Why Dem Primary Anomalies Must Be Thoroughly Investigated Before Choosing a Nominee

[Time for change]

Outside of the United States, exit polls are considered the gold standard in monitoring elections around the world. As Michael Parenti writes:

Exit polls are an exceptionally accurate measure of elections. In the last three elections in Germany, for example, exit polls were never off by more than three-tenths of one percent. Unlike ordinary opinion polls, the exit sample is drawn from people who have actually just voted. It rules out those who say they will vote but never make it to the polls, those who cannot be sampled because they have no telephone or otherwise cannot be reached at home, those who are undecided or who change their minds about whom to support, and those who are turned away at the polls for one reason or another. Exit polls have come to be considered so reliable that international organizations use them to validate election results in countries around the world.

Yet in our country, whose election system ranks last (47th) among the 47 long established democracies in the world (for a large variety of reasons) exit polls are not used in any way to monitor elections, except by some independent organizations whose findings are routinely ignored by our government.

Our national news media, as well as nationally known polling companies in the United States, either ignore them entirely, even when they provide glaring red flags of possible or likely election fraud, or seek to discredit them in various ways. There seems to be an unwritten rule that to do otherwise will result in serious adverse consequences. For example, when exit polls from the Presidential election of 2004 showed massive discrepancies with the official vote counts (John Kerry winning according to the exit polls, but George W. Bush winning the official count), nationally and in numerous individual states, only one national news figure dared to talk about it – and he did so repeatedly as if the American people deserved to know about it. That national news figure, Keith Olberann, was consequently fired from MSNBC.

Lately, a lot of people have been talking about even worse exit poll discrepancies in the 2016 Democratic primaries (with exit polls favoring Bernie Sanders relative to the official vote counts that favor Hillary Clinton). So what happened in Tuesday night’s primaries? No exit polls are apparently available (except for those that have been “adjusted” to mimic the official results) to argue about in any of the 5 states.

Yet despite all the criticism of exit polls and disavowing of their importance in monitoring elections by our corporate national news media, hypocritically enough, national news organizations routinely use them to call elections early. For example, on Tuesday, Maryland was called for Clinton with 0.0% of the vote in. What do you think they used to call that vote other than an exit poll?


Why are exit poll discrepancies ignored in the United States as a tool for monitoring the integrity of elections?

I can think of two reasons why they are ignored here, both by our national news media and by our government. One reason is somewhat benign (though stupid), and the other is not benign.

The non-benign reason
Our national news media constitutes a monopoly of very wealthy corporations. The consolidation of our national news media into fewer and fewer wealthy owners accelerated in 1996 when Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It is a very right wing monopoly, even when FOX News is not considered. Since severe exit poll discrepancies always favor the more right wing candidate in the official vote count, compared to the exit polls, it is in the financial interest of our corporate national news media not to talk about it, because they almost always favor the right wing candidate.

The same can be said about our government. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have drifted further and further to the right in recent years because of the influence of money in politics, which has reached obscene levels. Even if our relatively liberal members of Congress wanted to talk about election fraud, they rightly fear being castigated by our national news media for doing so. And in the case of Sanders vs. Clinton, we all know who the Democratic Party favors.

The benign reason
Some argue that exit polls are not accurate because they often differ substantially from the official vote count in our country. But that is circular reasoning. When exit polls differ substantially from the official vote count, that clearly means that either the official vote count is wrong or the exit poll is wrong. But it doesn’t say which. That is why they need to be investigated thoroughly for the sake of our democracy. In our country, there is a complete absence of any tendency for our news media or government to acknowledge that election fraud exists. In other words, the official vote count is assumed to be correct, so that means that the exit polls must be wrong. End of story, no need to investigate any further.


Why believe that official vote counts might be wrong when they deviate substantially from exit polls?

A major reason for believing that official vote counts might be wrong when they deviate substantially from exit polls (aside from the known accuracy of exit polls in other countries) is summarized by Parenti as follows:

Companies like Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S that market the touchscreen machines are owned by militant supporters of the Republican party. These companies have consistently refused to allow election officials to evaluate the secret voting machine software. Apparently corporate trade secrets are more important than voting rights. In effect, corporations have privatized the electoral system, leaving it susceptible to fixed outcomes.

To give you an example to how those ties can affect an election, the owner of Diebold, Inc., Wally O’Dell, whose company owned electronic voting machines used in Ohio in the 2004 Presidential Election, said in 2003: “I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its votes to the President (George W. Bush) next year”. And indeed he did.

And, according to the nonpartisan and non-profit organization, Verified Voting:

Far too many states use unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines, and many states have made their situation worse by adding some forms of Internet voting for some voters, which cannot be checked for accuracy at all. Even in states where verifiable systems are used, too often the check on the voting system’s function and accuracy is not done.

That pretty much says it all. But let’s consider some examples to make the effects of all this clearer. There are tons of examples to choose from, but I’ll mention just four here:

Presidential election of 2004 – Ohio
In the Presidential election of 2004, George W. Bush won the official national vote count by 2.5%, while the exit polls indicated a lead by John Kerry of 3.0%, a vast exit poll discrepancy of 5.5%, higher than had ever been seen in a U.S. Presidential election before. The exit poll discrepancies were especially high in the swing states that were thought before the election to be the states most likely to determine the winner. In Ohio, which actually was the deciding state, Bush won the official count by 2.5%, while Kerry won the exit polls by 4.2%, a vast discrepancy of 6.7%, which led to many investigations by independent groups and persons.

Massive voter purging was discovered in Ohio, though there were no consequences to those discoveries. But that finding would not explain the exit poll discrepancies because purged voters are not included in exit polls.

