NY: Computer Tallies Can't be Trusted

[Wilms]

Computer Tallies Can't be Trusted

Howard Stanislevic

First published in print: Sunday, July 26, 2009

Marge Acosta's July 10th argument ("Paper ballots an accurate system") rests on the unproven assumption that computerized ballot scanners will count those ballots accurately. Many of our nation's top computer scientists would take exception to that notion.

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have advised the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Congress, that computer voting systems cannot be built to high levels of reliability or security. This leaves full or partial hand counts of paper ballots as the only way to ascertain the true winners of elections.

New York's rules for manual auditing of paper ballots are being written, but the standards that the state Board of Elections so far has agreed to are woefully inadequate. The state seems unwilling to look for vote-counting discrepancies that could easily change the winners of elections. Instead, it would have us all trust the unobservable computer software.

Unlike lever voting machines, certification and "accuracy testing" of stored-program computers is unreliable. Even if a computer passes such tests, we can not predict how the system will behave the next time it's used -- in a real election.

snip

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=824496&category=OPINION

[yourout]

1. Its not that an accurate reliable machine can't be built....it's just easier to hide the fraud by...

building complicated pieces of crap thereby generating a cover for the stolen election.

As I like to say its not a "Malfunction" its a "function".

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. the risk is more limited with Lever, whereas with computer

the risks are like holes in swiss cheese, there's lots of them.

So do you trade a system with small risks for a system with a vast array of risks?

As Howard said, there would need to be continuous observation of the paper ballots and vigorous audits, far more than what many people realize.

[clear eye]

3. Important for NYers

So unnecessary for our state. Rescind ERMA.

[WillE]

4. New York Anomalies: 19 Levers stuck on Bush, none on Kerry (EIRS)

There is much evidence that New York votes have been miscounted by the lever machines. The 2004 Election Incident Reporting System confirms that Kerry’s winning NY margin was cut drastically by election fraud. There were 19 reported NYC voting machine “stuck” lever incidents. All 19 were “stuck” on Bush, none on Kerry (see below). There were many other incidents of machine malfunction. How many impatient or discouraged voters left the precinct without voting?

This is an overview of posts on New York Voting Anomalies.


http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/NewYorkVotingAnomalies.htm
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/NewYorkVotingAnomalies.pdf

Let’s review the evidence that the NY vote (Kerry 58.5-40.2%) was padded for Bush.

1- Unadjusted exit poll: Kerry led by a steady 64-35%

2- Late votes: Kerry’s share of absentee, provisional paper ballots was 7% higher than his Election Day share (same as Gore and Obama).

3- Exit poll discrepancy: Levers had a 10.6% WPE, far exceeding other voting machines and Paper ballots (2%)

4- Returning voters: Gore had a 60-35% NY margin; third-party (Nader/other) voters broke 3-1 for Kerry (see table below).

5- Urban Legend: Bush’s vote share increased sharply from 2000 in the NYC area with no gain in GOP rural, small towns


6- Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS): Many NYC precincts had broken machines; all “stuck” levers were stuck on Bush. Lever voting machines have given New Yorkers a false sense of security. The 2004 Election Incident Reporting System confirms that Kerry’s winning NY margin was cut drastically by election fraud. There were 19 reported NY 2004 voting machine “stuck” lever incidents. All 19 were “stuck” on Bush.

7- NY 2008 Primary: Zero Votes for Obama in 80 districts.


Why would BushCo steal votes in NY? Kerry won the recorded vote by a whopping 18%. The simple answer: to pad his popular vote “mandate”. This analysis shows that Kerry did much better in NY than the recorded vote indicates.

[Bill Bored]

5. So are you saying computer tallies CAN BE TRUSTED then?

Or do you just think it's fun to take an unproven theory about vote switching by non-computerized voting machines that are specifically designed to make that impossible, and use it to confuse people?

Those who are fighting to keep computers from counting votes in NY without software-independent verification of electoral outcomes (which seems to be impractical for all elections, and politically impossible for many elections), know that lever voting machines can't be hacked in anywhere near the numbers that the exit poll discrepancy might suggest.

The undervote rate in NY in 2004 was 0.77%. That's the largest discrepancy possible on the levers. They don't allow vote switching during the election, and every one of the 20,000 machines is checked and double-checked after the election. The first check is made before the machines leave the poll site. So there is no opportunity to switch any votes, as there is with software, and no post-election chain-of-custody issue.

The 2nd check confirms the first check, in case someone copied the numbers wrong. The two tallies are usually very close, esp. for a statewide race.

As to the rest of your points, levers are more reliable than electronic machines -- not less. And as you've pointed out, when they fail, the failures are obvious enough so that paper ballots can be issued. If they were not, there would be much higher undervote rates on the levers!

The pro-computer folks don't even use the exit poll argument to justify their support for replacing levers. In fact, I don't think they have any reasonable arguments that will actually stand up, given the fact that NY will NOT allow full recounts of paper ballots in much the same way that the SCOTUS did not in 2000.

The NY State Board of Elections has deliberately designed regulations to keep full recounts from happening, even when discrepancies are found in a post-election audit, and they are on record saying to go to court for recounts. In other words, you'll take what the computers tell you the vote count is -- and you'll LIKE IT! Otherwise, your just a sore loser.

So levers are the best we've got and it would be silly to get rid of them, unless you're working for some vendor or some entity with an interest in stealing our elections. So are ya?

[Bill Bored]

6. Oh, and maybe you can explain how 19 broken machines out of 7,000 in NYC...

...can result in Kerry’s winning NY margin being "cut drastically."

Do you even know how many votes can possibly be cast on 19 lever machines?

Do you know ANYTHING about lever machines?

Have you ever examined the guts of a lever machines, or read the patents?

Have you ever witnessed the election-night canvass of a lever machine?

Have you ever even voted on lever machine?

Give me a break. You join DU just to post a rant about the evils of lever machines? Who put you up to it?

If this is an innocent mistake, fine. It's not too late to admit that you're out of your depth. Lots of folks confuse levers with punch cards for some strange reason. Maybe you've been misinformed by them.

But 19 machine failures out of 7,000 is about as good as it gets on ANY system. And NY had too few undervotes in the 2004 election to affect Kerry's margin much at all. (Even if ALL the undervotes were for Kerry, it would change the margin by less than 1%.)

[WillE]

7. You have avoided the facts presented in the post and appear quite defensive.

1) There were 19 incidents of levers “stuck” on Bush; . none on Kerry. Just a coincidence? Please explain.

2) There were many more incidents than the "stuck" levers in which machines were broken (see EIRS). These are just a sample. How many voters were discouraged and went home?
3) How do you explain the 500-600,000 late NY (PAPER) absentee and provisional ballots in EVERY election since 2000? The Democrats did 10% better in paper ballot LATE votes than they did on the Lever machines on Election Day. In every one of the last three elections.


New York Late Votes
(in millions)

PAPER LEVERS
Late Dem Share Initial Dem Share
2000 0.483 0.36 74% 6.3 3.78 60%
2004 0.499 0.33 66% 6.8 3.94 58%
2008 0.584 0.41 70.7% 7.0 4.34 62.2

Total 1.566 1.10 70.2% 20.1 12.1 60.0%

4) How do you explain the 10.6% WPE for levers? And the 2% WPE for paper?
5) Do you think that Bushco would not be motivated to cut Kerry’s popular voter margin in NY?
6) I am just an interested voter who has followed the discussions here.
7) Do you have an axe to grind here?
8) Of course I agree that touch screens are unacceptable. No transparency.
9) Levers are not the answer. They are ancient clunkers that Obama should let you trade in for verifiable, hand-counted paper ballots.

Now, I look forward to your addressing these issues. If you don’t care to do so, fine; if you choose to address them, so much the better. In any case, I am not going to debate with you. I have presented factual info that DUers may find of interest. Do with it what you will.

[Bill Bored]

8. Damn right I'm defensive! Here's why:

It's not about the exit polls; it's about the voting system.

You are the one who is unresponsive. You can't explain how the votes were switched by the voting system. You don't even TRY to. Until you can do that, your "evidence" means nothing.

See if you can understand this:
Even if the exit polls were spot on, if software was used to count the votes, I would NOT trust the election results, or the exit polls. But there was no software used to count votes at the precincts in NY. There were lever machines -- which are in fact the only true voting machines, designed to do one and only one thing: Count the votes as cast.

The question is:
Can the voting system switch votes, or not? In NY, it can't, so you'll need another explanation for why your exit polls were off. I don't have a dog in the exit poll fight, except when people say they are more accurate than a non-computerized voting system with a low undervote rate that can't switch votes and does not even permit overvotes. That's the argument you're making and it doesn't hold water, no matter what the polls say.

NY is about to go down the crapper when it comes to election integrity and all you can do is spout bullshit about exit polls?

If you don't like levers, what are you pushing to replace them?
Hand-counted paper ballots are not an option for NY. We don't have enough poll workers to count them. There won't even be 100% hand counts in the 2009 "pilot" elections using uncertified optical scanners for the first time. And that's only 15% of the registered voters in the state. Far too many votes to put at risk in a "pilot", but it shows that NY election officials are determined to avoid hand counting at any cost -- including the cost of voter disenfranchisement.

So, what the switch to paper ballots really means is that the votes will be counted by computers with only a 3% spot check and no possibility of a recount, except in the courts. And how will anyone know they should even ASK for such a recount? Where will they get the money to pay for it, and to pay the election lawyers? See: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x513427

"Sore loser" candidates will NOT be going to court to convince judges that computers can't be trusted. They never do. So the answer is not to allow the computers to count the votes in the first place. (For the sake of brevity, I won't get into the inherent risks of recounting paper ballots post-election, but you can bet a court will do so before granting what appears to be a frivolous recount request!)

If you have something to say about HOW the machines could have possibly been hacked to the extent your numbers suggest, then SAY SO. If not, go away.

[Bill Bored]

9. Define Dem Share

In NY elections, a candidate's share of the vote is not necessarily the same as the party's share. If you don't understand why, then you don't know much about NY elections.

If you do understand why, then the difference in Dem Party share between election day and absentee voting can be easily explained if most of the third-party cross-endorsement voting for Kerry took place on election day. Since the third parties such as the WFP do a lot of work to get out the vote, that's quite possible. Otherwise, it's always possible that absentee voters vote differently than poll-site voters. In any case, the absentees are counted by computers in NYC and some counties; I would not put much faith in an unaudited software-based vote count! Apparently you do, but only because it conforms with your exit poll stuff.

Either way, I don't like having to deal with explanations based solely on demographics, even if they are valid, because they do not address the central point: that vote switching cannot take place on lever voting machines during elections, as your exit polls seem to be implying.

Simple math can tell you how many machines would have to have been hacked to account for the NY exit poll discrepancy, and will show it was not possible. Why don't you just do that math instead of making weaker arguments about polls and demographics?

[Wilms]

10. Do you think that would be a lot of trouble and risk just to pad the popular vote?

While it's likely Bushco would want to cut Kerry's popular vote, what evidence do you have that Kerry would have been less at risk with even the mythical HCPB the lever machines replaced, let alone the optical scan that would replace them?

Are you aware of the details of NY's transition from HCPB to lever machines?

What gives you the impression that the state would broadly institute hand counts?

Is it possible the exit poll is wrong?

Is it possible, in a Dem leaning state, that provisional ballots break disproportionally for the Dem candidate?

Can you explain what "stuck on Bush" means in detail?

Can you express in fractional or percentage terms, the nineteen machines (and the other EIRS reported failures) in relation to the total number of machines in the state?

[WillE]

11. 580,000 NY late votes; analysis of incidents, county size, Urban Legend…and a response

Are you serious about the NY late votes? I thought it was understood that the early and late Dem vote shares referred to Gore, Kerry and Obama.
The 2008 national late (10 million) vote timeline is shown below. There was a 6.9% difference in Obama’s Election Day share (52.3%) and his late share (59.2%).
In NY State, there was an 8.7% difference in Obama’s Election Day (Lever) share (62.0%) and his late (paper ballot) share (70.7%).
Do you believe the Recorded Vote Count was correct in the largest 15 NY counties? And that Bush improved his 2000 vote by 75% in Brooklyn while Kerry improved by just 5% over Gore?

These are the Bush percentage vote gains in the largest 15 NY counties.


There was a strong 0.61 correlation between Bush percentage vote gain and county size.


There was a strong 0.55 correlation between county voting machine incidents and increase in Bush vote share from 2000.

You don’t believe that the Urban Legend applies in NY?

- Explain why there was a strong 0.61 CORRELATION between NY County population size and corresponding Bush percentage gain from 2000 to 2004. You must also believe the correlation since it is based on the recorded vote – and you believe the recorded vote.

- Explain why NYC had 89% of the 175 REPORTED voting machine INCIDENTS and only 37% of the 5703 state precincts.

- Explain why there was a strong 0.55 correlation between county voting machine incidents and increase in Bush vote share from 2000.

If you believe that the correlations are significant then you must also believe the Urban Legend. Remember, this is an analysis of the RECORDED votes; it has nothing to do with the exit polls.

Do you see where this is going? Let’s put it another way.

If you believe the strong (0.61) NY county size/ Bush vote change correlation, then you must also believe the Urban Legend that Bush improved sharply from 2000 to 2004 in Democratic urban/suburban areas while he lost share in Republican rural areas and small towns. But it’s a dilemma – a Hobson’s choice.

If you believe the Urban Legend correlation based on the recorded vote, then you cannot at the same time believe the recorded vote was correct. You are caught in a logical contradiction. You cannot have it both ways. And if you believe the Urban Legend (i.e. the 0.61 correlation) then you would also have to admit that votes cast on Election Day (on Levers) were miscounted.

But late votes (provisional, absentee, etc.) cast on PAPER BALLOTS were counted accurately; the election was over and Bush had already padded his NY vote share. So which do you believe: The NY Recorded vote or the Urban Legend?

You claim that the late NY exit polls (Kerry had 64%) were incorrect. But then you MUST believe the Final NY exit poll since it was FORCED to match the recorded vote (Kerry had 58.4%).

Kerry’s Late NY vote share (66%) was within 1-2% of the exit poll timeline (unadjusted, GEO, Composite) until it was reduced from 64% to 58.5% in the Final Exit Poll.

The evidence indicates that the NY exit poll timeline prior to the Final was correct.
You believe the Final even knowing that it was forced to MATCH the recorded vote.

I assume that you also disbelieve the preliminary exit polls in all the other states as well.
And that Bush really DID win by his official 3.0 million vote margin.

Or do you believe that exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky were wrong in NY but correct everywhere else?

2008 Late Vote Timeline (in millions)
National
2008 Total Obama McCain Other Obama McCain Other
11/4 121.21 63.44 56.13 1.64 52.34% 46.31% 1.35%
Late 2.93 1.73 1.16 0.03 59.17% 39.66% 1.17%

11/11 124.13 65.18 57.29 1.67 52.50% 46.15% 1.35%
Late 2.37 1.40 0.92 0.05 59.20% 38.73% 2.07%

11/12 126.50 66.58 58.20 1.72 52.63% 46.01% 1.36%
Late 0.75 0.45 0.28 0.02 60.38% 36.71% 2.91%

11/17 127.25 67.03 58.48 1.74 52.68% 45.96% 1.37%
Late 0.86 0.53 0.28 0.05 61.88% 32.54% 5.57%

11/21 128.11 67.56 58.76 1.79 52.74% 45.87% 1.40%
Late 1.09 0.59 0.45 0.06 53.65% 41.23% 5.11%

11/30 129.20 68.15 59.21 1.84 52.75% 45.83% 1.43%
Late 2.17 1.31 0.73 0.13 60.38% 33.50% 6.12%

12/18 131.37 69.457 59.935 1.978 52.87% 45.62% 1.51%

Late 10.163 6.013 3.809 0.342 59.16% 37.48% 3.36%

New York
Total 7.59 4.77 2.74 0.08 62.8 36.1 1.1

11/4 7.01 4.36 2.58 0.06 62.0% 36.8% 0.9%
12/18 0.58 0.41 0.16 0.02 70.7% 28.9% 0.4%

A typical 2500 respondent exit poll has a 2% margin of error has. Consider the 580,000 late 2008 NY votes as a BIG FAT PAPER BALLOT poll sample.

What is the probability that Obama’s share of the 580,000 late PAPER BALLOT votes would be 10% greater than his share of the first 7 million LEVER votes cast on Election Day? Do you have a PLAUSIBLE explanation?

I will now respond to your comments.

1) It's not about the exit polls; it's about the voting system.

No, it’s about the EVIDENCE. The exit polls represent evidence that you cavalierly want to dismiss.

2) You are the one who is unresponsive. You can't explain how the votes were switched by the voting system. You don't even TRY to. Until you can do that, your "evidence" means nothing

No, the onus is not on ME to conjecture HOW or WHY the massive discrepancies occurred. It is on YOU to acknowledge that the discrepancies listed ALL raise very RED flags. They should concern you. But you appear loathe to consider the weight of ALL the evidence – especially since it indicates that thousands of votes were uncounted and miscounted. And let’s not forget those kept from voting due to malfunctioning machines or long lines.

3) See if you can understand this:
Even if the exit polls were spot on, if software was used to count the votes, I would NOT trust the election results, or the exit polls. But there was no software used to count votes at the precincts in NY. There were lever machines -- which are in fact the only true voting machines, designed to do one and only one thing: Count the votes as cast.

No, I don’t understand why you don’t trust the NY exit poll. You trusted it when Richard Hayes Phillips cited the CNN NY exit poll as evidence in his “defense” of the Levers. He was apparently unaware that the Final was FORCED to match the recorded vote. And that Kerry had 64-65% up to and including the 12:40am Composite timeline. But now you claim that you don’t trust the exit polls. Quite disingenuous, that.

Did Mitofsky have it in for NY when he claimed that LEVER voting machine precincts had an average 11% WPE? And there is NO transparency. Where is the proof that the votes were COUNTED correctly? Who transcribed the Lever results to paper? How was the re-canvassing done in order to “fix” Obama’s votes in Harlem from the original ZERO count?

4) The question is:
Can the voting system switch votes, or not? In NY, it can't, so you'll need another explanation for why your exit polls were off. I don't have a dog in the exit poll fight, except when people say they are more accurate than a non-computerized voting system with a low undervote rate that can't switch votes and does not even permit overvotes. That's the argument you're making and it doesn't hold water, no matter what the polls say.

I have provided evidence that the Democratic candidates from 2000, 2004 and 2008, did 10% better in PAPER BALLOT LATE VOTES than they did on LEVER votes cast on Election Day. There were a total of 1.5 MILLION late votes in the three elections out of approximately 22 million total. That is quite a significant number.


5) NY is about to go down the crapper when it comes to election integrity and all you can do is spout bullshit about exit polls?

I suppose, therefore, that you believe Bush really did win after all since the “bullshit” exit polls indicated that Kerry won.

6) If you don't like levers, what are you pushing to replace them?
Hand-counted paper ballots are not an option for NY. We don't have enough poll workers to count them. There won't even be 100% hand counts in the 2009 "pilot" elections using uncertified optical scanners for the first time. And that's only 15% of the registered voters in the state. Far too many votes to put at risk in a "pilot", but it shows that NY election officials are determined to avoid hand counting at any cost -- including the cost of voter disenfranchisement.

There are 8 MILLION people in NYC and you can’t find enough poll workers? What makes you say that? That’s a VERY LAME argument. What is the REAL reason that NY election officials “are determined to avoid hand counting at any cost”?

7) So, what the switch to paper ballots really means is that the votes will be counted by computers with only a 3% spot check and no possibility of a recount, except in the courts. And how will anyone know they should even ASK for such a recount? Where will they get the money to pay for it, and to pay the election lawyers? See: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

You should devote your considerable energy to FIGHT for hand-counted paper ballots.

8) "Sore loser" candidates will NOT be going to court to convince judges that computers can't be trusted. They never do. So the answer is not to allow the computers to count the votes in the first place. (For the sake of brevity, I won't get into the inherent risks of recounting paper ballots post-election, but you can bet a court will do so before granting what appears to be a frivolous recount request!)

Do you mean sore losers like Al Gore? And now you are trying to convince us that counting paper ballots is “risky”? I seem to recall that’s what Bush’s lawyers said in 2000 in Florida!

9) If you have something to say about HOW the machines could have possibly been hacked to the extent your numbers suggest, then SAY SO. If not, go away.

No, I won’t go away. Why should I? I just became a member. As Al Gore told Bush when Bush asked him if he was going to concede: “Don’t get snippy”. You are being snippy.

I don’t have to explain HOW the machines could have miscounted. The onus is on YOU to explain WHY you ignore Kerry’s 64% exit poll; 11% lever WPE; 10% higher Gore, Kerry and Obama late vote shares; stolen 2000 and 2004 elections; Urban Legend, etc.

The evidence is overwhelming that the NY votes were miscounted. Just like they were in all the DEEP BLUE and Battleground states.

You are unable to PROVE that the votes have been accurately counted and yet you are giving up the fight for full transparency using HAND-COUNTED PAPER BALLOTS.

The problem is that you will not admit that there is a problem.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

12. Everyone knows the problem, at issue is which is worse?

and levers can only damage up to 999 votes per machine,
while one hack, ballot definition error or software error can change the outcome of thousands of votes.

[Bill Bored]

13. Sorry, but you DO have to explain HOW the machines could have miscounted so many votes.

Otherwise, you're wasting our time. It's as simple as that.

You do not decide unilaterally where the onus should be placed. The risks of the voting system have to be weighed and from there, we can decide where the onus should be placed. Have you figured out how many lever machines would have to be rigged to account for the exit poll discrepancy yet? If not, why not? Come on, give us the number! It's not that hard. There are 20,000 machines and about 8,000,000 voters. How many votes per machine would have to be switched, on average, to account for the NY exit poll discrepancy?

After you tell us the answer, you can tell us HOW it could have been done, how it's plausible and why it's easier than hacking a couple of exit poll servers that did in fact go up and down like yoo-yoos on election night in 2004!

Re HCPB, you really don't know much about New York, do you? Lever machines replaced HCPB starting in the 1890s in NY because HCPB was a corrupt system at the time. This is one reason why HCPB is a non-starter in NY today.

But New Yorkers have tried to get HCPB numerous times and failed -- in Federal Court and at the State Board of Elections. Even just for Federal Elections. Even as a check on uncertified optical scanners this year. Those pushing for statistical audits (significant numbers of HCPBs) have tried and failed for years to get them in NY. No one wants to hear about it because it involved HAND COUNTS.

