerable. A free and independent press, which provides unbiased accurate information to the people, is crucial to a healthy functioning democracy. When most of the press is under the control of corporate interests, which strive to tilt elections in their favor, democracy becomes nothing but a fig leaf. The result is not only a playing field tilted heavily towards the conservative (Republican) Party, but also that the more progressive (Democratic) Party is intimidated into moving way to the right. The American people suffer for that because the corporate interests are served at the expense of the vast majority of people.

An article by Eric Alterman in The Nation makes this point. With respect to the so-called “mainstream news media”:

Its members consistently defer to conservative Republican Presidents with a history of deliberate deception, allowing them to define their terms… Its members invite Republican Congressmen, known to be not merely unreliable but delusional, to lie about Democratic Congressmen. When challenged, they reply that they cannot be bothered to discern the truth…

What might this have to do with President Obama’s tilt to the right?

– more –

 

[tiptoe]

30. Media Matters: Fox News' ever-expanding ethics nightmare

Media Matters: Fox News' ever-expanding ethics nightmare

April 23, 2010 6:33 pm ET

Another week, another handful of ethical scandals that should permanently sink Fox's claim of being a legitimate news organization.

To recap: Last week, they gave us twin scandals starring Fox News stalwarts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. "Furious" Fox News execs pulled Sean Hannity from his planned show filming/fundraiser for the Cincinnati Tea Party after numerous news veterans and watchdogs called foul.

O'Reilly spent last week reminding us of his willful ignorance by repeatedly falsely asserting that "no one" on Fox promoted the falsehood that "jail time" was a penalty for not buying insurance under the health care reform bill. He was outrageously wrong.

Though Howard Kurtz reported that Fox plans to "keep a tighter rein on Hannity and others" in the wake of the tea party scandal, we remain skeptical. Fox has a long history of promising change in the wake of damaging ethics scandals, then failing to deliver on those promises.

Indeed, despite cancelling Hannity's tea party event, Fox News has yet to cancel a planned appearance by Fox Business host John Stossel at a paid event for a nonprofit organization with very close ties to the energy industry. If history is any indicator, Fox will hold its breath and hope that everyone forgets about the Stossel fundraiser.

Of course, this being Fox News, Stossel's planned fundraiser wasn't even the cable channel's biggest ethics scandal this week.

While a great deal of attention has deservedly been given to Rupert Murdoch's statement that Fox News "shouldn't be promoting the tea party," the rest of his comment -- "or any other party" -- is equally notable. So, how's Fox's supposedly frowned-upon promotion of that "other party" -- the GOP -- going? In a word: lucratively.

As we detailed last week, Fox News hosts and contributors have raised millions of dollars for Republican candidates and causes using PACs, 527s, and 501(c)(4) organizations.

In a follow-up report this week, we detailed the massive scope of Fox's fundraising for the GOP:

In recent years, at least twenty Fox News personalities have endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or causes, or against Democratic candidates or causes, in more than 300 instances and in at least 49 states. Republican parties and officials have routinely touted these personalities' affiliations with Fox News to sell and promote their events.

...
Were Fox an actual news organization that cared about journalistic standards, all of these ethics scandals would be excellent fodder for its weekly media criticism show, Fox News Watch. Unfortunately, as we noted last weekend, they ignored the O'Reilly and Hannity scandals in favor of such pressing stories as media coverage of the new Oprah bio. Forthcoming coverage of the Fox Newsers' fundraising seems unlikely.

Media Matters reporter and senior editor Joe Strupp pointed out that while Fox News Watch was once a source of legitimate media criticism, the show has increasingly transformed into yet another megaphone for GOP talking points.
...

 

[Scuba]

31. I don't have the background in statistics....

...or the patience to wade through all that data, but....


Last fall, ES&S quietly purchased Diebold, giving them 80% of market for electronic voting machings. And it's not just the un-auditable vote-counting; they now also own polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software.

http://www.benalexandra.com/cool_stuff/diebold_ess.htm

This link has very scary information, all with appropriate citations, regarding what could easily be a mass-manipulation of our elections.

They've already been caught registering voters who thought they were just signing petitions. Getting total registered voter numbers higher gives them more room to fudge numbers.

When you buy a pack of gum, you get a receipt. Why is there no receipt/audit trail on our votes? I can only think of one reason.