But eventually a perfect explanation was found for the exit poll discrepancy in Ohio. Investigations led to Michael Connell, known as Karl Rove’s “IT guru”. Connell was eventually forced to admit that electronic computers under his control (SmartTech and Triad) were “brought into the Ohio election game”, and he signed a deposition to that effect. Steven Spoonamore, a computer expert and close associate of Connell’s, explained in a sworn affidavit his interpretation of what happened. It is a very long, thorough and technical explanation that ended with:

[blcokquote]The SmartTech computer would as the results of the evening proceeded be able to know how many votes Bush needed to steal from Kerry, and flip enough votes on the desired county tabulators to reverse the outcome of the election…

When it became apparent that Connell would testify, the Ohio lawyer who brought the suit warned the U.S. Justice Department that Connell’s life might be in danger and requested witness protection. Connell never did get to testify. Shortly before he was due to testify, he died in a plane crash, presumably caused by his plane running out of gas.

Presidential election of 2004 – Florida
Florida was another swing state that year that also exhibited a large exit poll discrepancy with the official vote count (the official count in favor of Bush, compared to the exit poll) – 5.0%. But Bush won Florida by enough votes that year that it is unclear whether Kerry would have won the state had he received as many votes as predicted by the exit poll, so Florida didn’t receive as much attention as Ohio did following the election.

In October 2000, Clint Curtis was a computer programmer and life-long Republican who worked for Florida based Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI). According to Curtis’ sworn testimony to the House Judiciary Committee Democrats in December 2004, while working for YEI he wrote a prototype for a computer program that would switch votes from one candidate to another, at the request of Congressman Tom Feeney, in October, 2000. Believing at the time that the purpose of Feeney’s request was to understand how Democrats might commit election fraud, Curtis complied with the request and presented it to his employer, Mrs. Li Woan Yang. According to Curtis’ sworn affidavit , Mrs. Yang responded by saying “You don’t understand, in order to get the contract we have to hide the manipulation in the source code. This code is needed to control the vote in South Florida.” Curtis testified that he believed that the computer program he wrote, or similar one, was used in the 2004 presidential election to switch votes to Bush.

In his affidavit, Curtis also described a meeting he had with Raymond Lemme, an official from the Florida Inspector General’s Office who was charged with investigating Curtis’ earlier allegations. Lemme told Curtis that he (Lemme) had “tracked the corruption all the way to the top”, and that the story would break shortly. But we will probably never know what information Lemme had obtained because he was found dead in the bathtub of a Valdosta, Georgia hotel room two weeks later, July 1, 2003, his arm slashed twice with a razor blade. The Brad Blog thoroughly investigated this case and put forth several reasons to believe that Lemme’s death was not a suicide, as had been ruled by the Valdosta police.

I had the opportunity to meet Curtis in January 2005, when we were both part of a small group organized for the purpose of lobbying the Senate to object to the presidential election results. My role was to present the exit poll data and the relevant statistics and implications, while Curtis’ role was to espouse his belief that the exit poll discrepancy in Florida was due to a computer program similar to the one he wrote, used to manipulate the electronic vote in Florida. I asked him if he was afraid that the same thing might happen to him as happened to Raymond Lemme. He told me that one of his dogs had been killed as a warning to him, but that this issue was too important to him to not proceed to publicize it as best he could.

Presidential election of 2000 – Florida
Those of you who were members of DU when it began will probably remember well the 2000 presidential election in Florida – which determined the winner of the presidential election that year. You will recall that Florida was initially called for Gore after the polls closed there, with much of the vote yet to be counted, and that a little after 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, the call was reversed and went to Bush, which caused our national news media to declare Bush the winner of the presidential election, and then a little later on Wednesday morning, the media again reversed their call to “too close to call”. Our national news media apologized for their two miscalls, and explained it all with the very simplistic phrase of “bad data”. But they didn’t talk in any detail about the reasons for the two miscalls. They are both important to this discussion because they have to do with exit polls AND electronic vote manipulation.

Why was Florida called for Gore so early? The fact is that early election predictions and calls are based on a combination of exit polls and official vote counts. Exit polls measure who the voters think they voted for. Normally voters know who they voted for. But in Palm Beach County, Florida, in 2000, a “butterfly ballot” was used for voting for President. The butterfly ballot was very confusing, as Al Gore’s name was listed next to two third party candidates – Patrick Buchanan and Socialist candidate David McReynolds – on the adjacent page, making it difficult to tell which hole punches corresponded to which candidate. This undoubtedly caused many voters who intended to vote for Gore to vote for either Buchanan or McReynolds or one of those candidates plus Gore – in which case the ballot was rejected as an “over-vote”. Later investigations made it clear that this confusion cost Gore thousands of votes (more than enough to win the election) and would also cause an exit poll discrepancy because there were so many voters who thought they had voted for Gore but were ruled by the vote counting machines not to have voted for him.

The basis of the second bad call, which caused the networks to make the call for Bush as having won both Florida and the national election, at 2:16 a.m. on Wednesday, November 8, can be explained by the following report:

Deland, FL, Nov. 11 – Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 – all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.

At 2:09 a.m. Volusia County’s erroneous numbers were added to Voter News Service’s tabulations, and less than ten minutes later Florida and the U.S. election were called for Bush. The error in Volusia County had cost Gore (temporarily) 16,021 votes.

Gore’s sudden drop of 16,000 votes (in a precinct with only 600 voters) clearly makes no sense. The error, due to some sort of electronic “malfunction” of one of the machines was quickly discovered and reversed, and that’s why the national news stations reversed their call a second time within a few hours to call the Florida election “too close to call”. Evidence later surfaced that the electronic “malfunction” was probably just one more attempt to steal the election for Bush. But as it turned out it didn’t matter because Bush won the election anyhow, 36 days later, when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote recount in Florida, handing the election to Bush.

Illinois Democratic Primary, 2016
In the Illinois Democratic Primary this year, there was an exit poll discrepancy of 4.1%, with Clinton winning in the official count and Sanders winning the exit poll. A group of citizens who watched the auditing of election results in Chicago testified that the results of hand-counted votes from voting machines were changed to match the machines’ false electronic counts. For example, in one instance, 21 Sanders votes were erased and 49 Clinton votes were added.