The goal of most NY election officials now is to hand count as FEW paper ballots as possible. This was not the case when the only paper ballots were absentee, emergency and provisional ballots, but it damn well is the case now -- because there will be many millions of paper ballots!

Have YOU ever advocated for HCPB in the REAL WORLD? Very few people actually have. They like to post about it on message boards, but that's about it.

Here's the bottom line when it comes to election integrity:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x513498
No matter who you talk to in the REAL WORLD, Vote Counting is always someone else's problem. Election lawyers, candidates, election officials and legislatures don't want to deal with it. Even election integrity advocates can't tell you how they will verify computerized vote counts. They will parrot something about "audits and recounts" or worse, "auditability and recountability", but without thinking through how that's really going to work on a large scale for lots of elections, or even just Federal elections. And those are the folks on OUR side!

So despite everything we've learned about not trusting software, the counting is delegated to software anyway, or to any other convenient method -- whether it can be verified or not. That is -- until it's too late and someone loses a close election and they are seen as a "sore loser." And you know the rest.

Of all the methods out there, levers are the best. Anyone who says otherwise just hasn't studied the problem or the history. HCPB can work, but it's not on the table in most parts of the country.

Look at Humboldt County, CA: Big HCPB advocate there. But now they're rescanning ballots with more computers and trying to shove that down everyone else's throat, including New York's!

There is also a federal case that might even set a bad precedent against HCPB, but that's another story. Also, HCPB allows overvotes, which might be considered by some to be unconstitutional, unless it's the only statewide system. Potentially, this could result in HCPB being phased out where it still exists. Yet we have no real way of checking the counts of any other system -- except the lever machines.

You talk as if Al Gore actually got his recount. He would have easily won Florida on election night if they had voted on lever machines. (No overvotes!) And he screwed up big time by not asking for a statewide recount from the get go by the way. I wish he had won, of course, but it would not have even been close enough to steal if they had voted on levers.

[WillE]

15. Sorry to waste your time with facts

The fact is that there is a problem with the levers.

You are hung up on the software issue.
Obviously there is no software component.

There are many ways to skin a cat.
I leave it to you to determine whether the problem is due to humans and/or the machines.

You cannot explain the anomalies, so you continue to harp on the software issue.

[Bill Bored]

16. Are you going to answer my question or not?: How many lever machines had to be hacked...

...to account for the 2004 exit poll discrepancy?

Let me help you out a little: There were about (8,000,000 / 20,000) votes on each machine. That's 400 Presidential votes per machine on average. There can be no more than 999 votes per machine, but it's typically limited to about 800. More than that, and a second machine is provided in advance, based on the number of registered voters in each precinct. Using your exit poll numbers, how many machines would have to be hacked? Try it 2 ways:

1. Hacked to produce undervotes for Kerry (not possible since the undervote rate was only 0.77% in 2004) and
2. Hacked to produce switched votes from Kerry to Bush (not physically possible during elections on these machines).

Even though both of these methods are not possible in the amounts necessary to explain your numbers, try it just for fun.

#1 would require twice as many machines as #2 (even though it's impossible) and
#2 would require half as many machines as #1 (although it's even MORE impossible).

But just for the fun of it, HOW MANY MACHINES WOULD HAVE TO BE HACKED to account for your exit poll discrepancy?

[WillE]

14. A response and some questions for you

First, questions for you:

Based on ALL the evidence accumulated, statistical and anecdotal, do you believe that Bush won the 2004 election fairly?
If the answer is YES, please state why you have come to this conclusion.
If the answer is NO, then you must also agree that the unadjusted and preliminary state AND national exit polls were essentially correct, since they indicated that Kerry won by 3-5%.

If the answer is NO, then since the aggregate national WPE was 7% and the NY WPE 11%, you must also agree that there is an extremely HIGH probability that the NY votes were miscounted by humans who had access to the Lever machines and/or by machine failure.

Now to answer your questions:

1) Do you think that would be a lot of trouble and risk just to pad the popular vote?

What Risk? Bushco owned the Justice Department. I’m sure you know all about the firing of Republican prosecutors who would pursue real GOP fraud and not bogus, trumped up Democratic voter fraud.

2) While it's likely Bushco would want to cut Kerry's popular vote, what evidence do you have that Kerry would have been less at risk with even the mythical HCPB the lever machines replaced, let alone the optical scan that would replace them?

There was only ONE state among ALL the strong Democratic and Battleground states in which the recorded vote was within the exit poll margin of error - Oregon. It also happens to be the ONLY 100% PAPER BALLOT state (mail).

3) Are you aware of the details of NY's transition from HCPB to lever machines?

No, but I know that the levers have been around for 100 years.

4) What gives you the impression that the state would broadly institute hand counts?

I have no such impression. Why should the Lever machine establishment want to spoil a good thing/

5) Is it possible the exit poll is wrong?

I assume you mean the NY exit poll. Remember it was just one of many.
Yes, the Final Exit Poll was wrong; it was matched to the recorded vote count.
No, the unadjusted exit poll was correct (as were the adjusted Best GEO and Composite at 12:40am)

Now, how do you define wrong? If by “wrong” you mean could it be off by the 2% margin of error, yes it could - the probability is only 5%.

But the Best GEO NY exit poll (Kerry had 65%) deviated 6.5% from the recorded vote (58.5-65%). Could it be off by 6.5%? That is so far beyond the MoE that the probability is effectively ZERO. The answer is obviously NO.

6) Is it possible, in a Dem leaning state, that provisional ballots break disproportionally for the Dem candidate?

It depends on the partisanship mix of the precincts the ballots were coming from. Unless you can prove that there is a consistent late vote bias in favor of the Democrats, you must assume otherwise. In 2008, the 580,000 absentee and provisional late ballots comprised a large sample of the 7.6 million total. It is extremely unlikely that the sample was not a fair representation.

Assuming that the Late votes were a fair sample of the NY voting population, then the probability of the 8.7 % differential between Obama’s Late vote (70.7%) vote share and his Election Day share (62%) is effectively ZERO.

7) Can you explain what "stuck on Bush" means in detail?
See the EIRS reports below.

8) Can you express in fractional or percentage terms, the nineteen machines (and the other EIRS reported failures) in relation to the total number of machines in the state?

NYC had 89% of the 175 REPORTED voting machine incidents but only 37% of the 5703 state precincts. There was a STRONG 0.55 correlation between county voting machine incidents and the corresponding increase in Bush vote share from 2000.





2004 EIRS: 19 “Stuck” Lever Incidents (note that ALL were in heavily Democratic NYC precinctcs)

1) 28456 141 Machon Street JHS 258
Only one machine in polling place and its STUCK ON REPUBLICAN, they're giving out envelope that says "affidavit oath", no list of candidates

2) 28554 PS 58, Macon Street Brooklyn
Radio report--minister called in that the machine is broken and ONLY TAKING THE REPUBLICAN side of the vote; report came on the radio 2x while on the phone

3) 28715 PS 306, Wortman & Cozine Ave.
Machine is LOCKED ON THE REPUBLICAN side

4) 29919 PS 306, Vermont Ave.
One of the machines was STUCK ON THE REPUBLICANS. The other machine was only for voters A-L. They disenfranchised anyone whose name was not through A-L. Did vote in the end because last name starts with B.

5) 30394 PS 258 JHS - 141 Macon Street
Machines STUCK SO ONLY REPUBLICANS COULD BE VOTED FOR, told people to go back rather than hand out emergency ballot

6) 33002 PS 126 , 424 Leonard Street
Voter reported that SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THE LITTLE LEVER FOR THE DEMOCRATIC Presidential candidate's slot at Polling Machine serial number: 91204. She said that lots of voters complained that the lever did not properly click down.

7) 34442 Taylor White Community Center
THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE WASN'T WORKING --- could only vote for president. This is what she was told regarding the ability to vote along party line. She said she will return later to see if fixed.

8) 39120 - SWITCH FOR DEMOCRATIC AND GREEN CANDIDATES WOULDN'T FUNCTION CORRECTLY but other parties would work, officials did offer paper ballots.

9) 33516 New York PS 199 270 west 70th street 2004-11-02 07:57:10 PSTLEVERS WERE BROKEN FOR CERTAIN PARTY LINE, they did not give him emergency ballot because they didn't know which one to give the voter. The voter cast vote for all other candidates. (only specific section of party line was broken).

10) 37472 New York PS 158 11/2/2004; 1:15 pm 2004-11-02 10:31:55 PST Machine problem for voters A-L NO LEVER FOR VP CANDIDATE on DEMOCRATIC side.

11) 33495 ps 158 46-35 oceania st
THE JOHN KERRY CHAD WAS HARD TO PUNCH. None of the other chads for the democratic party candidates were hard to punch.

12) 28481 Bronx PS 50 173rd and Bryant Avenue 6:40 2004-11-02 04:02:36 PST
Tyrek said that other voters in line told him that the MACHINES WERE STUCK ON "REPUBLICAN". The line was not moving at all and he did not see whether paper ballots were being passed out to voters. He had to go to work so he left the polling place.

13) 28965 Bronx 11/2/2008 7:30 2004-11-02 04:32:37 PST
MACHINE STUCK IN BUSH/CHENEY POSITION - was allowed to cast paper ballot

14) 31417 Bronx 3410 Dereimer Avenue; 11/02/04--7:30 a.m. 06:39:20 PST
Voting machine: only one machine for the 8th district at the location; THE MACHINE WAS STUCK ON "REPUBLICAN" and voters couldn't vote unless they were Republican. One of the police officers there looked at the machine and tried to "unstick" it, but was not successful. Voter is concerned that the paper ballots will not get counted, or will be lost.

15) 29968 Bronx PS 50 Rice Ave 2004-11-02 05:29:28 PST
MACHINE ONLY SET FOR REPUBLICANS, could not vote any other way

16) 30579 Bronx 3410 Dereimer Avenue 11/2/04 at 7 am 2004-11-02 06:01:12 PST
MACHINE STUCK ON REPUBLICAN; Gave paper ballots; Voter suspects it was a provisional --rather than an emergency ballot.

17) 39075 Bronx PS. 50, crotona park east 2004-11-02 11:46:17 PST
Individual reports news reports of machine irregular; DEMOCRATIC LEVELS MALFUNCTIONING.

18) 33077 Bronx County PS 105, White Plains Road 2004-11-02 07:42:17 PST
Machine is NOT BEING RE-SET for each voter; the machine REMAINS ON "REPUBLICAN" and voters have not been able to vote for other parties. The pol lworkers said that they cannot adjust the machine because it will jam.

19) 32390 Bronx PS 50 1550 Vyse Ave 7:05 2004-11-02 07:15:06 PST
Went at 7:05; was told that 6 MACHINES "WERE LOCKED ON REPUBLICAN"
________________________________________________________________________

[OnTheOtherHand]

17. well, there you go: unsupported dogma

Yes, the Final Exit Poll was wrong; it was matched to the recorded vote count.
No, the unadjusted exit poll was correct (as were the adjusted Best GEO and Composite at 12:40am)

How do you know that the unadjusted exit poll was correct?

Let's rewind:

Based on ALL the evidence accumulated, statistical and anecdotal, do you believe that Bush won the 2004 election fairly?
If the answer is YES, please state why you have come to this conclusion.
If the answer is NO, then you must also agree that the unadjusted and preliminary state AND national exit polls were essentially correct, since they indicated that Kerry won by 3-5%.

That's ridiculous. There is no reason why someone has to believe either that Bush won fairly or that the exit polls were "essentially correct." If you have a reason why you believe it, bring it on, but please don't be silly. We've had enough exit poll silly around here.

[Bill Bored]

18. These reports sound like a Primary with separate Dem and Repub machines.

Of course it's not supposed to work that way in a General Election. But if it did, it seemed obvious enough for voters to be aware of it. Therefore, it's a transparent problem that could have been solved with emergency paper ballots which, by law, have to be counted on election night at the polls.

That seems like a pretty safe system to me, provided there are observers allowed, which of course there are for every party on the ballot at each precinct.

Certainly, there can be room for improvement, but so far, what you are describing is a very small number of problems that are limited in scope to very few votes possibly being affected. Not exactly viral!

If just one of our new op scanners starts misbehaving, you're talking about thousands of votes, and no one will be the wiser. And of course, there is the potential for that to be quite viral!

[Wilms]

19. Thanks for using the word "believe". That's honest. Belief, while limited, is all we have.

As much as you might decry a poly-sci perspective, understand your notion of what represents suspicious gains is a case study in itself. Do you ever factor for the intelligence of those who are then identified as swing voters? Or their party commitment?? Meanwhile, I've not seen you connect precinct level data in support of the theory you advocate.

Similarly, you may find your dogma revealed by the fact I believe the election was stolen. Believe. I don't know. I can't prove it. But it's what I think happened. For similar reasons that have me doubting the official election results I'm no more comfortable with exit polls as a verification. Not, anyway, to the degree I'd consider them smoking gun proof. And when someone comes along hawking that, smoke isn't what I smell.

Do you realize the lever voting machines are handled in bi-partisan fashion? Some of your assumptions don't fit with that reality. I actually believe that a significant "Stuck on Bush" reality to go along with those EIRS reports would have triggered local Dems investigation. And if it didn't, do you believe HCPB or optical scan would be safer?

I do think there is a maintenance problem with levers and other systems. But I wouldn't be surprised if vendors were loading the EIRS. Or if troublemakers were behind reports of:

"11) 33495 ps 158 46-35 oceania st
THE JOHN KERRY CHAD WAS HARD TO PUNCH. None of the other chads for the democratic party candidates were hard to punch."

Anything stand out for you there? Here's a hint, it's a little like that lever machine vote switching problem.

[WillE]

20. Your comments indicate some confusion and a touch of desperation

1

Thanks for using the word "believe". That's honest. Belief, while limited, is all we have.
----------

No, we have evidence and mathematical analysis. Belief is for those who are faith-based and in denial.

2

As much as you might decry a poly-sci perspective, understand your notion of what represents suspicious gains is a case study in itself. Do you ever factor for the intelligence of those who are then identified as swing voters? Or their party commitment?? Meanwhile, I've not seen you connect precinct level data in support of the theory you advocate.
----------

Who is decrying a poly-sci perspective? The analysis presented is based on verifiable facts. That is what the scientific method is all about. It’s not faith-based belief.

“Factor in swing voter intelligence”? Please explain in the context of the statistical analysis of recorded data.

“Party commitment”? Please explain in the context of the statistical analysis of recorded data.

Precinct level data on 5703 precincts? We don’t need to drill-down to that level of detail. It would be sufficient to just have the raw precinct exit poll data. But the exit pollsters (i.e. the media) won’t release it. Their excuse is the need for “confidentiality”. Do you ever consider what the real reason might be?

A statistical analysis based on county-level vote recorded vote data in conjunction with the state exit poll timeline is more than sufficient to conclude that the NY recorded vote is bogus.

3


Similarly, you may find your dogma revealed by the fact I believe the election was stolen. Believe. I don't know. I can't prove it. But it's what I think happened. For similar reasons that have me doubting the official election results I'm no more comfortable with exit polls as a verification. Not, anyway, to the degree I'd consider them smoking gun proof. And when someone comes along hawking that, smoke isn't what I smell.
----------

What “dogma” are you referring to? The facts presented? I don’t believe that I’m falsely recalling that someone else used that term in this thread. Is “Dogma” the new catch-all talking point? Something like “Exit Poll Fundamentalism”?

Are you calling the statistical correlation between Bush percentage vote gains and NY county size “dogma”? Are you questioning the use and results of the correlation analysis because it confirms that the Urban Legend is a myth: Bush could not have improved his vote share in Democratic areas while breaking even or losing share in Republican rural areas and small towns. Professional misinformationists and media shills want you to believe that occurred.

However, if you believe the math, you will have to agree that the Urban Legend is a myth and therefore so is the NY recorded vote.

You answered my question and stated that you “believe” the election was stolen. But you “don’t know” and you can’t “prove it”. That is a cop-out. I asked you what you “believed “based on ALL the available evidence, not on some faith-based notion. In other words, I asked you to evaluate the evidence. No one asked you to “prove” anything. The best that we can do is make probability estimates based on available recorded AND exit poll data. If the historical NY recorded and exit poll data were presented in court, the prosecution would easily win a civil case in proving votes miscounting is endemic. They only need to prove at least a 50% probability. In fact, the probability that the Democratic vote margins were reduced by hundreds of thousands of votes is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The probability is much greater than that threshold.

The exit polls are indeed a Smoking Gun, especially when viewed in conjunction with the 500,000 late votes AND the Urban Legend correlations. To suggest that the exit polls should not be considered as evidence and do not represent screaming RED FLAGS is FAITH-BASED DENIAL that there are problems with the Levers - whether caused by mechanical failures or the humans who transcribe the results.

But you don’t “smell the smoke”. But at the same time you “believe” that Bush stole the election. That’s a contradiction that you cannot reconcile. So what are you smoking?
--------


4

Do you realize the lever voting machines are handled in bi-partisan fashion? Some of your assumptions don't fit with that reality. I actually believe that a significant "Stuck on Bush" reality to go along with those EIRS reports would have triggered local Dems investigation. And if it didn't, do you believe HCPB or optical scan would be safer?

What assumptions” Be specific.
So what if the NY election commission is “bi-partisan”. What does that prove? Who said that only one party has a dog in this? Do you have any information as to who may be profiting, directly or indirectly, on keeping and maintaining the Lever machines?

Since when did the Democrats ever investigate anything on their own? And why should they investigate for Kerry when he won NY by over a million votes? The election was over. So what if Kerry’s True margin was 2 million? No one cared, except for Rove. He needed to manufacture a “mandate” for Bush.

As for EIRS being “fixed” by those opposed to Levers, that is called “reaching”. You are just grasping for an explanation.

5


I do think there is a maintenance problem with levers and other systems. But I wouldn't be surprised if vendors were loading the EIRS. Or if troublemakers were behind reports of:
"11) 33495 ps 158 46-35 oceania st
THE JOHN KERRY CHAD WAS HARD TO PUNCH. None of the other chads for the democratic party candidates were hard to punch."

Anything stand out for you there? Here's a hint, it's a little like that lever machine vote switching problem.
-------

You are “reaching’ again. Troublemakers? Who are those ”vendors” who are doing the EIRS “loading”? The opti-scanners? The HCPB advocates? You are joking, right?

I remind you that NY lever problems have gone unnoticed for 100 years, long before your aforementioned “troublemakers”.

Lever-machine vote-switching problem? If the fact that votes can’t be mechanically “switched” on levers constitutes the thrust of your case, then you have nothing. There are many ways to skin a cat. Election officials can place defective machines in highly Democratic precincts and then miscount the votes.

Is verification possible? Of course not.
Is there a corresponding paper ballot? Of course not.
Are the NY election officials emphatic about avoiding full recounts? Of course they are.
Did election officials fix the vote in Ohio in full view? Of course they did.
Would NY election officials fix the vote behind closed doors? What do you think?

It is not a question of what voting system you can TRUST.
It is a question of what system enables you to VERIFY.


By the way, how come Lever activists never mentioned the NYC EIRS reports and the “stuck on Bush” anomaly? Here’s a hint: Is it because they are facts that you would rather not discuss - like the 500,000 late PAPER BALLOT votes?

That reminds me of the fact that the MSM would rather not discuss Election Fraud – in fact they never have.

[Wilms]

21. Confusion? Projection?

1. An exit poll is not a verified election outcome. You thinking otherwise explains much.

2. You're so wrapped up in exit polls you missed the fact that the precinct level data I referred to is the tallies. Again, you thinking otherwise explains much.

3. Whatever.

4. Ah, er, poll workers, cough.
5. And about those lever punch cards... :rofl:

Tell TIA I said hello, and that it's kindof nostalgic seeing the fog machine back here spewing again.

[Bill Bored]

22. The raw data show that Bush didn't do better compared to 2000 in the precincts with the largest WPE.

"If the fact that votes can’t be mechanically “switched” on levers constitutes the thrust of your case, then you have nothing."

No, we have EVERYTHING, because there is no other way to account for the exit poll discrepancy. Have you come up with the number of machines that would account for it yet? What are you waiting for? Go ahead MAKE MY DAY! Tell me how many lever machines would have to be hacked!:popcorn:

"There are many ways to skin a cat. Election officials can place defective machines in highly Democratic precincts and then miscount the votes."

Really? How many machines would that have to be to account for the exit poll discrepancy? And what would the UNDERVOTE RATE have to be on those machines to account for the exit poll discrepancy? And statewide, or in NYC?

It seems you may have admitted above that votes can't be switched on the lever machines, so that leaves undervotes and overvotes. Maybe all the Dems tried to vote for Bush AND Kerry and the overvote interlocks on the lever machines didn't work! Maybe the lever machines had Butterfly Ballots! Maybe there were prepunched CHADS! Or maybe the lever machines were connected to the Internets and there was a Man-in-the-Middle Attack!:rofl:

As to the raw data, it showed that Bush didn't do better than he did in 2000 in the precincts with the largest WPEs, remember? So how can the exit polls be used to infer fraud? You don't believe that because you don't think they're using the real data. But even if they released it as you would like, in violation of confidentiality, you wouldn't believe that's the real data either, unless it agreed with your theory. After all, anyone can make up data!

As long as the data don't confirm YOUR theory, you will say it's not the real data. That's why this is all a waste of time. It doesn't matter if they release the data or not. You just have a need to perpetuate your theory. What is unknown is why -- and who you are working for.

After you answer the question about how many levers would have to have been hacked to account for the NY discrepancy, maybe you can explain why the CONFIRMED vote switching observed in Cuyahoga County, OH (done with punch cards), the alleged Internet man-in-the-middle attacks, and the paperless touchscreen DREs in some OH counties, didn't lead to an even LARGER exit poll discrepancy than NY's, where such vote switching and attacks were impossible and the touchscreens were nonexistent.

But I doubt you will explain any of this because you CAN'T.

[WillE]

24. : Motive, Means, and Opportunity

You assume that I have a dog in this hunt because I have presented voting data and analysis that you never considered (statewide and county).

Let’s set the record straight: I speak for no one. Can you say the same?

Based on the analysis of NY recorded and total votes cast, EIRS reports, late votes, exit poll discrepancies and the history of mechanical voting machine fraud (levers and punch cards), I have concluded that the confidence placed in NY vote counts is unwarranted.