This testimony is a clear indication of not only electronic manipulation of the vote in Illinois (which obviously could explain the exit poll discrepancy, depending on how extensive it was), but of a cover-up to hide the electronic manipulation with fake audits.


Exit Poll discrepancies in the 2016 Democratic Primaries

I’ve posted data on exit poll discrepancies before. This is a slightly different version from another source, but the results are very similar (small differences probably due to the exact time when the polls were obtained) and the bottom line is the same: In 17 of the 19 states where exit polls have been taken and are known to the public, they favor Clinton in the official count, compared to what is predicted by the exit polls, usually by substantial amounts. The odds against that happening by chance are astronomical. The results in the table below were obtained by Richard Charnin from CNN shortly after poll closing in the states, but before CNN “adjusted” the exit polls to fit the official vote count:

Arkansas: 5.2 in favor of Clinton (official count compared to exit polls)
Alabama: 14.0 in favor of Clinton
Tennessee: 8.3 in favor of Clinton
Virginia: 4.3 in favor of Clinton
Georgia: 12.2 in favor of Clinton
Texas: 9.3 in favor of Clinton
Massachusetts: 8.0 in favor of Clinton
Oklahoma: 6.1 in favor of Sanders
Vermont: 1.1 in favor of Clinton
Mississippi: 9.9 in favor of Clinton
Michigan: 4.6 in favor of Clinton
Ohio: 10.0 in favor of Clinton
Florida: 3.4 in favor of Clinton
North Carolina: 1.7 in favor of Clinton
Illinois: 4.1 in favor of Clinton
Missouri: 3.9 in favor of Clinton
Wisconsin: 1.9 in favor of Sanders
New York: 11.6 in favor of Clinton


Implication of exit poll findings in the 2016 Democratic primaries

These exit poll findings have not occurred in a vacuum, but rather in the context of other anomalies, such as massive voter suppression in Arizonaand New York, as well as anomalies in other states that are still being investigated. In Arizona, an investigation of reports of voters who claimed that when they went to the polls to vote they were told that they were no longer registered as Democrats, so they couldn’t vote, identified 113 Sanders would-be voters and only 2 Clinton would-be voters.

It is also of note that Sanders has won 12 of 13 caucuses but only 4 of 22 primaries. Clearly it is far more difficult to rig the vote in a caucus than in a primary, because there are so many people there watching the process at a caucus. In primaries, Sanders has done far worse in precincts that are counted electronically than in ones where the vote is hand counted. For example, in Massachusetts, Sanders led by 17% in hand counted precincts, though he lost the election in that state.

Fake audits in Illinois, as noted above, were shown by private citizens watching the process, to clearly indicate electronic machine manipulation of the vote in favor of Clinton, as well as a corrupt audit process. Does anyone believe that the election officials conducting the audit changed their hand count to match the machine count on their own initiative, rather than because of pressure from above? Does anyone believe that these kinds of things occurred only in Illinois precincts (and other states) that were audited and observed by private citizens?

We do not know how extensive such machine manipulation of the vote was in Illinois or other states. We do have many exit poll discrepancies from the official vote count that strongly suggest that such occurrences were very extensive – enough so that Bernie Sanders would now have more pledged delegates than Clinton if not for election fraud. Of course, it is possible that the exit poll bias could explain the discrepancies, rather than election fraud. But in a country where right wing private companies provide electronic machines that do most of the vote counting in our elections, with little or no safeguards to ensure that the vote counts are correct, substantial exit poll deviations from the official vote count should be seen as glaring red flags that point at least to the possibility, if not the likelihood of election fraud.

If the Democratic Party cares anything about democracy in our country, they should make sure that these discrepancies are thoroughly investigated, such as with hand counted audits in all states with substantial exit poll discrepancies where that is possible, before they certify a nominee for the general presidential election.

[tonyt53]

1. What?????

More conspiracies? It is very clear that neither Bernie or his followers have any idea about closed primaries and why they exist. No, Bernie can never win the nomination even with an open primary. The reason? Because lifelong Democrats get out and vote in most primaries. Just because they do not care to attend a caucus where the naive try to get them to change their choice of candidate means absolutely nothing.

[Time for change]

2. What particular FACT do you disagree with from my OP?

[Hortensis]

9. I'm afraid all are extremely suspect because of the source.

The simple fact is that, early on, when I did revisit the caucuses, counts, etc., BSers claimed were stolen by Clinton corruption, none panned out. All the allegations were investigated and found to be wrong, and disgracefully so, demonstrating a clear pattern of profoundly dishonest behavior that was in itself a form of corruption and attempt at election manipulation.

Yes, there are plenty of voting irregularities from badly run state offices and organizations, but so far none have been linked to the Clinton campaign. Except, again, by tricksters attempting their own form of election fraud.

As for the hot air of holding up the election to serve the manipulations of discontented BSers, ridiculous. We are a democratic republic and we are electing a new president.

[Time for change]

10. I'll ask you again, since you didn't answer my question

Please point out one FACT in my OP that you believe is wrong.

[Time for change]

11. And let me point out that

the reason for investigating the many election "irregularities" is not to satisfy Bernie supporters

It is to ensure that we have fair elections in this country.

[Demsrule86]

13. This is not an election

It is a primary. And in case you have not been paying attention, we do not have fair elections...we have a gerrymandered house, Bush stole the presidency twice and we have already seen what the Gop has planned for Arizona. I live in Ohio in an area that went for Obama twice...we have lost all of our polling places except one. There will long lines all over Ohio thanks to that 'centrist' Kasich and his minions. You worry about one guy Bernie Sanders who will not be the nominee. I worry that we could elect a Republican that would make voting even more unfair and literally kill people by starvation, nukes and maybe even if Trump gets elected concentration camps. Bernie lost period end of story. Now let's elect a Democrat and improve the country because there is no Republican that is better than Hillary Clinton...I like her better than Bernie ...you disagree...my side was bigger than your side...we prevailed...I would vote for Bernie if the tables were turned ( in fact did vote fo him in Ohio). So vote for Hillary Clinton in order to save the country from the barbarians and the save the courts.

[Time for change]

17. So you're saying that because these are primaries rather than elections,

they don't have to be fair?

If that's not what you're saying, then why even bother to point out that they are primaries rather than elections?

And yes, I am aware that we do not have fair elections in this country, and if you had read my OP would realize that because I talked extensively about that subject.

That is the point. If you think that it is ok to leave it like that, and that it is ok for primaries not to be fair because they are not elections and because we already have serious election fraud in this country, then we have absolutely nothing to talk about.

[Demsrule86]

25. Actually they don't

They could return to the smoke-filled room, and pick the nominee. it is not an election.However, whatever irregularities...the primaries were fair. Bernie lost ...that is the truth

[Time for change]

32. You are making statements without a shred of evidence to back them up.

There is a great deal of evidence that they have not been fair. Therefore, they need to be investigated.

[Demsrule86]

63. I see no such evidence

I see people who want Bernie Sanders to win...trying to find a reason why he did not win other than simply losing...and making a big deal out of basically nothing.

[Time for change]

70. You read the OP but you saw no evidence?

What parts of it did you not believe?

[truedelphi]

90. Therer was someone on DU yesterday bragging about

How good it is that the DNC is finally "stacking" the situation regarding the delegates and superdelegates to work in HRC's favor.

That is why I enjoy Facebook and several other forums rather than this one, most of the time. It is for the most part, quite painful to be here. If people think rigging things to get "their" candidate to win is A-Okay, i don't know why people would care to be here...

[highprincipleswork]

56. I know because THE REPUBLICANS ARE SCARY!!!!!!

Doesn't that seem a really shitty reason to vote for somebody?

[Demsrule86]

62. I like Hillary Clinton

I used to like Bernie...but am annoyed with him now...She is nominee, and I think she will win. I really feels that people who attack her hurt our chances in November. It needs to stop.

[w4rma]

76. You're lying. You're fine and happy with election fraud and voter suppression in favor of Clinton.nt

[Demsrule86]

85. I think there was no primary fraud or voter suppression

Bernie lost period. He didn't get enough votes...and all the excuses in the world won't change that.

[bkscribe]

74. How does fighting for election integrity not serve your purpose?

You don't think Republicans are watching these primaries and noticing just how much they can get away with? How will HRC's team use the exit polls to ensure the general is legitimate when they ignore them now?

[JSup]

15. I like valid investigations...

...but the chart from Richard Charnin is suspect.

Virtually all of these claims are based on the idea that exit polls are a telltale sign of fraud. In a follow-up tweet, tim Robbins explained that, “exit polls are historically pretty accurate,” and “are a heads-up on vote tampering.” Turn-trout agrees, writing, “Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as a check against, and rough indicator of, the degree of election fraud.” This is also the basis of claims by Wasserman and Fitrakis – who point to the precision of German exit polling to emphasize the point – and Steven Freeman, a Penn State psychologist who authored the book, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?: Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count.

I asked Joe Lensky, executive vice president of Edison Media Research, about all of this. Edison has conducted all of the exit polls for major U.S. media organizations since 2003, and Lensky has also done exit polling in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Venezuela.

As for using his results to suss out fraud, he says that American exit polls are “just not designed for that type of precision. They’re surveys, and like any other survey, they have a margin of error. The precision that a lot of these people are talking about just doesn’t exist with our polls.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/on-tim-robbins-election-fraud-and-how-nonsense-spreads-around-the-internet/

[Time for change]

18. As for our corporate "news" media saying that exit polls are "just not designed

with that type of precision", that is ridiculous. They are certainly precise enough to pick up the huge differences between the exit polls and the official vote count that we're seeing in these primaries. The margin of error, which is a statistical concept, assesses the probability that we could be seeing such findings as these by chance, and several states exhibit discrepancies well outside of the margin of error -- ALL of them favoring Hillary in the official count.

The statement you referred to even acknowledges a margin of error, but you seem unaware that several of these polls give results well outside the margin of error, so essentially rebuts the point that you are trying to make.

[Hortensis]

12. And I refer you to all the national media and

election watchdog groups. By definition, of course, I mean honest ones, not people pumping out ammunition for BSers to blow into yet more false allegations against the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party operatives.

[Ed Suspicious]

54. Tool.

[msongs]

3. time to investigate sanders wins for fraud by his campaign. agreed nt

[Time for change]

4. If there is any reason to believe that any of his wins were fraudulent

then let's go ahead and investigate.

We need to do a lot more than we do to ensure honest elections in this country.

[Demsrule86]

14. we have no time to litigate a primary

We have a general to win.

[Time for change]

21. We have time to investigate it with audits

Audits have already shown the rigging of voting machines to manipulate the vote in these primaries (See OP). We just don't know how extensive that rigging is, and we need to know.

[Demsrule86]

22. Nonsense

First of all, I do not believe exit polls are to be trusted. We have no time or money to waste on this and it would change nothing. She is ahead by quite a bit. Time to turn to the general.

[Time for change]

37. Clearly you do not care much about fair elections

since you are so against even an investigation. There is plenty of time for audits.

Afraid of what they might show?

Afraid that they might show massive evidence of machine manipulation of the vote, as we saw in Illinois precincts that were audited?

[J_J_]

5. Thank you so much for your work!

!!

[Time for change]

6. Thank you

The terrible state of our election system is so depressing. It has led to an oligarchy in our country with income inequality higher than it has been since the 1920s. If our election system isn't fixed soon it will continue to get worse. I can't even call what we have a democracy anymore.