Over the past several years, I have read much of TIA’s analysis and that of others and have become quite familiar with the subject of election fraud analytics. I have noticed a heavy emphasis on the NY lever machines in this forum. The recurring theme is that Levers are essentially fraud-proof and therefore should never be replaced by another voting system, including hand-counted paper ballots. The emotional attachment to levers is understandable; after all, they have been around for 100 years. And it is common knowledge that DREs are unverifiable and easily hacked – a lethal combination.

Claims that the Levers are fraud-free must be tempered by substantial statistical evidence that strongly suggests NY votes are miscounted in every election. The fact that NY is highly Democratic and that Gore, Kerry and Obama each won the state by landslide margins serves to mask the fraud since there was no incentive to recount the votes. Yet the evidence strongly suggests that each won by a much bigger margin than the official count.

I would think you would want to know the true vote in any case – whether a presidential landslide, hard-fought primary or a state/local election.

New York is not alone; many blue states had landslides denied. Everyone expected Kerry to win them; all eyes were on the battleground states.

Rove could not afford a repeat of 2000: stealing electoral votes only to lose the popular vote. He saw the Blue states as a risk-free opportunity to reduce Kerry’s margin; he knew no one would question a landslide. He was right. It was a no-brainer.

He had the motive (to pad the votes); he had the means (a corrupt Justice Department and state election officials) and the opportunity (unverifiable electronic and mechanical voting machines, a surplus placed in Republican precincts and a deficit of faulty machines placed in Democratic ones).

Rove was right. No one cared. It was a slam-dunk.

The effort on the part of Lever machine advocates to promote the superiority of levers over programmable voting machines is an obvious reaction to HAVA. It is universally accepted that DREs can be easily hacked to switch votes. They should never be allowed anywhere.

But mechanical Levers are also vulnerable to fraud, even if not by computer programs. Any system is vulnerable if there are no paper ballots. Levers have been around for 100 years. It is naïve to think that in all this time they have not been “hacked” in low-tech ways by humans, directly or indirectly.

Oregon is the only state that is 100% paper. It is also the only state among the battleground and strongly Democratic states in which the unadjusted exit poll margin of error was not exceeded in 2004. Is it just a coincidence? Why isn’t Oregon a model for consideration in NY? It would seem to be worthy of at least some interest. No machines, no computers. Just humans. With vote counts verified by other humans. Maybe the reason mail-in ballots are not considered is because there is no money in it. Maybe it’s because an entrenched special interest likes those levers just where they are. There is no money in just recycling the hardware.

It’s human nature to stake out a position and stay with it - even if it means rejecting the consideration of information that tends to refute the initial position. But that is a rejection of the scientific method; all relevant data must be tested to see if it confirms the original hypothesis. If it doesn’t, the hypothesis is weakened at best, discarded at worst. In any case, the new data must be further tested. Since the media won’t allow the raw precinct exit poll data to be released, analysts must work with the data that is available. And they are justified in coming to certain conclusions based on the preponderance of the data .

The hypothesis appears to be that since they are mechanical devices, NY levers are impervious to vote miscounts. But if relevant data (historical late votes, exit polls, recorded vote changes, uncounted votes, non-transparency, etc.) are at variance with the original hypothesis of a fraud-free vote, the data should not be rejected out of hand. Rather, all anomalies should be considered as a basis for further investigation. Advocates of the hypothesis must weigh the conflicting evidence fairly and completely, and not just try to dismiss the data/analysis with faith-based hyperbole and straw man arguments.

By dismissing the full extent of NY voting data analysis out of hand, you appear to be determined to maintain your original position. You are heavily invested in your campaign to keep the Lever machines. You fail to consider alternative voting systems that would provide the full transparency that is lacking with the levers. It is possible to have full transparency, although you seem to believe otherwise. Another problem, however, is that politicians and the media don’t want to change things, either.

These are two bottom-line methods to cut Kerry’s vote share and skin the NY lever cat:
1) Faulty levers in Democratic precincts (uncounted votes)
2) Corrupt officials counting votes in Democratic and Republican precincts (stuffed votes).

Remember that according to the 2004 NY vote census, there were 300,000 NET uncounted votes.

The 300,000 could be the net of 400,000 uncounted and 100,000 stuffed…or 600,000 uncounted and 300,000 stuffed.

The simple equation is: Net uncounted vote = Gross uncounted vote – stuffed ballots
Can we determine the components? Well….no, because there aren’t any Election Day paper ballots to recount!

But the LATE 500,000 paper ballots WERE counted. They showed that Kerry’s LATE vote share was much higher than his LEVER machine share on Election Day. And over the last three elections, the average Democratic late vote share was 10% higher than the Election Day share.

The data shows that Bush lost recorded share in only one county - Columbia. Let me repeat that for emphasis: recorded share. We do not know what his True share was in each county.

Were Kerry votes uncounted and Bush votes “stuffed” - or was it a combination of both?



NY STATE COUNTY-SIZE / VOTE CHANGE CORRELATION

Correlation of county recorded vote to...

Change in Bush margin: 0.57 (strong)

Bush percentage vote gain: 0.61 (strong)
Kerry percentage vote gain: .07 (none)
Nader percentage vote loss: -0.23 (small)

Bush vote gain: 0.92 (almost perfect)
Kerry vote gain: 0.69 (strong)
Nader vote loss: -0.94 (almost perfect negative)
_____________________________________________________________


RESPONSE

1
No, we have EVERYTHING, because there is no other way to account for the exit poll discrepancy. Have you come up with the number of machines that would account for it yet? What are you waiting for? Go ahead MAKE MY DAY! Tell me how many lever machines would have to be hacked!
--------

You have EVERYTHING? You constantly raise the machine “hacking” straw man as if that is the only way to miscount votes. Come on. Can you think out of the (Lever) box? Remember, there are no verifiable paper ballots to recount. There are many ways to skin a cat. You are the one who needs come up with an explanation for all the exit poll discrepancies and recorded vote anomalies. To just dismiss them out of hand by claiming that exit polls SUCK even though they indicate fraud, or that the Urban Legend myth SUCKS because it also indicates fraud, or that 500,000 late PAPER BALLOT votes SUCK because they indicate fraud … wait, sorry, you never said that; in fact, you have completely avoided discussing why over the last three elections, democratic presidential candidates average vote share was 10% HIGHER on the post-election PAPER BALLOTS than on Election Day LEVER votes.

No other way to account for the exit poll discrepancy? What about the 180,000 net uncounted votes in 2000 and 300,000 in 2004? What about the nearly one million newly registered voters? The great majority were Democrats who came to vote for Kerry, not Bush. And what about the zero Obama votes in 80 districts?

No, the ONUS is on YOU to prove the vote count was accurate. Can you do it?
MAKE YOUR DAY!

2
Really? How many machines would that have to be to account for the exit poll discrepancy? And what would the UNDERVOTE RATE have to be on those machines to account for the exit poll discrepancy? And statewide, or in NYC?
-------

That is a straw man argument. Remember the ZERO votes cast for Obama in 80 districts? Were there also ZERO votes for Kerry in an unknown number of districts that we never heard about? How can anyone quantify it? It’s an unknown quantity. Can you?

3
It seems you may have admitted above that votes can't be switched on the lever machines, so that leaves undervotes and overvotes. Maybe all the Dems tried to vote for Bush AND Kerry and the overvote interlocks on the lever machines didn't work! Maybe the lever machines had Butterfly Ballots! Maybe there were prepunched CHADS! Or maybe the lever machines were connected to the Internets and there was a Man-in-the-Middle Attack!
-------

Instead of hyperbole, why don’t you address the NY 2004 FACTS instead? Like the 500,000 late votes; the 300,000 net uncounted votes; the 300,000 returning Nader/other voters breaking 3-1 for Kerry; the near 1,000,000 first-time NY voters breaking to Kerry by more than his National 57-60% share; the fact that Gore won the recorded NY vote by 60-35% (not including the 180k net uncounted votes which could only have raised his 25% margin).


4
As to the raw data, it showed that Bush didn't do better than he did in 2000 in the precincts with the largest WPEs, remember? So how can the exit polls be used to infer fraud? You don't believe that because you don't think they're using the real data. But even if they released it as you would like, in violation of confidentiality, you wouldn't believe that's the real data either, unless it agreed with your theory. After all, anyone can make up data!
-------

Is this your version of the swing vs. red-shift canard? Be specific. Show us the raw NY precinct data you are using. You are wrong about NY. The statewide WPE was 11% Bush did better in 2004 (40.2%) than he did in 2000 (35%).

Are you calculating swing using the recorded vote in 2000 and 2004? Try using total votes cast. There were 5.4 million net uncounted votes nationwide in 2000 (180,000 in New York). There were 3.4 million net uncounted in 2004 (300,000 in NY).

5
As long as the data don't confirm YOUR theory, you will say it's not the real data. That's why this is all a waste of time. It doesn't matter if they release the data or not. You just have a need to perpetuate your theory. What is unknown is why -- and who you are working for.
-------

What data are you referring to? Do you consider the recorded vote to be the “real” data? In other words do you believe that the recorded vote is in fact the True vote?

Is considering the 10% late vote discrepancy to the Election Day share a waste of time?
Is considering the 0.61 correlation between Bush vote share gain from 2000 to 2004 and county population a waste of time?
Is considering the 0.56 correlation between voting machine incident rate and Bush vote share gain a waste of time?
Is considering that 19 levers were stuck on Bush and none on Kerry a waste of time?
Is considering the massive 11% NY exit poll discrepancy a waste of time?
Is considering the 10.6% Lever machine WPE a waste of time?
Is considering the 300,000 net uncounted NY 2004 votes a waste of time?
Is considering that Bush needed to pad his popular vote a waste of time?
Is confirming that the Urban Legend is a myth a waste of time?
Is confirming that Levers are anything but transparent a waste of time?
Is confirming that NY vote counts are questionable by citing Obama’s zero votes in 80 (mostly minority) districts a waste of time?
Is considering that the preponderance (actually ALL) of the evidence accumulated over the past 4.5 years indicates that Bush stole the 2004 election a waste of time?
Is considering that Rove could not allow a repeat of the 2000 fiasco in which Bush lost the popular vote a waste of time?

6
After you answer the question about how many levers would have to have been hacked to account for the NY discrepancy, maybe you can explain why the CONFIRMED vote switching observed in Cuyahoga County, OH (done with punch cards), the alleged Internet man-in-the-middle attacks, and the paperless touchscreen DREs in some OH counties, didn't lead to an even LARGER exit poll discrepancy than NY's, where such vote switching and attacks were impossible and the touchscreens were nonexistent. But I doubt you will explain any of this because you CAN'T.
-------

How many would it take to miscount the votes in NY? As previously mentioned, without a verified vote count, you have nothing. At least in Ohio, Richard Hayes Phillips was able to count the ballots – and proved fraud. How would he do it in NY? There are no ballots to verify. But let’s consider a possible scenario using a historical time line of 500,000 late and 300,000 NET uncounted votes (500,000 uncounted, 200,000 stuffed).

This is just a scenario. Obviously, as you keep pointing out, Levers can’t switch votes
But faulty machines placed in Democratic Urban areas caused spoiled votes. There were surely uncounted provisional ballots. Absentee ballots as well. I don’t know how many; neither do you. I DO know that of 500,000 late votes, 66% were for Kerry

And let’s not forget the 2008 NY primary:
We know that 80 precincts recorded ZERO votes for Obama in Harlem. We DON’T know what happened to Kerry’s votes in minority precincts. That’s because no one had the incentive to do a recount. So ask yourself: Did corrupt officials neglect to count the votes in Democratic precincts?

You can’t prove it either way, can you?


PAPER BALLOTS LEVER VOTES Total Recorded
Late Dem Share Initial Dem Share Votes Share
2000 0.552 0.36 67.8% 6.27 3.75 59.8% 6.82 60.2%
2004 0.499 0.33 66.0 6.89 3.99 57.9 7.39 58.5
2008 0.584 0.41 70.7 7.16 4.36 62.0 7.72 62.8

Total 1.64 1.1 67.2% 20.3 12.1 59.5% 22.0 60.1%

2004 Scenario:
NY Timeline Votes Kerry Share
Initial Lever vote 6.9m 4.0m 57.9%
Late Paper vote 0.5 0.33 58.5%
Uncounted 0.5 0.4 60.9%
Stuffed for Bush (0.2) -

Total Cast 7.70 4.73 61.4%

The great unknown is how many votes were stuffed for Bush?
There were 300,000 net uncounted votes.

The equation is Net Uncounted = Uncounted - stuffed
It could be: 300,000 = 300,000 – 0 (unlikely)

In the above scenario: 300,000 = 500,000 – 200,000

In this scenario: 500,000 = 700,000 uncounted – 400,000 stuffed
We assume Kerry had 550,000 uncounted and Bush 150,000.
And 300,000 were stuffed for Bush; 100,000 for Kerry.

The Net Kerry Gain = 500,000 = 300,000 uncounted + 200,000 stuffed
Kerry would have 62.1%. Do the math.

Note that the discrepancy is due to a combination of uncounted votes (spoiled, absentee, provisional) and corrupt transcribing (stuffing) of phantom Bush votes.

So the question is not: how many machines need to be rigged?
The faulty ones are already in place for the next election.

The question is not: how can you switch the votes on levers (no electronic bytes).
You can’t in the computer sense… but you can preset them to be “stuck on Bush” and generally have “bad” machines breakdown in strategic locations.

And we must not forget the unknown number of impatient, would-be Kerry voters who went home disgusted without voting. Their votes never got counted, either.

Do you have any idea how many left without voting? How would anyone know?

Ay, there’s the rub.

[OnTheOtherHand]

25. I guess I'll stick to one or two odd claims per post

Oregon is the only state that is 100% paper. It is also the only state among the battleground and strongly Democratic states in which the unadjusted exit poll margin of error was not exceeded in 2004.

The only state that is 100% paper? Can you substantiate that?

The only state among the battleground and strongly Democratic states in which the MoE wasn't exceeded in 2004? Can you substantiate that?

It's great if you "speak for no one," but it would be even better if you took responsibility for what you say.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

41. Oooooo!

snap!

[OnTheOtherHand]

42. the scary thing is, he still hasn't figured it out

Yesterday he challenged Bill Bored to name another 100% paper state. God forbid he should look it up himself.

[Wilms]

26. Who said levers were "fraud proof"? Other than you claiming someone did, that is?

Sure would be tough to flip any but the extremely closest races...and leave evidence of that.

You speak of recounts like you've no idea about re-canvass. Do you?

And what do you infer is an "indirect" means of hacking a lever? Voodoo?


While it seems you don't know much about lever machines, you are well acquainted with your opinion.

[WillE]

27. The HNYVA of 1892

1
Who said levers were "fraud proof"? Other than you claiming someone did, that is?
-----
Is that the best you can do? Claim that I am making stuff up?


First of all, you should read what I wrote.Note the word "essentially".


“The recurring theme is that Levers are *** essentially fraud-proof *** and therefore should never be replaced by another voting system, including hand-counted paper ballots. The emotional attachment to levers is understandable; after all, they have been around for 100 years”.


Lever proponents constantly claim that the machines can't be hacked.
That is equivalent to saying that they are essentially fraud-proof.
In fact, that's the rationale for your intense attachment to the levers.



You keep repeating the mantra:

They can't be hacked; they're byte-free; they're mechanical devices;
votes can't be switched like they can be on DRE's.
And the biggest canard of all: they are more reliable than HCPB.


Did you ever consider the possibility that back around 1900, a few corrupt NY politicians got together to come up with a better system than hand-counted paper ballots to steal the votes. So they created their own little HNYVA - the Help New York Vote Act.


They decided to install levers which left no paper trail. Sound familiar?
It's only because we now have personal computers, the Internet, Google, spreadsheets, recorded and exit poll data, and dedicated election activists and analysts, that we would have a clue to the fraud.


None are so blind as those who will not crunch.


2
Sure would be tough to flip any but the extremely closest races...and leave evidence of that.
----
So we are making progress; you agree there could be some fraud, but are self-assured that it would be minimal. Please define Lever fraud. Is it
Machines malfunctioning at the precinct
Presetting the levers so they are “stuck on Bush”
Placing the worst machines in Democratic (i.e. minority precincts)
Humans mistabulating the Lever counts

3
You speak of recounts like you've no idea about re-canvass. Do you?
----

Why was there a need to re-canvass the 80 districts in which Obama had zero votes in the NY primary if the Levers are “essentially” foolproof and cannot be hacked. Wouldn’t you like to know why there were zero votes?

Oh, and just how do they do the re-canvassing?
Please explain.
Is it a standard operating procedure to re-canvass?
Did they re-canvass the Obama presidential vote?

Maybe if they did they would find that he did much better than the official vote?
But why bother?
Did they re-canvass the Kerry vote in 2004?
And if not, why not?

Was it the Lever machine (which has no brains) or the counters (who do)?

What you fail to realize in your crusade is that this is not just about byte-less lever machine “failure”. It’s about humans who fail to correctly tabulate the votes.
It’s about the lack of transparency.

4
And what do you infer is an "indirect" means of hacking a lever? Voodoo?
---
Directly would be to shave the gears or pre-set the levers.
Indirectly would be to miscount or not count the votes.

5
While it seems you don't know much about lever machines, you are well acquainted with your opinion.
----
No, but I am well acquainted with the difference between the scientific method and faith-based opinions.

Do you know the difference?

[Wilms]

35. HCPB zombies don't seem to realize HCPB is not on the menu.

You don't like that? Then do something about it.

Meanwhile, your advocacy against levers is, by default, advocacy FOR OPTICAL SCAN, and it is putting NY votes at risk. Worse, it's largely due to a tragic combination of ignorance and vanity.

Look up NY recanvass law so that you don't continue to come off like an ass. And look up Pfaffenberger for some history on "HNYVA". Then we can have a discussion.

I ain't your tutor.

[Bill Bored]

38. No paper trail? How about NO RECOUNTS?

Do you realize that the reason levers leave no paper trail is because NY did NOT allow recounts? Recounts were always considered to be more fraud-prone than first counts, and for good reason.

Only ballots that could not be counted on election night were counted after election night in New York.

The reason for the "paper trail" is the need for software independence -- not some need to recount what has already been CORRECTLY counted on election night.

There are valid reasons for recanvassing, most of which have to do with precinct aggregation errors, tally transcription errors, etc. But recounts? What for, if the count was already proven to be correct on election night? New York Election Law required such proof -- until now.

Lever machines satisfied this law, through their properties of repeatable testing, transparency and observability. It's not just about the hacking. It's about being able to SEE how the votes are counted.

The problem is, we can no longer prove election-night counts because election-night counts are computerized. This is a lower standard, which NY should never accept.

With software, there is now no way to prove the first count is correct without recounting by hand. This is the false logic of the paper ballot advocates in New York: They think that paper ballots are needed because they think recounts are needed. But the only reason recounts are needed is because the ballots may not have been counted right the first time -- due to computer problems.

NY does allow post-election-night counting of any ballots NOT counted on election night. Anything less would disenfranchise certain voters. But these are NOT recounts. Nor was the count of the ballots that weren't counted on election night in Minnesota.

NY Election Law has never allowed recounting of all the ballots counted on election night until now due to the use of computers -- because computer counts can't be trusted.

That said, NY, like other paper ballot states, will not count nearly enough paper ballots by hand to confirm the winners of all elections -- not to mention chain of custody concerns. NY has therefore failed to provide election integrity with paper ballots. Until they do, they are much better off with lever machines.

If New York Election Law does not allow recounts, having paper ballots buys us nothing, while counting them with computers opens up new attack vectors that didn't exist with lever machines. The whole thing STINKS! It's a fraud and sham and those who are still advocating it are either stupid or complicit in it. That may include you and other exit-poll true believers who don't get the fact that HCPB is off the table and compared to everything else, lever machines are the gold standard.

[WillE]

40. Levers are the “gold standard” with an 11% WPE?

1
Do you realize that the reason levers leave no paper trail is because NY did NOT allow recounts? Recounts were always considered to be more fraud-prone than first counts, and for good reason.
---
Is that so, like in Florida 2000? So you are opposed to recounts. Al Franken would disagree.

2
Only ballots that could not be counted on election night were counted after election night in New York.
---
Of course, and 66% were for Kerry.


3
The reason for the "paper trail" is the need for software independence -- not some need to recount what has already been CORRECTLY counted on election night.
---
No the need is for paper ballots to verify that the ALL votes were correctly counted


4
There are valid reasons for recanvassing, most of which have to do with precinct aggregation errors, tally transcription errors, etc. But recounts? What for, if the count was already proven to be correct on election night? New York Election Law required such proof -- until now.
----
You have just partially hit the nail on the head: “precinct aggregation errors, tally transcription errors” Are you missing a few others?

5
Lever machines satisfied this law, through their properties of repeatable testing, transparency and observability. It's not just about the hacking. It's about being able to SEE how the votes are counted.
---
Transparency? Observability?. By whom? Who sees how the votes are counted? A discouraged voter leaving the precinct because of malfunctioning levers never gets to see their vote registered, much less counted. And if they did vote, how will they know it will be counted correctly by either the levers or by humans behind closed doors?


6
The problem is, we can no longer prove election-night counts because election-night counts are computerized. This is a lower standard, which NY should never accept.
----

That’s why the results should be posted on the wall at the precinct and on the Inernet in full public view.

7
With software, there is now no way to prove the first count is correct without recounting by hand. This is the false logic of the paper ballot advocates in New York: They think that paper ballots are needed because they think recounts are needed. But the only reason recounts are needed is because the ballots may not have been counted right the first time -- due to computer problems.
----

Even if the Levers worked perfectly (which we know they don’t), how could you KNOW that the results were RECORDED correctly afterwards behind closed DOORS? That is the essential point that you keep missing. Paper ballots are needed to verify the votes. Apparently you don’t feel it is necessary to verify the votes. What do you have against verification?

8
NY does allow post-election-night counting of any ballots NOT counted on election night. Anything less would disenfranchise certain voters. But these are NOT recounts. Nor was the count of the ballots that weren't counted on election night in Minnesota.
-----
But they did count 500,000 late paper ballots, didn’t they? And there were 300,000 net uncounted votes, right? Net = Uncounted – stuffed. Could there have been 700,000 and 400,000 stuffed> How would you know if you don’t VERIFY?.