[Zynx]

7. Exit polls have missed drastically overseas before as well. The UK comes to mind.

They weren't even close in 1992 and overstated Labour's lead in 1997 by a good margin.

When samples are much larger than they are here, then I think they're useful. In the case of NY, they weren't terribly much larger than the pre-election polling and they by definition aren't random.

A serious problem with our exit polling in this country is that it's poorly funded. You need to get a very large array of different samples in order to correctly project an outcome because of geographic variations. For example, if you draw too much from Madison for the white demographic in Wisconsin, your projection of the state as a whole will be way off.

An on-the-ground sample of about 1,000 for a state probably isn't sufficient because of the shortcomings of the sampling methods. Telephone samples of that size are probably more accurate because they tend to be more properly weighted.

The NY initial exit polls were so out of line with all pre-election polling that I think it's clear that they should be disregarded. The final results were almost bang-on with the pre-election polling.

[Time for change]

8. It's ridiculous to say that they aren't more accurate than pre-election polls

It isn't the size of the sample that makes them far superior to pre-election polls.

It's the fact that: 1) They assess who people actually voted for rather than who they intend to vote for at a later date; 2) They don't need to rely on models that may or may not be reliable, which attempt to determine who is a "likely voter", since they only assess people who actually voted, and 3) it is far easier to get a random sample or close to a random sample of voters than in pre-election polls because they don't rely on telephone sampling, which is likely to miss certain demographics of people who don't have landlines or cannot be contacted for whatever reason.

The discrepancy in NY was huge, and far beyond the margin of error, which takes sample size into account.

[Demsrule86]

16. You know people lie all the time in exit polls

They are not accurate and in fact after 2000 were banned for a while.

[Time for change]

19. You are aware that several

studies have shown that our election system is highly susceptible to rigging, right?

You're using the same excuses that Bush supporters used in 2004 to deny that the massive discrepancies in exit polls is due to such things as people lying.

If that is the case, why does the news media use exit polls to call elections. They're accurate enough to call elections, but not accurate enough to monitor them and even warrant investigations when they are highly discrepant from the official results?

Did you even read the part in the OP about the audit in Illinois showing several instances where the machine counts (which were obviously rigged) differed from the hand count? That doesn't bother you?

[Demsrule86]

24. Oh yes the GOP cheated and won twice

However, I don't see how going after a Democrat helps with that except to give them more fodder for their attempts to win at any cost.

[Time for change]

30. I'm not suggesting "going after a Democrat"

I never accused Hillary of being involved in this.

But there is clear evidence that points to election fraud on her behalf. Maybe it's being done on the initiative of the voting machine companies, which are highly conservative and therefore would much rather see Hillary be the nominee than Bernie. Regardless of who is doing it, it needs to be investigated. You can call it "just a primary" if you want, or use the excuse that the Republicans do it to negate the current evidence if you want. But it doesn't matter. It needs to be investigated, regardless of who is doing it and regardless of the fact that Republicans have done it. That is far more important than "getting behind" the current front runner.

[truedelphi]

91. It also doesn't bother some people here that

The Clintons' good buddy James Carville was utilized by the Clintons to influence John Kerry in the hours after Andy Card, Presidential Chief of Staff, called the election for George W.

That influence convinced Kerry that there were not enough ballot s outstanding in Ohio, and that Kerry should concede. So he did. But in truth, there were enough ballots, some 238,000 ballots, most from precincts favorable to Kerry.

And BTW, not a single Big Timer at the DNC helped with the after-election vote count in Ohio. It was Ralph Nader and David Cobb who put together the $ 200,000 of financing for the recount in Ohio. Because the top brass at the DNC didn't really care if Kerry won or not.

Certainly HRC didn't want him to win, beaus e if he got in, he would probably be in for two terms. It was not her intention to have to wait til 2016 to go for the Presidency!

The info about Carville influencing Kerry cam about at Consortium News, and the info about Nader/Cobb getting the funding for the Ohio recount came from Andy Stephenson.

[grossproffit]

20. I know of one, my husband.

[Demsrule86]

23. Mine too

He thinks it is not their business. And when I was an Obama volunteer. Many women whispered to me they were voting for Obama...but you can bet they did not admit to it if they voted with their husbands and were asked.

[Zynx]

50. It's very easy for a poorly weighted poll to be off.

Exit polls have had problems for years in this country. Go back to discussions of the 1988 exit polls.

[silvershadow]

26. Saving for later. nt

[Thinkingabout]

27. Another conspiracy theory, if Sanders was winning i doubt I would see a lot of this

Theories floating around. I thought I just heard Jane saying today it is time to talk about the issues. It is time to move along and get past unproven theories, start working on electing Democrats to give a way to pass progressive ideas.

[Time for change]

28. You don't think that election fraud is an important issue?

I happen to think that it's one of the most important issues we face.

Unproven theories? Without investigations, nothing would ever be proven.

I'm not recommending that the vote count be changed to reflect the exit polls. I'm just suggesting audits like the one in Illinois, which showed obvious evidence of vote rigging by electronic machines. We need to know how extensive those are, and we never will if we don't investigate.

If Bernie was winning and I saw evidence of election fraud, I would certainly want it investigated.

[Thinkingabout]

31. Fraud is a lot by those purposely trying to commit fraud. I have been familiar

With electronic voting machines, years ago a gentleman swore he could fix the machine to give the results he wanted. He worked for many weeks, he gave up because he was unable to "fix" the results.

[Time for change]

34. That's absurd

Election experts agree almost universally that elections can easily be stolen with the machines we use for our elections and our lack of oversight. Bush stole the 2004 election, especially in Ohio, and there was very little disagreement about that on DU, as well as tons of evidence to back it up.

[Thinkingabout]

35. Since you must not be aware of the instance I was referring what is absurd is your

Denial. If you have facts produce them, if not continue with your theory.

[Time for change]

36. I have numerous facts, and they are in the OP, documented with hyperlinks.

Apparently you didn't read the OP.

[Thinkingabout]

40. I am not the one to do the investigations, I pointed out where someone tried and tried, he failed,

Admitted he failed. Sometime where some may see what is perceived as smoke it isn't a real fire.

[seabeyond]

38. Since the conspiracy theories only apply to the Clinton win states, I bet you are correct. Nt

[Thinkingabout]

41. Good point.

[Time for change]

42. So someone failed to hack a voting machine

So that proves it can't be done, despite the massive evidence that it has been done many times in the past several years? And there is no need to ever worry about it or do investigations when evidence of fraud arises? Because you're aware of one person who tried and failed to do it?

That's one of the most naive statements I've ever heard.

[Thinkingabout]

43. Give your proof to the proper officials, nothing will happen from posting

On DU. I have confidence in the machines. I would bet there was not over three million errors and Hillary is stil ahead.

[Time for change]

69. You might be interested to know that I started a poll on this issue

One of the options is that it was ok for the auditors to change their hand counts to match the machine counts because machine counts are more accurate. There are now zero votes for that option.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511876642

[Peace Patriot]

29. !!!

!!!!!!!!!

[djean111]

33. I believe the official DNC stance on this is -

The DNC decides. Not you voters. So shut the fuck up. And remember you better vote for Hillary in November. Did we mention that you all should just shut the fuck up? And send money.

[silvershadow]

58. Meanwhile, I'm over here like....

[vintx]

39. "If the Democratic Party cares anything about democracy in our country, they should make sure that

these discrepancies are thoroughly investigated, such as with hand counted audits in all states with substantial exit poll discrepancies where that is possible, before they certify a nominee for the general presidential election."

They haven't bothered much with this issue yet, and the reason why should be crystal clear by now.

Those in power want to stay in power.

[Thinkingabout]

44. You trust hand counted ballots? I don't, too many human errors.

[Time for change]

45. You'd rather have machines provided by right wing corporations with no safeguards

to prevent fraud count your votes? Yes, I trust hand counted votes, with observers watching, far more than I trust machines that have been programmed by right wing corporations -- or any private machines.

Any machine that is used to count votes must provide a verifiable paper trail that can be hand counted whenever a question about the integrity of the election arises.

And tell me what you think about the audit I described in Chicago, where the hand counted vote differed substantially from the machine count, so the auditors erased Sanders votes and added Clinton votes to their initial hand count to make it match the machine. Do you think that's ok? What do you think the purpose of an audit is?

[Thinkingabout]

46. Yes I prefer the machines. How many hanging chads did you hear about from

Machines? Also, where does the machine come from which counts the paper ballots? They did not come out of someone's garage.

Are you sure the "audit" in Chicago was accurate, no, human error also plays a part.

Have you ever worked in a precinct?

[Time for change]

47. Yes I've worked in a precinct a few times, including as an election observer

After the election fraud that gave Bush the 2004 election through rigged machines, election integrity organizations sprung up all over the country. Without exception, they recommend hand counted paper ballots as the most fraud proof way of securing fair elections. Hand counts may be a little off due to human error, but machine counts, especially with machines owned, programmed, and run by right wing organizations can and do produce results that are far worse than any hand count you'll ever see.

But if you think that machines produced by corporations that have no accountability to the citizens of our country are the best way to count our votes, I can see that you are immune to arguments to the contrary, so I don't wish to discuss it with you any more.

[Thinkingabout]

49. I voted with electronic machines, had lots of faith in them, I voted with hanging chad paper system,

the worst system, did not line up, never knew if you voted for who you wanted, and have used the touch screens, which do I prefer, either the electronic or the touch screen. Counting by precinct workers is subject to human error, and in fact would easily very easy to exchange paper ballots for ones the human would like to include and take out the number of ballots in which was included, these are the type I would be concerned making voter fraud very easy to do. The electronic machines counted every voter, at the end of the night the workers would open the machine and gather the tally and report it. The touch screens has check points and they need to add up at the end of the day. Much more accurate.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. This s why I do not consider US elections legitimate

It was obvious staring in 2000. That was incidentally the last time MSM cared for them.

[underthematrix]

51. Bernie Sanders' supporters are still trying to find a path to the nomination

that doesn't exist. Take your time. Do what you gotta do.

In an episode of Scandal Season 2 titled Truth or Consequences, then chief of staff Cyrus Rutherford Beene said this to political fixer, Olivia Pope after it was revealed that the first election of President Grant was rigged. I consider this to be the MOST controversial monologue EVAR! on network or cable television.

You know what our electoral process is! It's magical! It's like believing in Santa or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny Magical, as long as they believe.
What you're doing is telling the people that the shiny presents and the bulging stockings on Christmas morning are just mom and dad staying up all night to do the work.
You're telling them we're Santa, we're the Easter Bunny, we're the Tooth Fairy.
You're taking the magic away! You're ruining Christmas morning, and the whole Republic is gonna come crumbling down . . .

[Time for change]

66. I don't understand your point

Are you saying that we shouldn't monitor elections or investigate apparently fraudulent ones because it's too difficult to do?

[Snotcicles]

52. After watching how corrupted our primaries for the Democratic Party nominations have been.

And remembering how well the 2005 Iraq election went. My finger is purple with envy.

[northernsouthern]

53. The best thing about this is...

...after every exit poll came out for Bernie the HRC crew beat the drums about how they can't be trusted...then in Delaware or where ever the last election was with exit polls for Hillary I saw HRC people posting about how she has won based on the exit polls.

[840high]

55. Thank you for this.

[highprincipleswork]

59. Somebody really did their homework. Thank you for this.

[AzDar]

60. K & R

[Scuba]

61. In 2009, Democrats in DC had an opportunity to protect our elections and voting rights.

They passed.

Kinda like Florida 2000 never happened.

Kinda like Ohio 2004 never happened.