9
NY Election Law has never allowed recounting of all the ballots counted on election night until now due to the use of computers -- because computer counts can't be trusted.
----

But human counters behind closed doors can be trusted?

10
That said, NY, like other paper ballot states, will not count nearly enough paper ballots by hand to confirm the winners of all elections -- not to mention chain of custody concerns. NY has therefore failed to provide election integrity with paper ballots. Until they do, they are much better off with lever machines.
-----
Why not? A robust random audit sample is all that is necessary. Something like an exit poll in full view.

11
If New York Election Law does not allow recounts, having paper ballots buys us nothing, while counting them with computers opens up new attack vectors that didn't exist with lever machines. The whole thing STINKS! It's a fraud and sham and those who are still advocating it are either stupid or complicit in it. That may include you and other exit-poll true believers who don't get the fact that HCPB is off the table and compared to everything else, lever machines are the gold standard.
---

No, count them by audit - by hand in full view. Is that too much to ask?
You call advocates of TRUE transparency Stupid or complicit? You should not cast aspersions on dedicated activists. Do you have a personal stake in this? Who do you represent?

If Lever machines are the gold standard than they are a fool’s gold.

SETTING THE RECORD STARIGHT ON THE PRE-ELECTION AND EXIT POLLS

Despite what OTOH says, undecided voters broke heavily for Kerry. In fact, Gallup allocated 90% of the undecided vote to him.

The final national pre-election polls (adjusted for the allocation of undecided voters) projected a 51-48% Kerry win.

The 12:22am National Exit Poll (13047 respondents) indicated that Kerry won by 51-48%. The unadjusted state exit poll aggregate (114,000 polled) indicated that he won by 52-47%.

The national pre-election and exit polls matched up very well, thank you.


Now let’s consider the New York pre-election polls.

On Oct. 24, Kerry led by 57-36 (61-38 after allocating undecided voters). The trend was in favor of Kerry after rebounding from his drop in Sept. after the GOP convention.

He led the final pre-election poll by 57-39 (59-40 after undecided voters were allocated). But the trend was in Kerry’s favor, so why should we believe the final poll? Especially when you consider these questions:

1) Were they Registered or Likely Voter polls? If they were LVs, which they likely were, then they both underestimated Kerry’s projected NY vote share. Why? Because there were almost one million new voters! Only an RV poll would include the all newly registered voters.

Despite what OTOH says, RV polls are superior indicators of the True Vote in elections in which there is a heavy voter turnout. In 2004, there were approximately 22 million new voters. About 1 million were in NY! That is VERY heavy turnout.

Don’t forget that in 2000, Gore won the official NY vote by 60-35%. But there were 300,000 net uncounted votes (uncounted less stuffed). Had all votes CAST been counted, Gore would have had more than his 25% recorded margin.

We know that Kerry had 57-62% of new voters nationally. His recorded 58.4% NY vote share was almost exactly 10% better than his recorded 48.3% national share. Therefore, we must assume that he had approximately 67-72% of new NY voters.

And don’t forget that he won 66% of the final 500,000 paper ballot votes.
And that he had a consistent 64-65% in the exit polls up until the ABRUPT final adjustment that FORCED a match to his recorded 58% share.

Is all this beginning to make sense to you? Do you appreciate seeing what some might call a meta-analysis? It’s really quite simple. Just plain old arithmetic combined with some common sense.

You must start to think out of the box that the OTOH disinformation campaign has put you and others in.

[Bill Bored]

44. WPE is no standard at all.

Show me where Bush did better in the precincts with the highest WPE than he did in 2000. If you can't, then I don't think this WPE stuff is particularly telling.

What was the WPE in Cuyahoga County, Ohio in 2004 again, where they had all that ACTUAL, CONFIRMED, HONEST-TO-GAWD, IMPOSSIBLE-ON-LEVER-MACHINES, VOTE SWITCHING?

The truth is, if there were vote-count fraud, the exit polls are too crude to show it. That's too bad because a lot of folks burned a lot of hours on this crap, including me for a while -- and even now arguing with you! I'm still a little upset about the wild goose chase, but most bona fide election integrity efforts have not yielded much better results anyway. A few more states with paper ballots counted only by computers is all anyone has to show for that.

Still, I'd suggest you learn more about how voting systems and election laws actually work. That might require getting off your butt, or at least browsing some other websites besides TIA's Geocities pages, but you'll get there if you try.

[Bill Bored]

37. Too time-consuming to respond to all this but...

Dude, I already told you there aren't going to be HCPBs in NY. Not even just for Federal elections; not even for a statistical audit! We've been there and NOT done that. The choice is: levers or computers.

The rub is, you don't seem to know the first thing about lever machines, NY's Election Law, or procedures. ALL the lever counters have to be checked to be sure they are zeroed out before every election. There can be NO stuffing of votes for Bush or anyone else. You can't do this reliably with computers though. Harri Hursti proved that with his optical scan hack in Florida. The software-based counters are meaningless! The mechanical counters are not.

And besides, as the EIRS indicates, no Democrat is going to vote on a machine that's "stuck on Bush" without wanting to vote for Bush. They would wait for a paper ballot. And if they leave before they get one, it would NOT show up in an exit poll!

You still haven't come up with the number of machines it would take to account for the exit poll discrepancy. And you now admit they don't allow vote switching. So I guess that's progress.

But you should know that Richard Hayes Philips is a lever supporter. He thinks the levers matched the exit polls. He's wrong about that, but he's correct about everything else. Maybe you should actually read what he says about lever voting machines. See:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/In-Defense-of-Levers-by-Richard-Hayes-Phil-080727-985.html

Oregon's voting system is one of the least verifiable ones because it's 100% vote-by-bail, which means there can be no real ballot accounting, and it's also 100% central count, which means there can be no meaningful observation either. And of course the counts are all software counts as well, so none of them can be trusted. And BTW, it's not the only state that's 100% paper ballots either. Not sure where you get that from, but you ought to check your sources. They are obviously not informed.

With so many strikes against Oregon's voting system, all you can say is they had an "exit poll" that matched their vote counts, and because of that, we should try to emulate them? That's way off the deep end. You need to start thinking about the voting systems -- not just the damn polls!

If you're going to make an argument that an "exit poll" conducted in a vote-by-mail state is accurate, because exit polls in general are accurate, it's completely specious because with vote-by-mail, it's NOT even an EXIT POLL! It's a telephone survey.

None of the arguments about how exit polls are so accurate, because they ask people randomly leaving the polling places how they just voted, apply to Oregon. There ARE no POLLING PLACES in Oregon!

And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think all the telephone polls were closer to the vote counts than the exit polls, weren't they? (You already said absentees were closer in NY, right?) So what does that say about exit polls? Uh, maybe that not everyone wants to take them? Maybe that those who did weren't selected at random after all. Maybe that they are LESS accurate than telephone polls.

According to you, the whole country should vote by mail so you can have a more accurate poll! I don't think so, because absentee voting is extremely fraud-prone.

What I hear from you is that no matter how f'ed up a voting system has the potential to become, all that matters to you is how it performed vis a vis some poll. That's not how we go about designing a secure voting system. Not in the least. In fact, it's a MAJOR distraction, which is something that Rove would be interested in as well, don't you think?

A culture of fraud never developed with the lever machines, because it would be too difficult to pull off large scale fraud with even the simplest of checks and balances. That's the bottom line. You might find a few problems here and there in places like FLORIDA (surprise, surprise!), but in a State like NY that had the Tammany Hall experience, they've known how to prevent that kind of mischief since the 1890s.

Only computers can send us back to the 19th century now, because our election officials and lawmakers haven't a clue how to deal with the kind of fraud that they enable. Those of us who live and vote here, and have been watching the story unfold for the last 6 years or more, know this only too well.

Exit poll true believers are no friends of election integrity in New York at this time. Frankly, it raises questions about there motives overall, and who they might be working for, because NY is the only state not to computerize its voting system and subject its voters to all the inherent risks of doing so -- which can NOT be mitigated with exit polls. Most New Yorkers want to keep it that way, despite what the officials are saying and doing.

Oh, and the 80 machines with zero Obama votes? There were actually a lot fewer than that:

A subsequent investigation by the city's elections board found that Mr. Obama received no votes cast in voting machines in 27 election districts, many of which saw few votes cast on February 5.

A spokeswoman for the board, Valerie Vazquez-Rivera, said an investigation found that inspectors in 35 election districts were responsible for the error showing Mr. Obama winning no votes, and that members of the police department, who help tally the votes on election night, were responsible for the error in 20 election districts.
http://www.nysun.com/new-york/official-tallies-released-for-clinton-obama/71941/

So why perpetuate the myth that there were 80?

[WillE]

39. There can be no stuffing of votes?

1
Dude, I already told you there aren't going to be HCPBs in NY. Not even just for Federal elections; not even for a statistical audit! We've been there and NOT done that. The choice is: levers or computers.
----
Not so quick. Read this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=505612&mesg_id=505612

2
The rub is, you don't seem to know the first thing about lever machines, NY's Election Law, or procedures. ALL the lever counters have to be checked to be sure they are zeroed out before every election. There can be NO stuffing of votes for Bush or anyone else. You can't do this reliably with computers though. Harri Hursti proved that with his optical scan hack in Florida. The software-based counters are meaningless! The mechanical counters are not.
----

But can they be stuffed after the vote by humans?

3
And besides, as the EIRS indicates, no Democrat is going to vote on a machine that's "stuck on Bush" without wanting to vote for Bush. They would wait for a paper ballot. And if they leave before they get one, it would NOT show up in an exit poll!
----

No they wouldn’t show up in the exit poll. But stuffed and uncounted votes would show up in the count.

And what if they were told they couldn’t get one a paper ballot?
Like these voters:

28456 141 Machon Street JHS 258
Only one machine in polling place and its STUCK ON REPUBLICAN, they're giving out envelope that says "affidavit oath", no list of candidates

30394 PS 258 JHS - 141 Macon Street
Machines STUCK SO ONLY REPUBLICANS COULD BE VOTED FOR, told people to go back rather than hand out emergency ballot

33516 New York PS 199 270 west 70th street 2004-11-02 07:57:10 PSTLEVERS WERE BROKEN FOR CERTAIN PARTY LINE, they did not give him emergency ballot because they didn't know which one to give the voter. The voter cast vote for all other candidates. (only specific section of party line was broken).

28481 Bronx PS 50 173rd and Bryant Avenue 6:40 2004-11-02 04:02:36 PST
Tyrek said that other voters in line told him that the MACHINES WERE STUCK ON "REPUBLICAN". The line was not moving at all and he did not see whether paper ballots were being passed out to voters. He had to go to work so he left the polling place.


4
You still haven't come up with the number of machines it would take to account for the exit poll discrepancy. And you now admit they don't allow vote switching. So I guess that's progress.
----
You didn’t read my last post. And you still haven’t come up with the number of votes CAST in each county.


5
But you should know that Richard Hayes Philips is a lever supporter. He thinks the levers matched the exit polls. He's wrong about that, but he's correct about everything else. Maybe you should actually read what he says about lever voting machines. See:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/In-Defense-of-Levers-b...
----
But when he wrote the article he did NOT know that the exit poll timeline from unadjusted to Best GEO to Composite ALL had Kerry at 64-65%

6
Oregon's voting system is one of the least verifiable ones because it's 100% vote-by-bail, which means there can be no real ballot accounting, and it's also 100% central count, which means there can be no meaningful observation either. And of course the counts are all software counts as well, so none of them can be trusted. And BTW, it's not the only state that's 100% paper ballots either. Not sure where you get that from, but you ought to check your sources. They are obviously not informed.
----
Name another 100% paper ballot state in 2004 or in 2008.
What do you mean by “meaningful observation”.
Oregonians are quite proud of their system.
At least they make an ATTEPT at transparency.
NY won’t even try.

7
With so many strikes against Oregon's voting system, all you can say is they had an "exit poll" that matched their vote counts, and because of that, we should try to emulate them? That's way off the deep end. You need to start thinking about the voting systems -- not just the damn polls!
----

Strawman. The fact that Edison-Mitofsky did an Election Day phone poll that was within 1.8% of the recorded margin indicates that the vote count was most-likely correct.
The fact that the NY (11% wpe) and CT (15% wpe) exit polls had the highest discrepancies (and they were the ONLY 100% lever states) indicates that something is rotten.

8
If you're going to make an argument that an "exit poll" conducted in a vote-by-mail state is accurate, because exit polls in general are accurate, it's completely specious because with vote-by-mail, it's NOT even an EXIT POLL! It's a telephone survey.
----
Strawman. The “telephone survey” was taken on the DAY of the vote by professional posters with over 30 years experience. People reported HOW they just voted, not how who they were LIKELY to vote for. Big difference. Think out of the box, Bill, you’re a smart guy.

9
None of the arguments about how exit polls are so accurate, because they ask people randomly leaving the polling places how they just voted, apply to Oregon. There ARE no POLLING PLACES in Oregon!
-----
See #8

10
And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, I think all the telephone polls were closer to the vote counts than the exit polls, weren't they? (You already said absentees were closer in NY, right?) So what does that say about exit polls? Uh, maybe that not everyone wants to take them? Maybe that those who did weren't selected at random after all. Maybe that they are LESS accurate than telephone polls.
----
You ARE mistaken. The final pre-election 2004 polls (adjusted for the allocation of undecided voters) projected a 51-48% Kerry win. The !2:22am National Exit Poll (13047 respondents) indicated that he won by 51-48%. The unadjusted state exit poll aggregate (114,000 polled) indicated that he won by 52-47%. They matched up very well, thank you.

11
According to you, the whole country should vote by mail so you can have a more accurate poll! I don't think so, because absentee voting is extremely fraud-prone.
----
That, my friend, is unintelligible hogwash

12
What I hear from you is that no matter how f'ed up a voting system has the potential to become, all that matters to you is how it performed vis a vis some poll. That's not how we go about designing a secure voting system. Not in the least. In fact, it's a MAJOR distraction, which is something that Rove would be interested in as well, don't you think?
----
Without the polls, we would not have even questioned the Bush theft in 2004. The exit polls are our first line of defense. But even more important, the Final 2004 National Exit Poll actually PROVES that the election was stolem. You must have read this many times but apparently it has never sunk in. The Final is always FORCED TO MATCH the recorded vote - both the Final National and NY exit polls.

In order to match the vote, there had to be 5-6 million phantom Bush voters. The Final National Poll indicated that 52.6 million returning Bush 2000 voters in 2004. But he only had 50.5 million recorded votes. Approximately 2.5 million died. There were, therefore, only 48 million who COULD have returned. Only 46-47 million did. Therefore (please do the simp-le match: there were 6 million PHANTOM Bush voters.

THAT’S WHY, IN LIEU OF TRANSPARENCY, THE EXIT POLLS ARE PURE GOLD. WHEN WILL YOU EVER GET. You have been brainwashed by Mr. Other for way too long.

13
A culture of fraud never developed with the lever machines, because it would be too difficult to pull off large scale fraud with even the simplest of checks and balances. That's the bottom line. You might find a few problems here and there in places like FLORIDA (surprise, surprise!), but in a State like NY that had the Tammany Hall experience, they've known how to prevent that kind of mischief since the 1890s.
-----
Are you saying that Tammany Hall was defanged in the 1890s?

14
Only computers can send us back to the 19th century now, because our election officials and lawmakers haven't a clue how to deal with the kind of fraud that they enable. Those of us who live and vote here, and have been watching the story unfold for the last 6 years or more, know this only too well.
-----
You really are being irrational. What most fair observers have seen unfold since 2000 is endemic election fraud. To think that NY is immune is not to think.

15
Exit poll true believers are no friends of election integrity in New York at this time. Frankly, it raises questions about there motives overall, and who they might be working for, because NY is the only state not to computerize its voting system and subject its voters to all the inherent risks of doing so -- which can NOT be mitigated with exit polls. Most New Yorkers want to keep it that way, despite what the officials are saying and doing.
-----
Questioning the motives of TRUE analysts, like TIA, who has PROVEN fraud using the Final National Exit Poll as shown above, is to diminish those who want TRUE transparency, demeans your case in and of itself. You are the one appears to have an agenda. You avoid the facts that undermine your case. You are being quite dishonest. You have all the markings of one who has a closed mind.

16
Oh, and the 80 machines with zero Obama votes? There were actually a lot fewer than that.
---

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/nyregion/16vote.html?ref=nyregion


“ In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

“City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city”

Hey Bill, was a formal review of the results ever done in 2004? Or in 2006? How do we know that ALL of Kerry’s votes were properly recorded? Was this just an Obama anomaly – in Harlem no less?

“For official results, election officials go back to the voting machines, and "a Republican and Democrat go to each machine and write official results" on a piece of paper, which is then "used to enter data into a computer system by hand, along with a hand count of paper ballots."

Election officials enter the results into a COMPUTER system by hand?
OK, but what if they didn't do a check in the 2008 presidential election, or in 2004 or in 2006?

[Bill Bored]

43. You think Open Source means Hand Counted or what?

You refute the point that NYers have tried and failed to get HCPBs, with some post about more software?:wtf: I would think you'd at least come up with the Schultz' case, but you are obviously not well-informed about any such efforts. (And if you're a computer, you've flunked the Turing Test too!)

"Three (3) volunteers input and verify the paper ballots." Say what? Do you know how long it would take to do this with every contest on the ballot? If it were that easy we wouldn't need ballot scanners. But I fully agree that the precinct tallies, however they are produced, should be posted on the Internet and rechecked later.

Now, what to do about those absentees, like in the whole state of Oregon! Oh, I forgot, they matched the 2004 telephone polls, which you call "exit polls", so no problem there!;)

Now, the reason there can't be stuffing of votes in New York is because the lever tallies are checked IMMEDIATELY after the polls close, before the machines are moved, when there is absolutely NO opportunity for tampering. There are too many observers present when this happens; it's too soon after the polls close; no election inspectors may leave until the canvass is completed; they must be bi-partisan; and observers are allowed from every party on the ballot. Here's a picture of what it looks like:

Nowadays they dress a bit more casually.

The NYT did NOT review anything. They simply copied some election-night tallies before they were checked and corrected by the recanvass, which would have happened anyway -- with or without their sloppy reportage. That's in the Election Law and there are many thousands of observers in the state who see to it that it happens. Many of them worked for Obama and Kerry.

Officials confirmed the discrepancies and corrected them. That's how it works. A formal review is done after every election. As I said, you seem to know nothing about NY Election Law, lever procedures, etc., or else you would be aware of these things.

Maybe you should get out of your exit-poll arm chair, take a trip to a warehouse, see how the lever machines are set up, and learn about such things before going off half-cocked about some polls that were never designed to find the kind of stuff you're looking for in the first place.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't care too much about polls. I think they're mostly a waste of time when there are ways to check actual vote counts or the operation of voting systems. But I do seem to remember reading that POST-ELECTION telephone polls were closer to the vote counts than the exit polls were. Oregon is the poster child for this, but you will find lower WPEs in ALL the absentee precincts on average I think. So don't go telling me about pre-election telephone polls!

Enough time spent on this subject for today. Bye bye!:hi:

[WillE]

46. : Let’s summarize an analysis of the facts. Warning: slow load.

Before getting to your points, this is a good time to review some of the facts in this thread for new viewers:

Kerry led the pre-election polls by 51-48%
All pollsters assumed that as the challenger, he would win the majority of the undecided vote.
Gallup allocated 90% of the late undecided vote to Kerry
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag

Kerry won the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate (114,000 respondents) by 52-47%
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag

Gore won the NY recorded vote by 60-35-5%.
Approximately 75% of returning Nader voters broke for Kerry.
All things being equal, Kerry should have won by 63-36%.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

According to Edison-Mitofsky lever machines had the highest WPE (11%) of any machine type.
Kerry had 58% of the Election Day lever vote.
Paper ballots had the lowest (2%) WPE.
Kerry had 66% of the late PAPER BALLOT vote.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag

Kerry won 57-62% of new voters nationwide, depending on the national exit poll timeline.
There were 22-24 million new voters.
There were 1 million new voters in NY.
Kerry probably won 67-72% of new NY voters since he did 10% better in NY than nationally.
That means he had an approximate 400,000 margin in new NY voters over Bush.
Add that to his 50,000 margin in returning Nader voters, he had a 450,000 vote margin going in.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

The 12:22am national exit poll indicated that 10% of returning Bush 2000 voters defected to Kerry .
Only 8% of returning Gore voters defected to Bush.
In the implausible scenario that Kerry won 67% of new voters but just 8% of returning Bush voters (he won 10% nationally) Bush needed to win 15% of returning Gore voters In order to match the NY recorded vote. Assumptions are 1) a 5% voter mortality rate, 2) equal 98% Bush/Gore voter turnout , 3) Kerry and Gore had 75% of the uncounted votes total votes cast.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

State and national exit polls indicated that Kerry had a 3-6% margin improvement over Gore.
So how did his recorded NY margin decline 7%?
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

Kerry won the NY Best GEO exit poll by 65-34%.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

Kerry won the last 500,000 recorded paper ballot votes by 66-33%.
He won Election Day lever machine recorded vote by 58-41%.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

An analysis of changes in NY county vote share from 2000 to 2004 shows a very strong (0.61) correlation between Bush’s percentage gain in county votes and county-size as measured by the recorded vote.
Kerry’s correlation was just 0.07.

This is strong evidence that the New York Urban Legend that Bush won by increasing his share from 2000 in Urban areas a myth.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

The preliminary and Final National Exit Poll showed that Bush’s Urban recorded vote share increased by 9% over 2000 while his rural share declined by 3%.

What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

The EIRS showed 19 NY levers stuck on Bush, none on Kerry.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there was no recanvassing of the 2004 NY presidential vote.
Why would they? No one asked for it to be done.
After all, Kerry won the state by 1.3 million votes.
What does it prove? Nothing. But it’s a VERY red flag.

Bill, is this analysis a “waste” of your time?
Is considering ALL the evidence a waste of time?

OK, now on to your post.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You refute the point that NYers have tried and failed to get HCPBs with some post about more software? I would think you'd at least come up with the Schultz' case, but you are obviously not well-informed about any such efforts.
-----

Why have they failed? Have you EVER campaigned for HCPB with counts posted at the precinct for public view and uploaded to the Internet for online view and data redundancy as well as for the tabulation of county totals by an OPEN SOURCE SYSTEM?