A more cynical observer might conclude that Dems in DC don't give a shit about fair elections or voting rights.

[Ferd Berfel]

64. K&R because I agree

and it's a GREAT OP!
But I dont' get my hopes up. The Corporate strangle hold is too tight at this point for 'investigations'.

..."If the Democratic Party cares anything about democracy in our country..." Too late for this overly optimistic type of Thinking. THe Third Way Neo-Dem corporatists only care about the things we used to attribute to republicans. They are neo-Liberal, they are Neo-cons. Neo-Dems=Republicans now.

re: Thomas Franks in his new book http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1874869

[Time for change]

67. Thank you. I don't really have high hopes that the Dem Party will do much if anything about this

But we have to try.

It's like voting. Nobody who votes in an election really believes that their vote will make the difference. But we all have to do what we can.

[Ferd Berfel]

68. PAX

[Uncle Joe]

65. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Time for change.

[RiverLover]

71. Outstanding research & writing.

Thank you Tfc! Its absurd that our media can't do what you've done here.

But then, Hillary is good for business. Why would they want to?

[Time for change]

72. Thank you.

Our national corporate "news" media acts like election fraud doesn't exist here, and anyone who implies otherwise is a "conspiracy theorist".

[beedle]

73. Another article with lots of links to facts about stolen primaries

And information on the truth that exit polls are accurate, despite what Hillary supporters would have you believe.


http://www.ninaillingworth.com/2016/05/01/wicked-game-the-clandestine-murder-of-democracy-in-america-pt-1-2016-dem-primary/

[d_legendary1]

75. Thank you for this

If fair elections gave HRC the lead then I'm all for her getting the nod since she won it fair and square. With so many people disenfranchised in several different states it does bring to question the legitimacy of our election system.

[Fresh_Start]

77. Exit polls are not the gold standard. nt

nt

[Maedhros]

78. Then why are they cited as the most accurate method of validating elections

by international agencies and the U.S. State Department?

The OP had provided a wealth of information supporting his position, yet you expect to be taken seriously by posting the equivalent of "Nuh-Uh!" with no evidence?

[Fresh_Start]

80. please get those citiations

and while you are googling why don't you also look at university analysis of exit polls and the reason they are worse than other polls.

[Maedhros]

81. You, first.

You made the claim, you back it up. The OP cited his sources, you cite yours.

[Fresh_Start]

82. 5 or 6 sources of errors with exit polls...

Exit polls are two-stage cluster surveys, in which polling places are sampled
within states in the first stage and voters in those precincts are systematically sampled in
the second stage. As to the first stage, the National Election Pool (NEP) sampled from 14
to 55 precincts per state, with the most in the battleground states of Florida (55),
Michigan, Missouri, and Pennsylvania (50 each), Ohio (49), and Iowa, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin (45 each). The accuracy of exit polls depends in part on whether the sampled
precincts turn out to be representative of the state as a whole. While sampling 50
precincts may sound good, it may not be enough to provide an accurate sample.
Sampling more precincts would diminish the sampling error, though staffing more
precincts with interviewers would add to the expense of exit polls. At to the second
stage, the within-precinct-error rate in 2004 was higher in precincts where the
interviewing rate was higher (e.g., every tenth voter instead of every second voter),
suggesting a difficulty for interviewers in interviewing in larger precincts.
Coverage error occurs in exit polls when interviewers are kept too far away from
a polling place to interview voters effectively. Some states (such as Texas) require
pollsters to stay at least 100 feet from the polling place, and that is so far that many voters
park within that distance so that they do not pass in front of the interviewer. As an
example of the legal issues involved, five days before the election the Ohio Secretary of
State ordered the enforcement of a 100-foot electioneering distance on interviewers. A
court overturned that order at 10:30 PM the night before the election, but many
interviewers and election officials did not know about this when the polls opened the next
morning. As a result, interviewing did not start successfully in some Ohio precincts until
mid-morning, and no interviewing occurred in one Ohio precinct. In the end, 4% (62) of
the 1480 sampling polling places did not provide exit data on Election Day (Edison
Media Research 2005).
Another serious coverage issue in exit polls is that interviewers sometimes do not
show up on Election Day because they have found better work. For example, only 84%
of sampled precincts were staffed with interviewers in 2000 (Konner 2003). In 2004 the
exit polls also trained replacement interviewers, and 62 replacements (out of 1480 total
polling places) had to be sent out on Election Day. There were only 7 sampled precincts
in which there was no interviewer, 4 prohibited due to legal and distance restrictions.
There are also some time-of-day issues with exit polls: voters early in the day may be
different from those later in the day, which seems to be one explanation of the Kerry
leads in Florida and Ohio released on the Internet in mid-day, which would have given
him the election but which vanished by the time the polls closed.
Absentee voting has always created a potential problem for exit polls, in that
some voters are not in their sampling frame. This is again coverage error in that the
sampling frame of people voting at polling places excludes some people in the voting
population of interest. This potential source of error became an even more important
with the advent of early voting in some states and mail voting in others. "Convenience
voting" could be a serious biasing factor if one party mobilized its supporters better than
the other party for absentee, early, and mail voting. The NEP exit polls try to handle this
by conducting phone interviews before the election in the states with the most
convenience voting, though this raises tricky questions of how to weight the phone
interviews versus those at polling places.

Unit Nonresponse Error
Unit nonresponse occurs when some people in the sample are not interviewed,
either because of noncontact or refusal. This becomes problematic to the extent that
nonresponse is correlated with vote intention, so that survey response becomes biased.
Exit polls in the U.S. experience considerable nonresponse: 33% refusals plus
10% misses in 1996 (Merkle & Edelman 2000), only a 51% response rate in 2000
(Konner 2003), and a completion rate of 53% in 2004.

The 2000 Florida election demonstrated that exit polls encounter one further
problem: they measure how respondents believe they have voted and not whether or how
their votes were actually counted. Similarly, in 2004 respondents who cast provisional
ballots could answer how they voted but there was no way to tell whether their ballots
would be counted. In these instances, the survey question cannot precisely measure the
behavior that is of actual interest. Election officials make the decisions that really count.
Interviewer-Related Measurement Error
Some interviewer-related error is inevitable in interviewer-administered polls.1
The main potential interviewer-related issues involve their selection and training. For
example, interviewer age is related to success and accuracy. Exit polling operations often
hire college students as interviewers based on recommendations from college faculty, but
older interviewers are more successful in obtaining interviews. Merkle and Edelman
(2000) show that older voters are less willing to participate in exit polls, but the
difference is less when older interviewers are used. Indeed, the within-precinct-error in
2004 was greater in precincts with younger interviewers.

The important post-survey decision in exit polls involves how to predict the
election result based on the precinct data. As exit poll data come in on Election Day,
mathematical models based on how those precincts voted in previous years are used to
weight the data. (As a simple example of why this is necessary, say that the precincts
that report early are ones that traditionally vote more Democratic than the state as a
whole, so it is essential to weight the data to see if they are voting more or less
Democratic than in previous elections.) A persistent problem is that these mathematical
models are not very good, and the problems with the 2004 exit polls suggest that they
have not yet been improved enough.


SOURCE OF ERROR EXIT POLLS
Sampling Error: Faulty choice of sample precincts
Coverage Error: Kept away from polls
Item Nonresponse: Systematic refusals
Measurement Error: Ballot is not counted as voter intended
Measurement Error: Selection of interviewers & poor training
Post-Survey Error: Weighting precincts wrong

[Time for change]

83. The first sentence of the OP has a source for exit polls

The fact that there are several potential sources of errors for exit polls does not mean that they are not the gold standard, and it certainly doesn't mean that they are less accurate than official vote counts when the counting is done by machines that are owned and run by right wing corporations and can be easily programmed to switch votes from one candidate to another with very little oversight.

Are you familiar with with the audit in Chicago, which revealed large deviations in the hand counts compared with the machine counts? I referred to that in the OP. Did you read it? Did you look at the link?

If exit polls are so bad, then why are they routinely used in this country to help call elections? Are you aware that Maryland was called for Clinton with 0.0% of the vote in? What do you think that call was based on?

All the potential sources of error in exit polls added together don't come anywhere near the potential error from election fraud. I'm not asking that that the exit polls alone should be used to switch the official count. I'm just asking that it when they are suggestive of election fraud, which they are in several states during this primary season, that they be thoroughly investigated with hand count audits.

[Maedhros]

79. It has been clear since at least 2004 that the Democratic Party has no interest in protecting

the sanctity of the vote. They either simply do not care, or they are complicit in subverting the vote.

A party that actually cared about honest and verifiable elections would be preferable.

[Time for change]

84. That's the way it appears to me. And look at the exit polls in the Republican primaries

They are spot on in every state, as seen in this article, written by a recently former Hillary supporter who converted when he saw the extent of the election fraud:
https://medium.com/@spencergundert/hillary-clinton-and-electoral-fraud-992ad9e080f6#.kxjdqah8b

Apparently, whoever is manipulating this election in the Dem primaries thinks that any of the Republican candidates will be fine with them. Has it occurred to anyone that the election fraud in the Dem primaries is being orchestrated by right wing or Republican operatives because they don't want their nominee to have to run against Bernie. If so, Hillary supporters should be very concerned about that because it will take a lot less election fraud to beat her than it will to beat Bernie.

[bigtree]

86. exit polls aren't accountable enough to measure anything against

...they are media inventions - corporate media inventions.

You want to take an unaccountable process and elevate that to a level of legitimacy that we achieve in elections through the very laws you're seeking to find fault in this primary. Exit polls should come with the disclaimer, 'for entertainment use only.'

What laws regulate the accuracy and integrity of exit polls? What laws regulate the exit polls you're using to make your case?

None. End of story.

[Time for change]

87. you have no idea what you're talking about

They are used to monitor elections in many countries, and they have been used to reassess elections and overturn them.

And in case you were unaware of it, they have been spot on in EVERY Republican primary this year

[bigtree]

88. nice discourse

...your entire premise is based in unaccountable exit polling.

The polling stinks to high heaven with unknown sourcing, unequal and subjective methodology, and a skewed sampling , yet you're holding it up as some gold standard of evidence for undoing or calling into question the results of unrelated primaries with god knows what kind of exit polling conducted.

This is ludicrous. it would be laughable, but your trying to sell this as the reason Sanders is losing and basically accusing the Clinton campaign of complicity. This is internet garbage.

[Time for change]

89. If exit polls are as bad as you say, then

why do the network news stations routinely use them to assist in calling elections before the vote is all in? Are you aware that Maryland was called for Clinton with 0.0% of the vote in this year?

Yes, there is not much "accountability", so it would be possible for an exit poll worker to falsify an exit poll. But there would be little or no motive for doing so, so why would anyone do that. The most they could gain from it would be that it could lead to an audit, and if the exit poll was falsified, then the audit shouldn't show anything in particular.

On the other hand, there is tremendous motive for voting machines to be rigged to achieve a certain outcome, and don't tell me that we have any good methods for preventing that from happening. They are owned by right wing individuals with ties to the Republican Party, and anyone who knows anything about them knows that they can't be trusted.

And what do you have against auditing with hand counts, as a check on the validity of the elections? I'm not recommending that the elections be overturned on the basis of the exit polls. I'm only asking that they be audited.

Are you aware of the Chicago audit in Illinois, where a citizens group observed hand counts that differed substantially from the machine counts, and then observed the auditors changing their own hand count to match the machine count? I noted it in the OP, which I'm guessing you didn't read.

Here's a poll that I posted a few days ago, asking for an interpretation of that event. Why don't you tell me how you'd interpret it and take the poll yourself?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511876642