2
Now, the reason there can't be stuffing of votes is because the lever tallies are checked IMMEDIATELY after the polls close, before the machines are moved, when there is absolutely NO opportunity for tampering. There are too many observers present when this happens; it's too soon after the polls close; no election inspectors may leave until the canvass is completed; they must be bi-partisan; and observers are allowed from every party on the ballot.
-----
What if the tampering was done before Election Day? Who are the observers? Who verifies the count? So how did they miss Obama’s votes? Why were there more lever totals ending in 99 than would normally be expected statistically?

The elites want to get rid of paper ballots and replace them with Levers in 1892. Could it be for the same reason that they don’t want paper ballots today – because they are against full transparency, not for it as they claim? Why is it that election activists are fighting for paper ballots but Elites consider them anathema? Is it the cost? Two or three volunteer counters per precinct? Hell, you have volunteer poll workers, why not two counters?

To keep it simple and lower the cost, count the ballots manually for president, senate and congress. Do the rest on optical scanners.

This is an American Heritage:article on levers.
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2007/3/2007_3_6.shtml
Voting machines are another area where New York State lags behind. People from the rest of the country are often incredulous to learn that New Yorkers still use the old-fashioned lever-operated models, which do not differ greatly from the first successful voting machines, introduced in Lockport, New York, in 1892. In return, New Yorkers, after seeing the mischief that has occurred with other types of voting technology, wonder what exactly is supposed to be wrong with the sturdy lever machines. A session at the recent annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology—held in Las Vegas, where everything is up-to-date except the elevator music—addressed the history behind voting machines, lever and otherwise, with some potential lessons for today.
The opening speaker, Roy G. Saltman, author of The History and Politics of Voting Integrity (Palgrave, 2006), discussed how voting machinery developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and pointed out some flaws with lever machines, which were the first successful type. For example, they are fairly easy to tamper with, the upper rows can be too high for short people to reach, and crowded ballots often result in questions and propositions being shunted to a corner and overlooked.
And they have more subtle flaws. On lever machines, casting a vote trips the rotary mechanical counter that keeps a running tally. If the counter is at 099, the next vote will have to turn three separate wheels to advance it to 100, and some voters simply don’t have the strength for that. Saltman said one election official has told him that he sees many more vote totals ending in 99 than would be expected statistically.
Yet the main purported problem with lever machines is that they do not create a “paper trail”—a marked ballot for each individual vote that can be used to check the total. As Bryan Pfaffenberger, of the University of Virginia, explained, similar concerns were responsible for New York City’s delay in adopting voting machines long after their use was required by state law.

Tammany Hall, the city’s Democratic machine, resisted the uniform ballot design, which they felt removed autonomy from local political bosses. They also feared that the voting machines could be rigged. When the machines were finally adopted, in 1926, the shortfall in Democratic votes was much less than had been feared, and Tammany accepted the

3
The NYT did NOT review anything. They simply copied some election-night tallies before they were checked and corrected by the recanvass, which would have happened anyway -- with or without their sloppy reportage. That's in the Election Law and there are many thousands of observers in the state who see to it that it happens. Many of them worked for Obama and Kerry.
----

STATEMENT ON THE PRELIMINARY NATURE OF ELECTION NIGHT TALLIES

The preliminary election “results” reported on election night are just that – preliminary. New York State Election Law requires a complete recanvass of all voting machines and the counting of all valid absentee, affidavit, and military ballots before the election results can be certified. The preliminary election results are produced by a combination of poll workers manually recording the results and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) collecting materials containing these results, compiling them, and entering the information into its computer system for tabulation.

------
But what if the recorded machine results are contaminated (e.g. levers stuck at 99 or zero votes)? Are there any redundant paper ballots to prove it? What if the poll workers incorrectly transcribe the results?
-------

After the polls close on election night, more than 30,000 poll workers transcribe the number of votes for each candidate from the face of the voting machines onto Return of Canvass forms. These poll workers then hand the Return of Canvass sheets to the NYPD Officer assigned to that polling location. The candidates and/or members of their respective campaigns are permitted by law to assign poll watchers to observe and record the preliminary results (see NYS Election Law, Section 9-126).

------
Wouldn’t it be preferable to have the results posted at the precinct with the paper ballots secured in a lockbox?
------

Once collected, the NYPD Officer delivers the Return of Canvass sheets to his or her police precinct to be transcribed into its computer system by civilian employees of the NYPD. The computer records are then transmitted to the Associated Press and a copy of each Return of Canvass form is delivered to its office at 55 Washington Street in Brooklyn. The Associated Press then shares the preliminary results with its colleagues in the news media. These preliminary results, however, do not include thousands of absentee, affidavit, and military ballots (see NYS Election Law, Section 9-102),

-----
But Bill, I thought you were vehemently opposed to the use of any computer system?
----

New York State has one of the most meticulous recanvass procedures in the country. State Election Law requires all Board of Elections to recanvass every voting machine used within 15 days of the election. During this process, bipartisan teams of Board Employees record the results for tabulation. As an extra layer of oversight, representatives of all the campaigns are notified of the recanvass schedule and invited to monitor the official recanvass and ensure its accuracy. The absentee and affidavit ballots are then opened and tabulated after staff review. The campaigns are once again invited to monitor the opening and counting of these paper ballots (see NYS Election Law, Section 9-208).
-----
But what if there is a discrepancy to the initial count? How is it resolved? Representatives are invited but how many actually show up? Kerry won NY by 1.35 million recorded votes. Who was going to question it? They would be laughed at. And Karl Rove would laugh the loudest.
-----

4
Officials confirmed the discrepancies and corrected them. That's how it works. A formal review is done after every election. As I said, you seem to know nothing about NY Election Law, lever procedures, etc., or else you would know these things.
-----

When did they correct them? Was it days or weeks later?
What makes you think that they would have corrected them in 2004 or 2006 – especially if the anomalies were never reported in the media ?Who would have reported it?

5
Maybe you should get out of your exit-poll arm chair, take a trip to a warehouse, see how the lever machines are set up, and learn about such things before going off half-cocked about some polls that were never designed to find the kind of stuff you're looking for in the first place.
-----

The GEO and composite NY exit poll results stand by themselves. But you would prefer that they just go away. Just saying that the exit polls were not designed to detect fraud is laughable. That canard was dismissed right after it was first offered with all the other lame excuses immediately after the election. Completely irrelevant. Like saying kitchen knives are not designed to kill. But they do.

The unwashed state and national exit polls strongly suggested fraud; the final polls proved it when they were FORCED TO MATCH a bogus recorded vote using impossible returning PHANTOM Bush voters and implausible vote shares.

Face it. The exit polls were a STRONG INDICATOR OF FRAUD IN NY – just like they were in every other Blue and battleground state. The 12:40am Composite NY exit poll was adjusted for vote counts AND pre-election polls and STILL had Kerry winning with 64%.

The Final NY Exit Poll that was posted a few hours later was FORCED TO MATCH THE RECORDED VOTE! How did Kerry drop 6% from the Composite to the Final? Easy. They changed the vote shares and weights to MATCH THE VOTE. NOT KOSHER!

I posed these questions up-thread. I know that Mr. Other won’t approve but I must also ask them of you:
1) Do you believe that Bush won the national election fairly (i.e. he won the TRUE Vote)?
2) Or do you believe the election was stolen (Kerry won the TRUE vote)?

If it’s 1) I can understand why you want to keep the levers. Because you believe that he won the election fairly (i.e. there was virtually no fraud).

If it’s 2) that’s equivalent to saying the state and national exit polls were essentially correct, since they had Kerry winning with 51-52% (a 4% margin). But if they were correct, how could Kerry’s NY exit poll share have been 64% and his recorded share just 58.4%?

Gore’s recorded national margin was just 0.5% yet he won NY by 25% (60-35%). How could Kerry have a 4% bigger national margin than Gore and yet at the same time have his NY margin reduced by 7% (to 18%)? It doesn’t make any sense. You would expect that Kerry’s margin would be at least 4% higher tthan Gore’s.

In other words, you would expect that Kerry won NY by his 64-35% EXIT POLL margin! Or maybe by his 66-33% NY paper ballot margin.
Wouldn’t you? Do the math, Bill. Heck , it’s just a combination of 3rd grade arithmetic and common poly-sci sense.

Based on your faith that the NY vote was correct (i.e. the Levers were close to perfect) one would naturally assume that you also believe that Bush won the election fairly. Democrats reading this thread would be VERY disappointed to hear YOU say that. Well, at least it would be a direct answer.

But I’m sure that you agree that Bush stole it, based on all the evidence that has been made available since 2004. Or am I wrong about that?


6
In case you haven't noticed, I don't care too much about polls. I think they're mostly a waste of time when there are ways to check actual vote counts or the operation of voting systems. But I do seem to remember reading that POST-ELECTION telephone polls were closer to the vote counts than the exit polls were. Oregon is the poster child for this, but you will find lower WPEs in ALL the absentee precincts on average I think. So don't go telling me about pre-election telephone polls!
-----

Where did you read that?

Mostly a waste of time? You just don’t get it, do you? Were the exit polls a waste of time in 2004 when they were the FIRST indication that the election was stolen? Would this forum even exist today were it not for the original analysts like Freeman, Baiman, Simon, Palast and TIA?

What data would YOU be using to question the recorded vote results? You don’t believe that the exit polls are indicators of fraud and mock those who do. Since you believe the recorded vote, you must also believe that the Final NY exit poll that was forced to match the recorded vote is correct. And you call yourself an election activist?

Bill, you are not an election activist if you are firm believer in the status quo. You hear no evil, see no evil and fail to consider all of the evidence. Very unscientific. Very much a Luddite.

I’ve noticed that you don’t “care” about polls. Especially since they upset your faith-based “belief” that Kerry won by the recorded 58.5-40.2%, even though Gore won by 60-35% and Nader voters broke 3-1 for Kerry. In other words, although returning Nader ADDED 2% to Kerry’s margin, his adjusted NET recorded margin DECLINED by 7% - even though he won the late 500,000 paper ballots by 66-33%!

Bill, it’s not rocket science. It’s simple math vs. simple faith.

Now, which post-election telephone polls are you referring to? Just to set the record straight, YOU were the one who brought up the PRE-ELECTION POLLS in the first place, claiming that they matched the vote counts. On the contrary, the pre-election aggregate state and national exit polls (adjusted for undecided voter allocation) matched the state and national exit polls – before the FINAL EXIT WAS FORCED TO MATCH THE RECORDED VOTE. Got that yet?

You “think“ that you will find lower WPEs in all the absentee precincts? That is disingenuous, worthy of the Other guy. Thinking is not good enough. Show us the data.

You know that unadjusted precinct exit poll data is NOT FOR PUBLIC VIEWING don’t you? Why don’t you call CNN or the NY Times? They have it.

It’s like those golden orange real estate leads in “Glengarry Glen Ross”. As Alec Baldwin told salesman Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin: “They’re GOLD; but you can’t have them. They’re for closers”

But the precinct data is not available to ANYONE, including those activists who have wanted to prove election fraud. Well, except for Ohio. And both Richard Hayes Phillips and USCV proved THAT election was stolen for the electoral votes. New York was not stolen for the electoral votes; it was rigged to provide Bush with 750,000 of his 3.0 million vote “mandate”.

All we have is 2000/2004 recorded NY county data – and that’s because TIA did the work of creating the database from Election Day recorded data provided on the Leip site. And a statistical correlation of the recorded data proves that the Bush Urban Legend was just a myth after all.

Here’s the graph that proves it. Your mentor Mr. Other called it “crappy, while also claiming that he did not understand it. Talk about getting hoisted on your own petard!
Mr. Other could not refute the strong 0.61 correlation between Bush percentage vote change from 2000 and county vote size – a sure sign of vote padding and suppression. (there was near zero correlation for Kerry). Can you?

I’m sure YOU will understand it, Bill. Then you can educate Mr. Hand so that he can present it in his upcoming Poly-Sci class.



So far the only data I have seen regarding late PAPER absentee/provisionals are the LATE PAPER ballot votes And Kerry had 66% –MATCHING HIS 65% BEST GEO EXIT POLL SHARE. It’s a 2% WPE! You have just made my point!

In all of your Lever postings, have you EVER mentioned that FACT?

[OnTheOtherHand]

47. "slow load"?! (snark redacted)

Just FYI, there's no prize for longest post. Some folks may assume that you're brilliant; almost no one will read it all. Maybe that's your intention. Bill may find a few things worth responding to; here are a few from me.

Kerry led the pre-election polls by 51-48%.

Anyone who looks at the actual poll results knows that, at best, this is a highly controversial claim, not a fact. (pollingreport.com, which hasn't joined TIA's cult, shows Bush leading in 10 out of 14 final trial heats and 5 out of 8 vote projections.) If there actually are any new viewers, they can and should infer that they can't rely on your version of the "facts," however sincerely felt it may be.

In the world the rest of us live in, Kerry outperformed not one but four late pre-election polls in New York. Even if we assume that the likely voter models were biased, it's frankly kind of bizarre to insist that Kerry probably outperformed the official results by double digits here. Hypothetically, you might have compelling evidence that the polls were flat-out wrong, but I sure haven't seen it.

You yourself said that the Urban Legend had to do with Bush outperforming his 2000 baseline in urban areas while "breaking even or losing share in Republican rural areas and small towns." Or, as you said elsewhere, "Bush’s vote share increased sharply from 2000 in the NYC area with no gain in GOP rural, small towns." However, your own data show that Bush in fact did better in almost every non-urban county in 2004 than in 2000. So, the claim is wrong. The correlation simply doesn't substantiate the claim; it moves the goalposts. No one can force you to limit yourself to relevant evidence; I can only call your bluff. (If you want to convince serious people that your correlation is important, you need an argument, not just a buzz phrase tied to an incorrect claim.)

As for the graph, it remains crappy, and I still haven't seen a straightforward definition of the variables (what exactly is it that you claim increased by almost 50% in Jefferson County?) and sourcing of the data. I think fixing these defects would be easier than whining, but I guess it takes all kinds.

Me, I'm not debating the merits of lever machines. You can have that argument with Bill, if he bothers to reply to you.

Kerry won NY by 1.35 million recorded votes. Who was going to question it? They would be laughed at.

Frankly, if your arguments made more sense, then that wouldn't be true. Apparently, you can't win on the merits, so you're reduced to slamming anyone who tries to explain why. It's a shame.

2) Or do you believe the election was stolen (Kerry won the TRUE vote)?... If it’s 2) that’s equivalent to saying the state and national exit polls were essentially correct....

No, it isn't "equivalent" at all. There are many conceivable scenarios in which Kerry won the true vote, yet the exit polls were not essentially correct. Your claim here makes no logical sense, and it exemplifies why I think "exit poll fundamentalism" is the right name.

If you think that the decision to cast an absentee or provisional vote is essentially random, then it makes perfect sense to compare the "LATE PAPER ballot votes" to the exit poll results. Do you? Do you think people cast provisional ballots pretty much at random as the mood strikes them? Really? And you want to school Bill on election integrity? :eyes:

By the way, have you located any of the other states that are paper-only? Or have you been very busy doing anything and everything else? Just wondering.

[OnTheOtherHand]

54. (crickets) n/t

[Bill Bored]

48. Finally, something about Voting Systems!

------
But what if the recorded machine results are contaminated (e.g. levers stuck at 99 or zero votes)? Are there any redundant paper ballots to prove it? What if the poll workers incorrectly transcribe the results?
-------

If the machines were stuck on ANY number, you would see one very obvious problem: too many undervotes. 0.77% is not very many. That's the number from NY in 2004.

The problem with "redundant paper ballots" is that they are seldom counted after they are counted the first time. There were PLENTY of them in FL and OH. G. W. Bush was still declared the winner in 2 elections. Recounts were rigged in Ohio and they were stopped in FL. In NY, the law does not allow recounts, and election officials are now going out of their way to prevent recounts from happening when discrepancies are found in audits that are too small to find discrepancies in the first place! All this because they don't want to count paper after the election. Why? Because after the election the paper is not considered very reliable -- just somewhat more reliable than software.

Paper ballots also allow overvoting, which is one of the ways Gore lost thousands of votes in FL. All the redundancy in the world cannot recover overvotes. But levers prevent overvotes. An ounce of that is worth a pound of cure, esp. if there is no cure. We may very well lose more votes due to overvoting on paper than we do now due to stuck counters.

To answer your question, if the poll workers make a mistake, the campaigns will know about it 2 ways:
1. from their watchers who record the same numbers on election night on paper
2. from the 100% recanvass when the locked machines are double checked.

------
Wouldn’t it be preferable to have the results posted at the precinct with the paper ballots secured in a lockbox?
------

The results ARE posted at the precincts. They are right there on the lever counters which anyone can observe and copy before the machines are moved. If paper ballots are used, those results should be posted on the wall. As far as lockboxes, the levers have them too. Individual keys to the counter compartment of each machine.

-----
But Bill, I thought you were vehemently opposed to the use of any computer system?
----

I'm opposed to them for within-precinct tallies that aren't independently checked. Not necessarily for aggregation of those tallies, if the aggregation is done transparently. I think we agree on this point. But the election-night precinct tallies should not be produced by sofware if it can be avoided. One way of avoiding it with lever machines.

-----
But what if there is a discrepancy to the initial count? How is it resolved? Representatives are invited but how many actually show up? Kerry won NY by 1.35 million recorded votes. Who was going to question it? They would be laughed at. And Karl Rove would laugh the loudest.
-----

It would be questioned one lever machine at a time on 20,000 machines by thousands of representatives.

Representatives do show up. The 2 major parties run the elections, but there are also watchers from the campaigns. The machines can be inspected, tested, and retested. Once again, this boils down to: how many machines would it take to account for the exit poll discrepancy? Do you really think that many discrepancies would not be questioned? The machines would be opened and inspected and retested, but the sheer number of them required to explain your exit poll problem should be enough to rule out machine problems as the cause. So what's that number? You still haven't said it.

[WillE]

49. More red flags! Average NY WPE: Bush 8.0 (1988,1992,2004); Clinton 0.6 (1996, 2000)

You have challenged me to calculate how many machines would be needed to fix the vote but you have not addressed any one of those 13 Red Flags. Your question should be: How many corrupt election officials would it take?

This post will reveal two more very red flags:

a) 1988-2004: smoking guns in the NY exit polls (8.0 average wpe for Bush; 0.6 for Clinton)

b) an impossible 58% Bush share of returning Gore and Bush voters in the largest 15 (highly Democratic) NY counties was required in order to match the recorded vote

It’s time to raise another red flag. It may be the reddest one of all. And yes, it also involves the exit polls that you love to hate – 5 of them in fact. Let’s review the 1988-2004 NY votes cast, recorded and the exit polls for some clues.

Maybe then you will understand why the unadjusted exit polls are indeed smoking guns. And why the final exit polls that are always forced to match the recorded vote are just smoke to hide the fraud.

First the bad news:
The average NY unadjusted exit polls diverged by a whopping 8.0% from the recorded vote (as measured by the WPE) when Bush Sr. or Bush Jr. was the incumbent (1988, 1992, 2004). Check the Edison-Mitofsky 2004 exit poll report.

Now for some good news:
When Clinton was the incumbent (1996, 2000) the average WPE was a minuscule 0.6%. Apparently, he didn’t have to cheat. And the Levers matched the exit polls.Was it just a coincidence that the WPE was so divergent between the Democrats and the Republicans?

Apparently the Lever vote counts were quite accurate – but NOT when a Bush was running for re-election. Now, why would you want to let good machine counts be compromised by bad people?

How many red flags are swinging in the breeze now?

Why would you not want to be confident that the votes were reported as cast? True, the Lever spoilage rate was a low 0.77% in 2004. But human ethical spoilage will always be quite high and election integrity quite low without true transparency.

Transparency can ONLY be achieved by either HCPB or a robust (99% confidence) audit of optically scanned ballots with results posted at the precinct and uploaded to the Internet for FULL data redundancy using OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE.

The weight of all the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Bush was able to achieve his bogus 3.0 million national “mandate” by reducing Kerry’s NY margin by approximately 750,000 votes. .

Karl Rove must have read about Willie Sutton. NY was a lucrative bank to heist a few hundred thousand big ones. Kerry was headed for a 2.0m landslide by improving on Gore’s 1.7 million NY margin (60-35%). There were one million new highly motivated voters as well as 244,000 returning Nader voters, most of whom were ready to defect to Kerry.

But no one would notice it if Kerry’s NY margin was 400,000 less than Gore’s? The media focused on the battleground states. NY was a foregone conclusion. Besides, Bush had his “mandate”.

1988-2008 NY Votes cast

Note: 1996 was the only election in which the Democratic recorded margin exceeded the exit poll (indicated by the positive +2.1 WPE).

1988 1992 1996 2000 2004
WPE -7.2 -4.6 +2.1 -3.3 -12.2

Cast 7174 7613 6830 7001 7618
Recorded 6456 6927 6316 6823 7391
Unct(net) 718 686 514 178 277

Dem Share (%)
ExitPoll 55.2 52.0 58.4 61.4 64.5
Recorded 51.6 49.7 59.5 60.2 58.4
Diff 3.6 2.3 -1.1 1.2 6.1

But there is more. Yes, another very red flag.
- Show quoted text -

An analysis of changes in the recorded vote in the 15 largest NY counties from 2000 to 2004 yields an interesting result that illustrates the implausibility of the Urban Legend.
It is very strong evidence that Bush padded his vote and suppressed Kerry’s.

In 2000, there were 4.74 million recorded votes in the 15 counties.
In 2004, there were 5.27 million.

In 2000 Gore won the 15 counties by 64.2 - 31.3%, a 33% recorded margin.
Nader et al had 4.5%.

In 2004, Kerry won the counties by 61.8 – 36.9%, a 25% recorded margin.
Nader et al had 1.3%.

How did Bush increase his share by 5.6% in the 15 counties from 2000?
He couldn’t unless you believe the implausible Urban Legend.

In order to achieve his 2004 recorded vote in the 15 strongly Democratic counties, Bush needed to win returning Bush and Gore voters by a 58.5-41.5% margin. In other words Bush needed a 17% margin among voters who gave Gore a 33% margin in 2000!

Assumptions:
1) 5% voter mortality of 2000 voters.
2) 98% turnout of LIVING 2000 voters in 2004.

3) Kerry’s recorded NY share was 58%; he had 48% nationally.
Since he had approximately 57-62% of new voters, we can conservatively assume that he had 67% of NEW voters in the 15 largest NY counties.

4) Nationally, Kerry had a 64-17% margin over Bush among returning Nader voters.
We can conservatively assume he had the same margin in the 15 counties.

Based on the above conservative assumptions, Kerry had a 394k margin among 852k new voters and a 94k margin among 200k returning Nader/other voters.

Therefore Kerry had an estimated 488k margin in the 15 counties among new and returning third-party voters.

But Bush gained 461k total recorded votes over his 2000 total; Kerry just 208k
Therefore, Bush gained 253k net votes in the 15 counties.

Since Kerry led by 488k among new and returning third-party voters, Bush needed a 741k net gain (17% margin) among returning Gore and Bush voters who gave Gore a 33% margin in 2000. How could he have achieved this?

Let T= 4377 returning Bush (B) and Gore (G) voters.
B + K = 4377

Bush led Kerry by 741k in this group.
B = 741 + K

Solve for the required Bush and Kerry shares of returning Bush and Gore voters:
B = 2559 (58.5%)
K = 1818 (41.5%)

Election Day Recorded Vote Analysis (2000/2004)
Top 15 NY Counties Election Day Votes

(votes in thousands)


2000
Precincts Total Gore Bush Nader Gore Bush Nader
Brooklyn 1888 557 445 89 22 79.9% 16.1% 4.0%
Suffolk 1006 536 285 224 27 53.2% 41.8% 5.0%
Nassau 1070 554 319 214 21 57.6% 38.7% 3.7%
Manhattan 1100 522 410 79 33 78.5% 15.1% 6.3%
Queens 1470 512 380 115 17 74.2% 22.5% 3.2%

Erie 1007 384 218 143 22 56.8% 37.4% 5.9%
Westchester 948 306 179 115 13 58.4% 37.4% 4.2%
Monroe 792 300 152 133 15 50.8% 44.1% 5.1%
Bronx 912 279 240 33 6 86.0% 11.9% 2.1%
Onondaga 485 190 102 78 10 53.8% 40.9% 5.3%

Staten Island 333 133 69 60 4 51.8% 45.2% 3.1%
Albany 327 130 78 44 8 59.7% 34.0% 6.3%
Orange 284 118 54 58 5 45.8% 49.6% 4.6%
Rockland 250 117 65 47 5 55.9% 40.2% 3.9%
Dutchess 239 105 49 49 7 46.7% 47.1% 6.2%

Total 12111 4742 3045 1482 215 64.21% 31.26% 4.53%


2004
Total Kerry Bush Nader Kerry Bush Nader
Brooklyn 630 468 157 5.2 74.3% 24.8% 0.8%
Suffolk 618 303 302 13.3 49.1% 48.8% 2.1%
Nassau 597 312 279 6.0 52.3% 46.7% 1.0%
Manhattan 572 469 95 8.0 81.9% 16.7% 1.4%
Queens 559 398 157 4.7 71.2% 28.0% 0.8%

Erie 411 231 171 9.0 56.2% 41.6% 2.2%
Westchester 377 218 153 5.5 57.9% 40.7% 1.5%
Monroe 330 166 159 5.2 50.4% 48.1% 1.6%
Bronx 318 263 53 2.0 82.7% 16.7% 0.6%
Onondaga 199 107 88 3.5 54.1% 44.1% 1.8%

Staten Island 148 63 84 1.2 42.3% 56.9% 0.8%
Albany 136 82 51 2.6 60.2% 37.8% 1.9%
Orange 135 59 74 1.8 43.6% 55.0% 1.3%
Rockland 122 59 61 1.8 48.7% 49.8% 1.5%
Dutchess 114 53 59 1.8 46.5% 51.9% 1.6%

Total 5267 3253 1943 72 61.75% 36.89% 1.36%

Change
Kerry Bush Nader Kerry Bush Nader
Brooklyn 23.3 67.2 -17.1 5.2% 75.2% -76.6%
Suffolk 18.0 77.7 -13.7 6.3% 34.7% -50.8%
Nassau -6.7 64.5 -14.7 -2.1% 30.1% -70.9%
Manhattan 59.1 16.4 -25.1 14.4% 20.8% -75.8%
Queens 18.3 41.3 -11.9 4.8% 35.8% -71.9%

Erie 13.3 27.7 -13.5 6.1% 19.3% -60.0%
Westchester 39.5 38.9 -7.3 22.1% 34.0% -56.9%
Monroe 13.9 26.3 -10.2 9.1% 19.9% -66.3%
Bronx 22.8 19.7 -3.9 9.5% 59.4% -65.8%
Onondaga 5.4 10.1 -6.5 5.3% 13.0% -64.6%

Staten Island -6.2 24.3 -2.9 -9.0% 40.5% -69.8%
Albany 3.8 6.9 -5.6 4.9% 15.6% -68.0%
Orange 5.1 16.0 -3.7 9.5% 27.5% -67.0%
Rockland -6.0 13.7 -2.7 -9.2% 29.1% -59.6%
Dutchess 4.0 9.7 -4.7 8.2% 19.5% -71.7%
Total 207.5 460.6 -143.2 6.4% 23.7% -199.6%



Top 15 NY counties Election Day (Lever) votes

Total Kerry Bush Nader/other
2004 5267 3253 1943 72
61.8% 36.9% 1.4%

2000 Total Gore Bush Nader/other
4742 3045 1482 215
64.2% 31.3% 4.5%

Change 525 208 461 -143
% Chg 100% 39.5% 87.7% -27.3%
% incr 3.9% 8.7% -2.7%
____________________________________________

2004 Turnout of Top 15 NY county voters from 2000

2000 Total 4742 recorded
Died 237 5%
Living 4505 95%

Turnout 4415 98%
____________________________________________

New Voters

2004 Total 5267 recorded
Less 4415 turnout
New 852

To:
Kerry 571 67%
Bush 177 31%
Nader 4 2%

Kerry 394 net gain in new voters
____________________________________________

Nader/other 2000 voter turnout in 2004

2000 215
Died 11 5%
Living 204 95%
Turnout 200 98%

To:
Kerry 128 64%
Bush 34 17%
Other 38 19%

Kerry 94 net gain in Nader/other returning 2000 voters
____________________________________________

Returning Gore and Bush 2000 voters

Total 5267 recorded
Less:
New 852
Nader 38

Total 4377 returning Gore + Bush
____________________________________________

Kerry gain in new and returning Nader voters

New 394
Nader 94

Kerry 488 net gain
____________________________________________

Recorded vote gain from 2000

Kerry 208
Bush 461

Bush 253 net gain

Vote gain Discrepancy: 741

[OnTheOtherHand]

50. Bush was running for reelection in 1988?

Who knew? :evilgrin:

I'm sure you've worked out in your head why it makes perfect sense that it was more useful for Bush Sr. to steal New York votes in 1988 than for Bush Jr. to steal New York votes in 2000. But at best, all this looks like circular reasoning.

You've butchered the other analysis, too. Assuming for the sake of argument that most of your assumptions make sense, you've confused a "741k net gain" for Bush with a 741k margin for Bush. If Bush actually won returning Bush and Gore voters by 741k, while losing new voters by 394k and returning Nader/other voters by 94k, then Bush would have won these counties outright by over 250,000 votes. Yet your own figures indicate that Kerry won these counties by over 800,000 votes. That's a net error of over one million votes. Yikes.

How could you have been off by over a million votes? Because the result, while arithmetically absurd, comported with what you deeply feel to be true. That's my guess, anyway.

ETA: I look forward to your explanation of how this is all my fault.

[WillE]

51. You need to take an algebra class

You will wish you never replied to the post

You are a disingenuous nitpicker who needs to take an algebra class

1
I'm sure you've worked out in your head why it makes perfect sense that it was more useful for Bush Sr. to steal New York votes in 1988 than for Bush Jr. to steal New York votes in 2000. But at best, all this looks like circular reasoning.
-----
Classic Nitpicking: Bush was the vice-president. I know that. But he was the defacto incumbent. But for all practical purposes he was running as an incumbent. Is that the best you can do, Mr. Other?

2
You've butchered the other analysis, too. Assuming for the sake of argument that most of your assumptions make sense, you've confused a "741k net gain" for Bush with a 741k margin for Bush. If Bush actually won returning Bush and Gore voters by 741k, while losing new voters by 394k and returning Nader/other voters by 94k, then Bush would have won these counties outright by over 250,000 votes. Yet your own figures indicate that Kerry won these counties by over 800,000 votes. That's a net error of over one million votes. Yikes.

How could you have been off by over a million votes? Because the result, while arithmetically absurd, comported with what you deeply feel to be true. That's my guess, anyway.
------

Your guess is wrong. You don’t compute.
Come on, Mr. Other, you are too quick in your disinfo.
Did you take 9th grade algebra?
Let’s go through it one step at a time.

1) In 2004, there were 5267k recorded votes in the top 15 NY counties.

2) Bush gained 461k votes from 2000
Kerry gained 208k

That’s a TOTAL NET Bush 253k gain. (your bogus Urban Legend)

3) Of the 5267k total votes, 852k were new voters
Kerry had 571k (67.0%) of new voters
Bush had 264k (31%)
I had this as 177k (bad) in the original. But the fix will hardly have any effect.
That’s a NET 307k Kerry gain from NEW voters.

4) There were 200k returning Nader voters.
Kerry had 128k
Bush had 34k
That’s a NET Kerry 94k gain from returning Nader voters.

5) That’s a NET Kerry 401k gain among the NEW and returning Nader voters.

Are you still with me?

6) Since Bush had a total net gain of 253k from ALL NEW and RETURNING voters, he had to overcome Kerry’s 401k lead among NEW and RETURNING Nader voters.
He needed 654k = 401k+ 253k.
Bush needed 654k more RETURNING Bush and Gore voters than Kerry

7) Note that Gore won the 15 counties by a 33% margin.
Bush needed a 654k margin among returning Gore and Bush voters.
In other words, Bush needed to win this group by 15% (57.5-42.5%)

Now for the algebra:
8) T= 4377 = returning Bush (B) + Gore (G) voters (from above).
Bush had to win 654k more returning Bush and Gore voters than Kerry.

T = B + K = 4377
B = 654 + K
or
B = 654+ 4377 –B
2B = 5031

Therefore.
B = 2515 (57.5%)
K= 4377 –B = 1862 (42.5%

Q.E.D.

[OnTheOtherHand]

52. oh, brother

Sure, right, uh huh, Bush wasn't the "incumbent" (you unaccountably misquoted yourself) -- he was the "de facto incumbent," and "for all practical purposes he was running as an incumbent." Oh-kay. Is that the best you can do? Does "for all practical purposes" running as the incumbent somehow confer the power to rig the machines? How exactly does that work? For that matter, how does actually running as the incumbent confer that power?

Dude, no 9th grade algebra is necessary. Read my post, slowly. It's all addition.

[Name removed]

55. Deleted message

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

[OnTheOtherHand]

56. O RLY?

You had your chance to "easily admit" when you were wrong, and you chose to slander me instead. I wish I could say I was surprised.

[WillE]

57. 1 was wrong. You were right. I know Bush was VP. Address the wpe anomaly

Ok, that’s 1 wrong out of 15. I was correct up until step 6 when I said that Bush required a 57.5% share of returning Gore and Bush voters. That was incorrect. Bush only had to needed to reduce Gore’s 64-31% (1.4 million) margin of the approximate 4.2 million returning Gore and Bush voters by 654,000. That means he needed approximately 330k more defecting Gore voters than Bush defectors, or 12% of 2800k returning Gore voters assuming no bush defectors. That is extremely implausible. Hell, let’s be honest: it’s impossible.

Now let’s see you comment in the content of the post; namely the average NY 8.0 wpe for Bush 1 and 2 compared to the 0.6 for Clinton. I am sure all Duers would be interested in your explanation.

And as for your comment that VP Bush was not an incumbent running for the presidency….I will let that insightful comment alone It speaks volumes all by itself..

[WillE]

58. I take that back. Another look at the top 15 NY counties and the Urban Legend.

I was essentially correct in my prior analysis.
Hopefully, this will clear things up.

In the Top 15 NY counties, there were 516k more NET Election Day votes in 2004 than in 2000.
Nader/other declined by 143k votes from 2000.

Therefore, there were approximately 659K GROSS new voters (including Nader defectors) in 2004.
Assume that the 143k were defecting Nader voters.

Of the 659k:
Kerry gained 208k (31%); approximately 100k (70%) were Nader 2000 defectors.
Bush gained 451k (69%); approximately 43k (30%)were Nader 2000 defectors.

But we know that Kerry won approximately 60-70% of new voters in NY.
So how could Bush have had 69% of the 609k?

Only if there was a massive defection of Gore voters to Bush.
But a massive defection in 15 counties which gave Gore a 64-31% margin in 2000?

Urban Legend?

Election Day 2000/2004 Vote Changes
Top 15 NY Counties

Total Dem Bush Other
2004 5.268 3.253 1.943 0.072
100% 61.75% 36.88% 1.37%

2000 4.752 3.045 1.492 0.215
100% 64.08% 31.40% 4.52%

Change 0.516 0.208 0.451 (0.143)

[Wilms]

59. "I was essentially correct in my prior analysis." You were? And TIA?

I mean this ain't about you. In fact, it probably isn't even about the 2004 election or even exit polls for that matter.

It's about a half-decade + pissing contest. Isn't that right?

[OnTheOtherHand]

60. "Hell, let’s be honest: it’s impossible."

Well, I'll be honest. Your argument here is an unsupported appeal to personal incredulity, of the same sort as creationists' claims that it is "impossible" for eyes to develop through evolutionary processes. (In your second post you add, or revert to, argument by adjective: "massive" defection. Obviously, the more Gore votes there were to begin with, the more "massive" a defection is possible; there really isn't much more one can say about that.)

In real life, we don't have enough information to infer confidently what percentage of Gore voters 'must have' defected to Bush in these 15 counties -- and we certainly don't have enough information to declare any particular percentage "impossible." The existence of four late pre-election polls, each one giving Kerry a lead between 15 and 18 points, is a pretty good indication that Kerry probably didn't win the state by 30-plus points, even if we assume some bias in the LV models. It's mildly interesting to see you screen out that inconvenient evidence, but it isn't very interesting to argue with you about it.

Now let’s see you comment in the content of the post; namely the average NY 8.0 wpe for Bush 1 and 2 compared to the 0.6 for Clinton. I am sure all Duers would be interested in your explanation.

I don't think this requires any explanation at all. The WPEs reported by E/M are -11.4 in 2004; -3.3 in 2000; +2.1 in 1996; -4.6 in 1992; -7.2 in 1988. We don't have standard errors for any of these, but we know the Best Geo standard error in 2004 was 3.7. We can infer, of course, that most of these WPEs are statistically indistinguishable from each other, although clearly they aren't all equal. Your retrospective partitioning is a variant of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Even if one believes that the exit polls are infallible beyond sampling error, it's wishful to infer that the vote count was more accurate in 2000 than in 1992.

Your observation could at least be interesting if you had answers to my straightforward and pertinent questions in post 52. Do you? I am not at all sure, but I suppose some DUers might be interested in your explanation of how Bush Sr.'s role as vice president empowered him or his minions to alter the lever machine counts, and why this capacity apparently didn't extend to, say, Pennsylvania.

As a bonus, I note that the WPE in Texas in 2000 was -0.4. I will leave it as an exercise for you to deduce my question about that.

[WillE]

61. There is much to refute here, but it's very easy to do. Just watch.

1
Well, I'll be honest. Your argument here is an unsupported appeal to personal incredulity, of the same sort as creationists' claims that it is "impossible" for eyes to develop through evolutionary processes. (In your second post you add, or revert to, argument by adjective: "massive" defection. Obviously, the more Gore votes there were to begin with, the more "massive" a defection is possible; there really isn't much more one can say about that.)
-----

Creationist? Incredulity? That’s what YOU are famous for. You keep setting the standard.You are now reduced to resorting to pure jargon that is meant to fog, not illuminate.

Remember “False Recall”?
You were hoisted on your own petard. NES respondents correctly recalled their past vote.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x513762#513833

Remember Swing vs. Rred-shift?
You were hoisted on your own petard. There was a correlation.
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/SwingRedShiftHoisted.htm

2
In real life, we don't have enough information to infer confidently what percentage of Gore voters 'must have' defected to Bush in these 15 counties -- and we certainly don't have enough information to declare any particular percentage "impossible." The existence of four late pre-election polls, each one giving Kerry a lead between 15 and 18 points, is a pretty good indication that Kerry probably didn't win the state by 30-plus points, even if we assume some bias in the LV models. It's mildly interesting to see you screen out that inconvenient evidence, but it isn't very interesting to argue with you about it.
-----

So you trust pre-election LV polls more than exits?

You say there is not enough information to infer “what” percentage of Gore voters must have defected? Only if you don’t do the analysis.

We can make a very sound estimate based on the Kerry exit poll shares of New and returning Nader voters. So there is not enough information to evaluate the Election Day NY 2000/2004 county recorded votes in conjunction with 500,000 late recorded paper ballots and the unadjusted WPE, GEO and Composite exit poll data? That’s what a REAL analyst would do.

You have plenty of information. You just avoid using it. Why not? As you said, it’s just arithmetic.Screen out inconvenient evidence? So Rovian of you to accuse me of what you yourself are guilty of. You screen out the NY exit poll timeline at Call 1 (Kerry 64%), Call 2 (Gore 65%) and Call 3 (Kerry 64%). These polls were taken immediately AFTER the votes were cast.

YOU screen out the 1988-2004 Bush vs Clinton average WPE anomaly.

YOU screen out the fact that unlike your pre-election polls,in the exit polls there are ZERO undecided voters - they already voted; there are ZERO likely voters (LV) – they already voted.

Must I remind you again that UNDECIDED voters broke for Kerry everywhere, not just in NY?

Must I remind you that Gore won NY by 25% - without the help of the 4% NADER/other voters who defected to Kerry by 3-1?

Must I remind you that Kerry won NEW voters nationwide with 57-60%?

Must I remind tou that since he did 10% better in NY, we can reasonably “infer” that he had 65-70% of new voters in the state?

Why must you keep hanging on those unallocated NY pre-election LV polls – and ignore all else?

You are a fan of cherry-picked pre-election polls but abhor the exits. Why is that? Is that all you have?


3
I don't think this requires any explanation at all. The WPEs reported by E/M are -11.4 in 2004; -3.3 in 2000; +2.1 in 1996; -4.6 in 1992; -7.2 in 1988. We don't have standard errors for any of these, but we know the Best Geo standard error in 2004 was 3.7. We can infer, of course, that most of these WPEs are statistically indistinguishable from each other, although clearly they aren't all equal. Your retrospective partitioning is a variant of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Even if one believes that the exit polls are infallible beyond sampling error, it's wishful to infer that the vote count was more accurate in 2000 than in 1992
------

You avoid the REAL issue here: the average of the 3 Bush WPEs vs. that of the 2 Clinton. Only YOU can infer that they are indistinguishable a)because you don’t look at them hard enough or b) it's more likely that you can't explain it. The difference between average 8% Bush MoE and the average 0.6% Clinton MoE is certainly distinguishable to any FAIR observer. Are you a FAIR open-minded observer? That’s a rhetorical question.

4
Your observation could at least be interesting if you had answers to my straightforward and pertinent questions in post 52. Do you? I am not at all sure, but I suppose some DUers might be interested in your explanation of how Bush Sr.'s role as vice president empowered him or his minions to alter the lever machine counts, and why this capacity apparently didn't extend to, say, Pennsylvania. As a bonus, I note that the WPE in Texas in 2000 was -0.4. I will leave it as an exercise for you to deduce my question about that.
---

You know the old saying: the apple never falls too far from the tree.
Or: Like father, like son.
Or the latest version: Like Bush 1, Bush 2

We know who was running the show behind the scene throughout the Reagan years. Bush was Reagan’s Cheney. What makes you think he did not have the foresight to set things up prior to the campaign? Which by the way was less than stellar. Remember Willie Horton?

So typical of you to cherry-pick ONE exit poll (Texas 2000).Nationally, the exit polls matched up fairly well in 2000. Just like in NY. Clinton was the incumbent. So what in heaven’s name is your point? You are just confirming what I said before.

I’ll say it again:
The average NY WPE in the two Clinton elections (1996 and 2000) was 0.6.
The average NY WPE in the three Bush elections (1988,1992, 2004) was 8.0.

I provided all these numbers. You call them "creationist".
1. 5 NY wpe’s (8.0 average for Bush in 3 elections; 0.6 average for Clinton in 2)
2. The NY exit poll timeline (64.65,64% for Kerry)
3. 15 top NY counties went 64-31% for Gore; he won the RECORDED vote by 60-35% over Bush (that doesn’t include 200k uncounted NY votes in 2000 – the vast majority to Gore)
4. 19 levers stuck on Bush; none on Kerry
5. 66% of 500,000 late paper ballot votes for Kerry6. 70-80% of Nader voters for Kerry.
7. 67-70% of 1 million new NY voters for Kerry.
8. The strong .57 correlation between NY county size and Bush % vote change from 2000 (Urban Legend)
9. The corresponding weak .07 Kerry correlation.

And what did you give? Just one little old 2000 Texas exit poll that only confirms the fact that the exit polls were accurate nationally as well as in NY. Clinton was the incumbent, NOT Bush.

That was s classic cherry-pick for the ages.

[OnTheOtherHand]

62. it's boring to correct you over, and over, and over again

Remember “False Recall”?
You were hoisted on your own petard. NES respondents correctly recalled their past vote.

Since many of them gave different answers, it's obvious that they didn't correctly report their past votes both times. If you can ever bring yourself to concede this point, it might be possible to have a serious discussion. I am not holding my breath.

Remember Swing vs. Rred-shift?
You were hoisted on your own petard. There was a correlation.

Once you fabricated some swing values. :eyes: You're not even thinking about theory here. If you want to use change in WPE instead of raw 'red shift,' that makes some sense -- but using your so-called "True Vote" can't work. Think. If you use exit poll results to calculate the "True Vote," then of course the "True Vote Swing" will be correlated with red shift. ETA: On the off chance that this might help -- the point of comparing red shift to swing in reported results is that fraud should contribute both to red shift and to swing in reported results. Fraud should not contribute to swing in "true" results, by definition of "true." At least, I assume that's what "true" should mean.

(blah blah blah)

Shorter TIA: "I've really got nothing to say about those polls -- or all the other points made by you, Wilms, and Bill Bored on this thread that I've ignored -- so my best play is to pound the table." Again, I wish I were surprised.

I note that despite your handwaving about "cherry-picked pre-election polls," you don't have any to support your version of what happened in New York. I accept your concession.

I note that you have no substantive response to the Texas sharpshooter issue. I accept your concession.

I note that you have no explanation of why Vice-President Bush would be able to rig votes in New York, nor of why he wouldn't be equally able to rig votes in other states (such as PA) that had small WPEs. I accept your concession.

I note that while you, selectively, regard Bush Sr.'s quasi-"incumbency" in 1988 as highly significant, you attach no significance whatsoever to the fact that Bush Jr. was governor of Texas in 2000. You didn't concede anything there, so I'll just gape in amazement.

[WillE]

63. That was a truly weak response - as expected

1
I note that despite your handwaving about "cherry-picked pre-election polls," you don't have any to support your version of what happened in New York. I accept your concession.
---
What concession?
Will you concede that Kerry won ALL three exit polls by 64-65%

2
I note that you have no substantive response to the Texas sharpshooter issue. I accept your concession.
---
What concession?
Texas Sharpshooter? Have you lost it?
Are you sure you want to continue?

Will you concede that Bush had Texas in the bag?
And that the 2000 exit polls were very close to the recorded vote?
Where's the beef?

3
I note that you have no explanation of why Vice-President Bush would be able to rig votes in New York, nor of why he wouldn't be equally able to rig votes in other states (such as PA) that had small WPEs. I accept your concession.
----

What concession?
There you go, cherry-picking again.
What makes you think he didn't?

Concede this:
In case you didn't know it, there were 10.6 million uncounted votes in 1988.
If 75% were for Dukakis, that lowers Bush's margin by 5 million.
And Dukakis was very close to Bush in the preliminary exits.

4
I note that while you, selectively, regard Bush Sr.'s quasi-"incumbency" in 1988 as highly significant, you attach no significance whatsoever to the fact that Bush Jr. was governor of Texas in 2000. You didn't concede anything there, so I'll just gape in amazement.
----

That is very lame. So what if Bush was the governor.
Did that gave him control of Clinton's prosecutors? Bush cleaned house in 2002.

Clinton was the incumbent in 2000.
The exits were close to the recorded vote.
You continue to MAKE MY POINT WHILE SPOILING YOUR DAY.

You seem to have a mental block:
The aggregate (national) state exits favored Gore by a 2.0 WPE - a 1.0% vote share deviation. That's within the 1.5% national MoE.

The NY exits favored him by a 3.3 WPE - a 1.6% share deviation.
That's within the NY 2.5% MoE.

The unadjusted NY WPE was calculated by the exit pollsters using three methods:
Method WPE
IMS 12.2
VNS 11.4
DSS 11.9

The question is:
What happened in 1988, 1992 and 2004 when the average WPE was 8.0?
That is equivalent to an average 4% vote share deviation, far outside the NY 2.5% MoE.


In case you didn't know it, there were 5.4 million net uncounted votes in 2000.
If 75% were for Gore (as they probably were) that would account for the small WPE

Bush knew he didn't stand a prayer in NY.
He expected to lose the national popular vote to Gore
He wasn't thinking about a "mandate". He needed that in 2004.
He knew he had to steal it in in the battleground states.
He was focusing on Florida and Ohio and New Mexico and Iowa and New Hampshire.
He barely won NH. Had he lost the 4 EV, Gore would be president.

That's why he needed to pad his vote count in 2004.
He couldn't have a repeat of 2000 where he lost the popular vote by 540,000 officially.
But he would have lost by 3 million had all the votes cast been counted.

Again this is not for YOUR benefit.
It's for everyone else who is interested in a rational analysis of the factual data.
They have all they need in this thread to judge the facts vs. "creationism".

Of course, you will reply to this post with your usual "stuff".I would like to use a stronger word than "stuff", but I had better not.

You called TIA's graphs "crappy".
I won't respond in kind and call your "analysis" crappy.
That's because you have not even done an analysis.

You have made your (very weak) case.
So why continue?

Let's just call it quits.

[OnTheOtherHand]

64. "Kerry won ALL three exit polls"?

You think there were three exit polls in New York?

What makes you think he didn't?

Steal votes in states with small WPEs? Well, you tell me, but I thought you thought the exit polls were accurate.

Will you concede that Bush had Texas in the bag?

And Kerry had New York in the bag. Your point is?

So what if Bush was the governor.

I can't seem to find the "Beam me up" emoticon.

Let's just call it quits.

It's a time-honored strategy to declare victory and leave, and I certainly hope that you'll adopt it.

[WillE]

65. Here's a NY 2004 True Vote Sensitivity Analysis. Did you ever do one?

NY 2004 Election Sensitivity Analysis

Important note: 
Kerry's 58.4% NY vote share was 10.1% higher than his national
(48.3%) share.

Given the following:
1) Total NY votes cast: 7.0 million cast in 2000 ; 7.7m in
2004
2) 2000 voter mortality: 5% - based on mortality data -
plausible
3) 2000: 75% of  175,000 net  uncounted votes to Gore -
plausible 
4) 2004: 75% of  308,000 net uncounted votes to  Kerry -
plausible
5) 67% of new voters to Kerry (he had a 57% national share) –
plausible 
6) 11% of returning Bush voters to Kerry (he had a 10%
national share) – plausible
7) Kerry won 64% of returning Nader voters – plausible

In order to match the RECORDED vote, Kerry had to have won 83%
(Bush had 15%) of returning NY Gore voters (he had a 91%
national share) – that is VERY implausible.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE  THAT IN HEAVILY DEMOCRATIC NY STATE, KERRY
WOULD CAPTURE JUST 83% OF RETURNING GORE VOTERS WHEN HE  HAD A
91% NATIONAL SHARE..

THEREFORE THE RECORDED VOTE IS IMPOSSIBLE.

In this implausible scenario FORCED TO MATCH THE NY RECORDED
VOTE:
Kerry has a 58.6% vote share and wins by 1.41 million votes.
That is very close to his recorded margin of 1.35 million.

Do you have a problem with the assumptions? 
Then consider a sensitivity analysis of Kerry’s NY vote share
and margin for various percentages of new voters and returning
Gore voters.

Assume the above, but give Kerry a plausible 92% of returning
Gore voters 
(he had a 91% national share) 

View the Sensitivity Analysis below.

Kerry’s True NY vote share was aproximately 63.2%. 
He won by 2.12 million votes.
Kerry’s corresponding margin was reduced by 710,000 votes from
2.12 to 1.41 million.

Assumptions required to force a match to the bogus recorded
vote 	 
AN IMPLAUSIBLE SCENARIO

2000 voter	
    Turnout     Voted	Weight	Kerry	Bush	Other

DNV 	        1.185m	15.4%	67%	31%	2%
Gore   98%	3.949	51.3%	83%	16%	1%
Bush   98%	2.268	29.5%	11%	89%	0%
Nader  98%	0.298	3.9%	64%	28%	8%
					 
     6.51m	7.699	100%	58.60%	40.27%	1.13%
 	 	       7.70n 	4.51m 	3.10m 	0.09m 
					

Sensitivity Analysis
of Kerry's NY Vote share and margin to
his share of New and returning Gore voters


Assumption:
Kerry share of returning NY Bush 2000 voters: 11.0%	  					 

Kerry	
%Gore 	 Kerry % of New voters (DNV in 2000)	 
Voters	47%	57%	67%	77%	87%
 		Kerry  NY Vote Share
92%	60.1%	61.7%	63.2%	64.8%	66.3%
89%	58.6%	60.1%	61.7%	63.2%	64.8%
86%	57.1%	58.6%	60.1%	61.7%	63.2%
83%	55.5%	57.1%	58.6%	60.1%	61.7%
80%	54.0%	55.5%	57.1%	58.6%	60.1%
 					 
 		 Kerry Margin		 

92%	1.65	1.88	2.12	2.36	2.60
89%	1.41	1.65	1.88	2.12	2.36
86%	1.17	1.41	1.65	1.88	2.12
83%	0.94	1.17	1.41	1.65	1.88
80%	0.70	0.94	1.17	1.41	1.65

[OnTheOtherHand]

66. all this is facially silly

No matter how many numbers you gussy it up with, it boils down to this: you just can't believe that, in New York, Bush did about 7 points better (on the margin) in 2004 than in 2000. Your personal incredulity is not evidence.

It might be interesting to see your True Vote Sensitivity Analysis of how, in Florida, Carter did almost 50 points better in 1976 than McGovern did in 1972 -- except that you probably don't have any trouble believing that. Neither do I.

[WillE]

67. What's incredulous is your faith-based jargon and avoidance of analytical thought.

What is incredulous is your faith-based belief that Bush won.

How ridiculous and unprofessional. And you speak of incredulity?

You have not done one iota of analysis, and you dare to call TIA's True Vote sensitivity analysis a mere confirmation of belief? Why are you afraid of addressing trhe content of the analysis?

OTOH, your true colors have never shown as clearly as in this thread,

This is really turning into a total fiasco for you. You are resorting to incredulous comments on any and all analysis. But that is what you do. That is what you have always done.

I guess you will just go go on embarrassing yourself forever.

I have better things to do than continue to reply in your unending campaign to debase all sense of the scientific process for your faith-based, insincere exposition of things you must know are untrue.

Such as your belief in false recall, reluctant Bush responder, swing vs. redshift and that exit polls not designed to uncover fraud therefore they should not be used for any analysis. Well, its true that you don't use them at all and just rely on your "beliefs".

And you call yourself a political scientist?
All I see is Politics, but no Science.

Now I know how Galileo felt.

[OnTheOtherHand]

68. "Now I know how Galileo felt."

:nopity:

I did address the content of the analysis. As I said, it boils down to the statement that such-and-such a result is "VERY implausible" or "IMPOSSIBLE" -- in other words, you personally cannot believe it. As I've said elsewhere, this is functionally identical to creationist "rebuttals" of evolution.

You would need to present specific, defensible reasons why it is "impossible" for 15% of returning Gore voters to have voted for Bush -- if we stipulate that everything else in the analysis is correct. You have none.

ETA:

Such as your belief... that exit polls not designed to uncover fraud therefore they should not be used for any analysis. Well, its true that you don't use them at all and just rely on your "beliefs".

Nope, it's trivial to verify that I've often used exit polls in analysis. I sometimes wonder, is any accusation too silly for you to hurl?

[WillE]

71. If you used exit polls in your "analysis " it was to thrash them n/t

.

[OnTheOtherHand]

74. spoken like, yes, a fundamentalist

I've never "thrash(ed)" the exit polls. Mitofsky was under no such illusions. He was much more analytical about arguably the signature contribution of his career than you are.

At any rate, since you haven't actually rebutted any of my arguments, you might as well have posted, "You always liked Febble better! (Sniff!)" It would probably be a better use of your time to download the NES panel data, do some crosstabs of people's various retrospective vote reports, and see if reality starts to sink in. Or to educate yourself about state voting technology use in 2004 and now. Or to seriously try to answer Bill's questions. For all the pride you take in your "analyses," what strikes me is how far you will go to avoid analysis.

[Bill Bored]

69. Better things to do? Yes! Tell us how many lever machines would have to be HACKED to account for...

...the New York 2004 Exit Poll Discrepancy!

Still waiting. An average number based on the total vote padding you've come up with would be fine.

I know there's "more than one way to skin a cat." You've said that already. So let's rule out massive lever machine fraud and move on!

After all, before you showed up, this was supposed to be a thread about NOT trusting computers to count votes -- NOT one about TRUSTING exit polls!

That said, here are two other ways to skin the cat that might have worked in NY:



And how about this?:

Ridge says he was pressured to raise terror alert
In book, ex-Homeland Security chief hints Bush aides wanted to sway vote

WASHINGTON - Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge claims in a new book that he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32501273/ns/us_news-security/

I'm thinking anyone scared enough to vote for Bush in 2004 might have been too scared to take a poll and admit it too. But then I don't care much for these emotional sorts of arguments. Just tell me how they hacked so many lever machines and I'm good.

[WillE]

70. See post #49

You have challenged me to calculate how many machines would be needed to fix the vote but you have not addressed any one of those 13 Red Flags. Your question should be: How many corrupt election officials would it take?

1988-2004: smoking guns in the NY exit polls (8.0 average wpe for Bush; 0.6 for Clinton)

Go back to post #48

[WillE]

72. This is not about "trusting exit polls" . It's about considering ALL the evidence...

Is considering the 10% late vote discrepancy to the Election Day share a waste of time?
Is considering the 0.61 correlation between Bush vote share gain from 2000 to 2004 and county population a waste of time?
Is considering the 0.56 correlation between voting machine incident rate and Bush vote share gain a waste of time?
Is considering that 19 levers were stuck on Bush and none on Kerry a waste of time?
Is considering the massive 11% NY exit poll discrepancy a waste of time?
Is considering the 10.6% Lever machine WPE a waste of time?
Is considering the 300,000 net uncounted NY 2004 votes a waste of time?
Is considering that Bush needed to pad his popular vote a waste of time?
Is confirming that the Urban Legend is a myth a waste of time?
Is confirming that Levers are anything but transparent a waste of time?
Is confirming that NY vote counts are questionable by citing Obama’s zero votes in 80 (mostly minority) districts a waste of time?
Is considering that the preponderance (actually ALL) of the evidence accumulated over the past 4.5 years indicates that Bush stole the 2004 election a waste of time?
Is considering that Rove could not allow a repeat of the 2000 fiasco in which Bush lost the popular vote a waste of time?

Just added:
Is considering that the average NY WPE was 8.0 under Bush and 0,6 under Clinton a waste of time?

Is considering that Bush needed 15% of returning Gore voters in the 15 largest NY counties which went for Gore by 64-31% and for Kerry by 62-37% on Election Day Levers a waste of time?

Oh, and those were "recorded" votes - they did not include uncounted votes.

[Bill Bored]

73. How many machines was that again? nt

[OnTheOtherHand]

75. for your convenience...

"Is considering the 10% late vote discrepancy to the Election Day share a waste of time?"

Here's a Hobson's choice for you: do you think people who voted by provisional ballot were just like the rest of the electorate?

"Is considering the 0.61 correlation between Bush vote share gain from 2000 to 2004 and county population a waste of time?"

(Assuming that's the correct correlation, which you haven't demonstrated....) In terms of swing, Bush did better downstate (but not in upstate cities). That isn't evidence of fraud. If the correlation went the other way, you'd probably argue that the fraud was concentrated in Republican strongholds, like Steve Freeman says. And if the correlation were zero, you'd say, "So what? Bush could steal votes all over the state." There's no result whatsoever that you would have to treat as evidence against your position. Big problem.

How about that? Do you think Bush could steal votes all over the state? Why, or why not? You're remarkably evasive when it comes to reality checks.

"Is considering the 0.56 correlation between voting machine incident rate and Bush vote share gain a waste of time?"

Gee, do you suppose there's any relationship between county size and reported incident rate? Could it be that you're pretty much repeating yourself?

"Is considering that 19 levers were stuck on Bush and none on Kerry a waste of time?"

Nineteen?! That's a good argument for Bill, not so helpful for you. (I won't repeat all the other points that Bill and Wilms have made on this topic.)

"Is considering the massive 11% NY exit poll discrepancy a waste of time?"

"Considering" it is fine, but you still don't have a sensible rebuttal to the findings on swing and surprise.

"Is considering the 10.6% Lever machine WPE a waste of time?"

Ditto.

"Is considering the 300,000 net uncounted NY 2004 votes a waste of time?"

That's potentially pretty helpful, but not if you just use it as an excuse for blind faith in the exit poll results. How does it compare with the other elections in which you're apparently convinced that there was little or no fraud?

"Is considering that Bush needed to pad his popular vote a waste of time?"

Needed to?

"Is confirming that the Urban Legend is a myth a waste of time?"

I believe you've conceded that your claim about Bush's performance in non-urban areas was false. If not, care to try again?

"Is confirming that Levers are anything but transparent a waste of time?"

I don't think they're very "transparent" either -- it's partly a semantic issue, I think. But this debate has little bearing on what happened in 2004.

"Is confirming that NY vote counts are questionable by citing Obama’s zero votes in 80 (mostly minority) districts a waste of time?"

Those aren't even the final results. Your problem remains that, as Bill pointed out, the statewide residual vote rate for president was well under 1%. You apparently want to treat those unofficial results from another election as the 'tip of the iceberg,' but the residual vote rate doesn't support your case.

"Is considering that the preponderance (actually ALL) of the evidence accumulated over the past 4.5 years indicates that Bush stole the 2004 election a waste of time?"

Untrue.

"Is considering that Rove could not allow a repeat of the 2000 fiasco in which Bush lost the popular vote a waste of time?"

Could not? (Are we assuming that Rove has magical powers to rig lever machines?)

Just added:
"Is considering that the average NY WPE was 8.0 under Bush and 0,6 under Clinton a waste of time?"

Charitably, yes. See other posts.

"Is considering that Bush needed 15% of returning Gore voters in the 15 largest NY counties which went for Gore by 64-31% and for Kerry by 62-37% on Election Day Levers a waste of time?"

Wow. So now you're using the fact that Kerry did so well in these counties as evidence that he was robbed there?

So, since we've responded to everything you've got, when is it time for you to be accountable to anyone else?

[WillE]

76. Thanks for bringing all this back in full view again

Thanks for bringing all this back in full view again.

It's a great opportunity for DUers who are unfamiliar with your work to see you in action.

1
"Is considering the 10% late vote discrepancy to the Election Day share a waste of time?"

Here's a Hobson's choice for you: do you think people who voted by provisional ballot were just like the rest of the electorate?
-----
Do you have any proof that they weren't? And is 500,000 not a big enough sample size?
You dismiss any and all evidence that points to fraud.

2
"Is considering the 0.61 correlation between Bush vote share gain from 2000 to 2004 and county population a waste of time?"

(Assuming that's the correct correlation, which you haven't demonstrated....) In terms of swing, Bush did better downstate (but not in upstate cities). That isn't evidence of fraud. If the correlation went the other way, you'd probably argue that the fraud was concentrated in Republican strongholds, like Steve Freeman says. And if the correlation were zero, you'd say, "So what? Bush could steal votes all over the state." There's no result whatsoever that you would have to treat as evidence against your position. Big problem.

How about that? Do you think Bush could steal votes all over the state? Why, or why not? You're remarkably evasive when it comes to reality checks.
------
Are you too lazy to replicate the correlation? Apparently so. Tell you what.
I’ll give you two weeks, if you still can’t do it, I’ll provide the numbers.
Let’s see you do something productive for a change.

Bush did better downstate? You mean in Urban areas like the NYC area.
Sure that’s where the votes were. He didn’t do so well in small rural counties. Why not?
That’s an Urban Legend which everyone has debunked except you.

3
"Is considering the 0.56 correlation between voting machine incident rate and Bush vote share gain a waste of time?"
Gee, do you suppose there's any relationship between county size and reported incident rate? Could it be that you're pretty much repeating yourself?
---
You have no clue. We are talking about percentage gain, not absolute gain. Got that?

4
"Is considering that 19 levers were stuck on Bush and none on Kerry a waste of time?"

Nineteen?! That's a good argument for Bill, not so helpful for you. (I won't repeat all the other points that Bill and Wilms have made on this topic.)
-----
Just a coincidence, eh?

5
"Is considering the massive 11% NY exit poll discrepancy a waste of time?"

"Considering" it is fine, but you still don't have a sensible rebuttal to the findings on swing and surprise.
----
I’m not surprised you are still swinging...
Your swing. vs. red-shift scatter graph showed a zero slope.
In fact, using the Total votes cast, the swing was negatively sloped.

Of course, you used recorded vote swing and not true vote swing.
You assume that 2000 and 2004 were both fraud-free.
You continue to hoist yourself on your own petard.

6
"Is considering the 10.6% Lever machine WPE a waste of time?"

Ditto.
-----
You continue to thrash Mitofsky.
Didn’t you work for him?

7
"Is considering the 300,000 net uncounted NY 2004 votes a waste of time?"

That's potentially pretty helpful, but not if you just use it as an excuse for blind faith in the exit poll results. How does it compare with the other elections in which you're apparently convinced that there was little or no fraud?
----
That is pure BS. Most of these issues have nothing to do with exit polls.
I am looking at ALL the evidence. What have you put forth?

You seem to have blind faith in the NY pre-election polls. Yet you fail to consider RV vs LV (22 million new 2004 voters) and undecided voter allocation (Gallup gave 90% to Kerry)
Of course, you don't do analysis so why would you consider it?









By the way, how do you explain Kerry’s 63.1% share in the NY composite exit poll?
In case you were unaware that final adjustment (before the forced match to the bogus recorded vote) incorporated those NY pre-election polls you love so much.

Let’s see. According to you, NY exit polls are bogus.
But pre-election polls are the real deal.
Talk about cherry-picking.

Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System - January 19, 2005

NY Exit Poll

Method WPE
IMS 12.2
VNS 11.4
DSS 11.9

Measure Kerry Bush Margin Error
Recorded 58.4 40.1 18.3 - official result

WPE 64.3 34.1 30.2 11.9 no adjustment
Best GEO 65.1 33.8 31.3 13.0 only exit poll tallies
Composite 63.1 35.5 27.6 9.3 weighted average of pre-election polls and Best Survey


8
"Is considering that Bush needed to pad his popular vote a waste of time?"

Needed to?
-----
And you call yourself a political scientist? OK, I’ll repeat it again for you.
Next time I’ll just cut and paste.

Are you aware that Bush stole the 2000 election but lost the popular vote.
He needed to win the popular vote this time.
He had to have the mandate that you believe he won fairly.
Does that make sense to you?

So he had to pad his vote margin.
Does that make sense to you?

The small red states were no help; there were too few Democrats.
Does that make sense to you?

He needed to flip the battleground states for the electoral votes.
Does that make sense to you?

His only recourse was to cut Kerry’s margin in big Democratic states like CA and NY.
Does that make sense to you?

No, I don’t expect any of it does.

9
"Is confirming that the Urban Legend is a myth a waste of time?"

I believe you've conceded that your claim about Bush's performance in non-urban areas was false. If not, care to try again?
----

You mean these graphs?

These are the Bush percentage vote gains in the largest 15 NY counties.


There was a strong 0.61 correlation between Bush NY percentage vote gain and county size.



Bush’s recorded vote share declined by 3% in rural areas based on the Final National Exit Poll from 2000 to 2004. And I know that you believe the Final since it was forced to match the recorded vote and you believe the recorded vote.



"Is confirming that Levers are anything but transparent a waste of time?"

10
I don't think they're very "transparent" either -- it's partly a semantic issue, I think. But this debate has little bearing on what happened in 2004.
-----
No bearing? Wrong. It was because of non-transparency that votes were miscounted.

ASIDE TO BILL BORED:
VOTES WERE MISCOUNTED NOT BY LEVERS IN 2004, BUT BY HUMANS.
DO YOU GET IT YET?

Based on the small WPEs, the levers worked fine in 1996 and 2000 when Clintoin was the incumbent. In 1988, 1992 and 2004, not so much.
Score one for Bill Bored.
The levers have a low spoilage rate.
Good machines.
But Bad people.
No transparency.

11
"Is confirming that NY vote counts are questionable by citing Obama’s zero votes in 80 (mostly minority) districts a waste of time?"

Those aren't even the final results. Your problem remains that, as Bill pointed out, the statewide residual vote rate for president was well under 1%. You apparently want to treat those unofficial results from another election as the 'tip of the iceberg,' but the residual vote rate doesn't support your case.
----
So what? That’s how they were reported at first.
Oh, I know it was human error, Just an oversight, sure.

12
"Is considering that the preponderance (actually ALL) of the evidence accumulated over the past 4.5 years indicates that Bush stole the 2004 election a waste of time?"

Untrue.
----
No, True. Do you have any evidence to show that Bush won?
Besides the recorded vote?

13
"Is considering that Rove could not allow a repeat of the 2000 fiasco in which Bush lost the popular vote a waste of time?"

Could not? (Are we assuming that Rove has magical powers to rig lever machines?)
-----
Not rig levers. But corrupt election officials could be bought off.
Especially when Bush controlled the justice department. They could be protected.

ASIDE TO BILL BORED:
VOTES WERE MISCOUNTED NOT BY LEVERS, BUT BY HUMANS.
DO YOU GET IT YET?

14
Just added:
"Is considering that the average NY WPE was 8.0 under Bush and 0,6 under Clinton a waste of time?"

Charitably, yes. See other posts.
----
Of course you would say that.
It makes too much sense to consider it as evidence.

15
"Is considering that Bush needed 15% of returning Gore voters in the 15 largest NY counties which went for Gore by 64-31% and for Kerry by 62-37% on Election Day Levers a waste of time?"

Wow. So now you're using the fact that Kerry did so well in these counties as evidence that he was robbed there?

So, since we've responded to everything you've got, when is it time for you to be accountable to anyone else?
-----

You haven’t a clue do you? Some analyst you are. The calculations and sensitivity analysis were not meant for you; they were meant for those who cared to see the anomaly.
But it is apparently beyond your level of comprehension.
All analysis is.

Ok, One more time. Mr. Other:
Bush needed 15% of Gore voters to cut Kerry’s margin DOWN to 62-37% in those 15 counties.
That's 15% in HEAVILY Democratic counties.

Of course, you can’t see it. Because that’s just you.
But everyone else can.

[OnTheOtherHand]

77. "Do you have any proof that they weren't?"

1. Jaysus, TIA, do you know anything about provisional ballots whatsoever? Do you care? Could you maybe pretend to care? In this instance, you apparently don't have any evidence, so there is nothing for me to "dismiss."

2. In the past, when I've failed to replicate your results, it's because you were wrong. It happened in this very thread. If you ever had a presumption of infallibility, it long since expired. You can put up or shut up (not that I really expect you to do either).

"Bush did better downstate? You mean in Urban areas like the NYC area." Bush did better almost everywhere, as your own figures demonstrate -- but he didn't do especially well in urban upstate counties, as your own figures demonstrate. That's why I say "downstate."

I accept your concession: you admit that you would claim fraud no matter what the correlation was.

3. "You have no clue. We are talking about percentage gain, not absolute gain. Got that?" No, in fact. WTF does that have to do with the relationship between EIRS reports and county size?

4. I accept your concession. You don't actually think these reports have any bearing on the hundreds of thousands of votes you believe, or claim, were stolen.

5. I accept your concession. You have no counter to my argument in post #62, and there's no prospect that you ever will. (Hey, I'll try again: TIA, explain to us why you think the change in true vote should be correlated with the WPE.)

6. Wrong twice: I'm not thrashing Mitofsky, and I didn't work for him.

7. Most of your points don't have much to do with anything, so I'm not impressed that they aren't about exit polls.

I accept your concession: you can't rebut my evidence and arguments, so your best play is to pretend that I don't have any. I'm sure someone out there is buying it.

8. It shouldn't make sense to anyone. Even if we stipulate that Bush "had to" run up the popular vote, are you aware of the existence of large red states?

9. I accept your concession: Bush's performance increased in almost every NY county, so you have to waffle back and forth between official NY returns and national exit poll tabulations.

Can you really not know your further error here? That national exit poll tabulation does not match the official returns. The overall Bush and Kerry vote shares should more or less match, but the official returns don't show a big increase in big-city turnout. This has been explained many times.

10. I accept your concession: you claim that "VOTES WERE MISCOUNTED NOT BY LEVERS, BUT BY HUMANS," so the jams are largely irrelevant.

11. I accept your concession: the low residual vote rate proves that jams didn't have a large effect on the final results.

12. I accept your concession: your evidence is so weak that your best play is to demand that I convince you.

13. Deja vu all over again.

14. I accept your concession: you still have no response to my arguments, so you attack me.

15. At best, it's the same old unsupported argument from incredulity.

Better luck next time.

[WillE]

78. I accept your recession

1.Jaysus, TIA, do you know anything about provisional ballots whatsoever? Do you care? Could you maybe pretend to care? In this instance, you apparently don't have any evidence, so there is nothing for me to "dismiss."
--------
Jeez, Farhad, my name is Bill. I just remind you of TIA. Now, tell me all about provisional ballots – and absentees while you're at it. And tell me why 66% were for Kerry.

2. In the past, when I've failed to replicate your results, it's because you were wrong. It happened in this very thread. If you ever had a presumption of infallibility, it long since expired. You can put up or shut up (not that I really expect you to do either).

"Bush did better downstate? You mean in Urban areas like the NYC area." Bush did better almost everywhere, as your own figures demonstrate -- but he didn't do especially well in urban upstate counties, as your own figures demonstrate. That's why I say "downstate."

I accept your concession: you admit that you would claim fraud no matter what the correlation was.
-----
I accept your lack of mathematical maturity. You have no clue as to correlation and you are a polysci guy? I gave you a graph with a best fit regression line which shows that county size was DIRECTLY CORRELATED to BUSH PERCENTAGE RECORDED VOTE GAIN. But as always, you resort to cherry-picking exceptions without accepting the overall trend. The correlation was not perfect. Nothing is. BUT IT WAS A STRONG 0.61.

You are obviously quite upset. I would be too if I were you right now. You have failed time and time again in your unending quest to debunk TIA, RFJK, Freeman, Baiman, Simon, O’Dell, Palast, Fitrakis, autorank.... You can’t even replicate Kathy Dopp’s auditing mathematics.

OTOH, you have nothing. All the arrows in your quiver are gone: Non-response, False recall, swing vs. red-shift. One after another. You shot your load a long time ago. You don’t even have a choir to preach to anymore.

Yes, Bush did worse everywhere in his TRUE VOTE. I repeat. TRUE VOTE. So he needed to pad his TRUE VOTE in Democratic Urban (and suburban) areas which MORPHED into BOGUS RECORDED VOTE.

ALL YOUR SO-CALLED "ANALYSIS" (FALSE RECALL, SWING VS.RED-SHIFT, NON-RESPONSE)ASSUMES THAT THE RECORDED VOTE WAS THE TRUE VOTE. YOU START WITH A FALLACIOUS ASSUMPTION TO PROVE A FALLACIOUS RESULT.

YOUR ASSUMPTION WERE A) ALL VOTES CAST WERE COUNTED, B) THERE WAS ZERO VOTE-STUFFING, C) ZERO VOTE SWITCHING AND D) THERE IS ZERO CORRUPTION AMONG ELECTION OFFICIALS.

EVERY ASSUMPTIONS IS FALSE THERFORE YOUR CONCLUSIONS ARE FALSE. THEY ARE FAITH-BASED AT BEST.

YOUR SCATTER PLOT WITH ZERO SLOPE IS FALSE.
YOUR FALSE-RECALL HYPOTHESIS IS FALSE BECAUSE YOU DID NOT CONSIDER TOTAL VOTES CAST.
YOU ASSUMED THAT THE 2000 AND 2004 RECORDED VOTES WERE CLOSE TO THE TRUE VOTE.
BUT THAT CANNOT BE SINCE THERE WERE 5.4 MILLION NET UNCOUNTED VOTES IN 2000 AND 3.4 MILLION NET IN 2004. BUT IT'S EVEN WORSE. THEY WERE NET OF STUFFED BALLOTS!

YOUR ASSUMPTION THAT THERE WERE ZERO PHANTOM RETURNING BUSH 2000 VOTERS IN 2004 IS FALSE BECAUSE THE NUMBER OF LIVING BUSH RETURNING VOTERS IS LESS THAN THE NUMBER REQUIRED TO MATCH THE RECORDED VOTE - BY 5-6 MILLION.

Of course, you won’t admit that because the Urban Legend was your Waterloo. The Final 2000 and 2004 NEP indicates that he also lost share in rural areas.

All the evidence shows that Bush gained RECORDED (i.e. fraudulent) share in Urban areas. Did you look? That doesn’t mean he gained share without fraud. Do you know the difference between the True Vote and the Recorded vote?

Bush had 48% national approval. What was his NY approval? Around 35-40%? Tell us how Bush got 15% of returning Gore voters in the top 15 NY counties when Gore won them by 64-31%? WITH 35% NY APPROVAL? EXPLAIN THAT!

3. "You have no clue. We are talking about percentage gain, not absolute gain. Got that?" No, in fact. WTF does that have to do with the relationship between EIRS reports and county size?
---
Ok, let me spell it out for you. There is a strong correlation between voting incidents and change in county vote. Most would expect that counties (such as Queens) with a higher rate of incidents (i.e. fraud) would see larger PERCENTAGE RECORDED VOTE GAINS than in rural counties with little or no fraud (such as Sullivan).
Makes sense, yes?

4. I accept your concession. You don't actually think these reports have any bearing on the hundreds of thousands of votes you believe, or claim, were stolen.
-------
Weak response. Those 19 stuck on Bush, none on Kerry.
To you it was just a coincidence. OK.

5. I accept your concession. You have no counter to my argument in post #62, and there's no prospect that you ever will. (Hey, I'll try again: TIA, explain to us why you think the change in true vote should be correlated with the WPE.)
----
It’s Bill, Farhad. The problem is that no one accepts your canard. You are speaking to yourself. Even the sheeple won’t listen anymore. Swing vs. red-shift has been debunked in a logical proof by Kathy Dopp.

TIA debunks it in this graph.


6. Wrong twice: I'm not thrashing Mitofsky, and I didn't work for him.
------
OK, then was it pro bono consulting? But you do thrash him indirectly every time you say the exit polls suck. Is that anyway to revere his memory. Then again, he thrashed the polls himself. But he’s gone now RIP. And so is Febble, apparently. Is Farhad still writing? Who is left?

7. Most of your points don't have much to do with anything, so I'm not impressed that they aren't about exit polls.

I accept your concession: you can't rebut my evidence and arguments, so your best play is to pretend that I don't have any. I'm sure someone out there is buying it.
------
I accept that you are a broken record. All jargon, no data. No analysis.

8. It shouldn't make sense to anyone. Even if we stipulate that Bush "had to" run up the popular vote, are you aware of the existence of large red states?
----
No sense to YOU. Bush already had most of the votes in the RED states. There was more votes to be mined in the big BLUE states. Of course you don’t accept that. Neither did Farhad. I wonder why.

9. I accept your concession: Bush's performance increased in almost every NY county, so you have to waffle back and forth between official NY returns and national exit poll tabulations.

Can you really not know your further error here? That national exit poll tabulation does not match the official returns. The overall Bush and Kerry vote shares should more or less match, but the official returns don't show a big increase in big-city turnout. This has been explained many times.
-----
Look at the NYC returns. Did Bush gain share or not?
Bush’s RECORDED vote share INCREASED in almost every county.
His TRUE VOTE share DECREASED in almost every county.

Do you really expect anyone to believe that with 35% NY approval Bush increased his True vote share in NY state? Did Nader voters break for him? Did new voters break for him? Even returning Bush voters broke away from him. That’s what happens when you have 35-40% approval.

10. I accept your concession: you claim that "VOTES WERE MISCOUNTED NOT BY LEVERS, BUT BY HUMANS," so the jams are largely irrelevant.
------
I do not accept your putting words in my mouth.
Levers were at least 0.77% responsible.
I do not concede that they are perfect.

11. I accept your concession: the low residual vote rate proves that jams didn't have a large effect on the final results.
------
I accept only that you are clueless. Many folks got disgusted and never voted. They did not show up in the exit polls. As usual, you resort to cherry-picking. No points for you.

12. I accept your concession: your evidence is so weak that your best play is to demand that I convince you.
------
I concede only that you haven’t convinced anyone of a thing in all the years you have been fogging. Why should I expect you to convince me of anything? I take that back. You convinced Farhad Manjoo to write that hit piece on RFK, Jr. How did that work out for you?

13. Deja vu all over again.
----
I accept your concession.

14. I accept your concession: you still have no response to my arguments, so you attack me.
----
Pot calling Kettle black.
As HST once said when asked why he gave the GOP hell:
I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.

Why should the Truth be hell?

15. At best, it's the same old unsupported argument from incredulity.
-----
I accept your non-responsive concession.

[OnTheOtherHand]

79. yeah, well

Within DU rules, there's probably not much I can say about your post, except that I think it fails massively at the outset, and doesn't really improve.

I looked for anything here that might merit a response. You probably actually don't see the points that you're ignoring in my previous post, just like you didn't see the point in post 50. Repeating them is unlikely to help. (For instance, on 3, you've completely missed my point. But then, you've managed to miss the point about the NES panel more times than I can remember.)

"But you do thrash him indirectly every time you say the exit polls suck."

Simple difference between Mitofsky and you: he wanted to know the truth about the exit polls; you don't. It has nothing to do with thrashing him, or saying they "suck."

"I do not concede that they are perfect."

Great. I don't either. Will you ever stop making up other people's arguments?

"You convinced Farhad Manjoo to write that hit piece on RFK, Jr."

:eyes: Umm, yeah, I'm pretty much the focus of evil in the modern world.

(In case you missed it, the preceding was snark. Your assertion here is pure bullshit, just like the assertion that I worked for Mitofsky.)

[Febble]

80. No, I'm still here :)

How are you doing?

[OnTheOtherHand]

23. wanna play "Urban Legend"?

Go ahead. Make my day. :evilgrin:

Bush could not have improved his vote share in Democratic areas while breaking even or losing share in Republican rural areas and small towns.

Funny you should mention that. So, in how many New York counties did Bush's official vote share decline from 2000 to 2004?

Let's see if you can make an argument about this without linking to any of TIA's crappy charts.

[WillE]

28. This will not make your day. It will spoil it.

You attempted to discredit the original “Urban Legend” analysis as soon at it was presented. It was not unexpected. That’s what you do.

Crappy charts, eh? Love your choice of words. Quite revealing as to your state of mind. It is so you, OTOH. Smarmy. Nasty. Unprofessional. Not very nice.

I can understand why you don’t want me to include the links. They illustrate the facts too clearly. Not surprising you would want to avoid the facts at all cost – even if it means calling them “crappy.” That’s what you do.

I will link to them since they refute your case just like Michael Collins (autorank) did when the Urban Legend myth was exposed on DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=474094&mesg_id=474094

Let me remind you that the “official” Bush county vote shares were inflated across the state. The official data is all we have since the exit pollsters (i.e. the mainstream media) refuse to release unadjusted exit poll precinct data.

Although we don’t have the TRUE county vote for 2000 and 2004, we have enough information to work with - the bogus recorded county vote.

The vote changes are based on the reported “official” Election Day votes; they do not include late votes. The recorded (LEVER) votes were NOT “contaminated” by the 500,000 late (PAPER BALLOT) votes.

The strong 0.61correlation between the percentage change in the Bush recorded county vote from 2000 and population size proves his vote was inflated in urban (Democratic) counties. What does the strong correlation tell you?

On the other hand, there was a weak .07 correlation between the percentage change in the Kerry recorded county vote (from Gore in 2000) and population size. What does the lack of correlation tell you?

Were Kerry votes uncounted and Bush votes “stuffed” - or was it a combination of both?



As a political “scientist”, I assume you would have a plausible explanation(s).
And that is what the Urban Legend is all about, isn’t it?


OTOH, refute the NY county Lever vote/population size correlation analysis.
In other words, go ahead and try once again to debunk the Urban Legend study.

NY STATE COUNTY-SIZE / VOTE CHANGE CORRELATION

Correlation of county recorded vote to...

Change in Bush margin: 0.57 (strong)

Bush percentage vote gain: 0.61 (strong)
Kerry percentage vote gain: .07 (none)
Nader percentage vote loss: -0.23 (small)

Bush vote gain: 0.92 (almost perfect)
Kerry vote gain: 0.69 (strong)
Nader vote loss: -0.94 (almost perfect negative)


And now let’s link to the corresponding “crappy” graphs.

As the old saying goes: None are so blind as those who will not see.
Do you dare look?
It may hurt you to look but it could help others.

Recorded vote change for the largest 15 NY counties


County size and Bush percentage vote increase


2000/2004 National Exit Poll vote share changes by location-size


According to the Preliminary 2004 National Exit Poll (9pm, 11027 respondents), Bush’s rural vote share declined 6% from 59% in 2000 to 53% in 2004. You believe the NEP at this timeline was bogus. OK.

Consider the Final 2004 NEP, which was FORCED TO MATCH the recorded vote: Bush’s rural vote share declined from 59% to 56%!

OTOH, you must believe the Final since you have always claimed, contrary to all the evidence that Bush won the popular vote, even if he may not have in Ohio – although you don’t “think” he did. Tell that to Richard Hayes Phillips.

An unbiased observer would expect that if the New York 2004 unadjusted state exit poll was released, it would show that Bush lost vote shares in counties other than just Columbia County.

Now if any DUers show up who agree with this analysis, don’t go accusing them of not reading or understanding it. You understand it. But as sure as the sum will rise tomorrow, you will try to denigrate it. That’s what you do, Mr. Other. Inquiring minds want to know: Why all the effort?

OTOH, I’M SORRY IF I HAVE SPOILED YOUR DAY.

[OnTheOtherHand]

29. you just aren't very good at analysis, apparently

I don't think it's nasty or unprofessional to call crap crappy; even if it is, the crap remains crappy regardless. If you want to depict a relationship between "county size and vote change" (whatever exactly those variables are), a standard and reasonable way to do it is a scatterplot -- not a sorted bar chart with a diagonal dotted line through it. The latter raises questions about the intentions and/or competence of the analyst.

You didn't directly answer my question, but your own urban legend scatterplot bar chart from hell indicates that Bush did better in 2004 than in 2000 in all but one New York county. So much for Bush "breaking even or losing share in Republican rural areas and small towns."* If that's what you meant by the urban legend being a myth, then I guess we agree, and I appreciate your concession.

* Of course, this chart doesn't display "share" at all, which in my opinion is a weakness. But in this case the answer is the same: Bush's vote share increased in all but one New York county.

The bar chart from hell does also indicate that Bush did relatively better in some downstate counties (but not in other cities such as Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse). It hypes that finding by displaying ratios from low bases. For instance, in Brooklyn, Bush increased his vote share by about 8.6 points; it looks very impressive in this chart because Bush's vote share in 2000 was under 16%, but an 8.6-point swing is an 8.6-point swing no matter what the previous percentage was.

To look at it another way, altogether Bush got about 190,000 more votes in the five boroughs in 2004 than in 2000 -- and there were about 7.4 million votes cast. Even if we assume -- for no particular reason -- that all those votes are stolen, we're nowhere near the exit poll result. (Go ahead, throw in some more counties. No point in my trying to do all your work for you.)

I actually can't replicate your correlations; you claim to have lever-only returns, but you've posted neither the data nor the evidence. So, for now, I'll file that alongside the claims that Oregon is the only 100% paper state (whatever that even means) and the only 2004 battleground or strong Democratic state within the margin of error. At any rate, you may sincerely believe that it is impossible for Bush to have done so 'well' in the NY metro area without fraud, but your sincere belief doesn't constitute evidence. Sorry.

[WillE]

30. Your disinformation campaign rolls on

Do you wear your mantle proudly as the premier polling disinformationist on the Internet?
I will admit I had it wrong when I stated that Oregon was the only non-Red state which fell within the MoE.


I meant to say that Oregon was the only non-Red state among the 14 lowest WPE. It is the only state that votes 100% by mail-in ballots.


Do you ever admit it when you misstate the facts? In case you didn’t know it before, you know it now.
The Oregon MoE was 1.8%
In their 2004 Evaluation report, the exit pollsters state
“Note: The above analysis does not include the Oregon president and senate races where
all interviews were done by telephone”.

That’s because voting was done by mail; there were no precincts.

On page 42: “The WPE was greater in the more competitive “swing” states. For this analysis, the following were considered swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This indicates that voters in the swing states (who were exposed to more paid advertising and media coverage than voters in non-swing states) were less likely to respond to the exit poll: but among those who did, more likely to be Kerry voters”.

Some other facts for you yo mull over:
The MoE (excluding a cluster effect factor) was exceeded in 29 states
(22 were Democratic BLUE or Battleground states; 7 were RED states)
The average MoE was 2.44% for all states.

The MoE (30% cluster effect) was exceeded in 24 states.
The average MoE was 3.17% for all states.
Of 28 Battleground/ BLUE states, 9 (32%) were within the MoE: HI IL IA MD ME MA OR RI WI
Of 22 RED states, the MoE was exceeded in 5 (23%)
27 of the highest WPE states were Battleground or solid BLUE.




http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/EvaluationEMElectionSystem2004.htm



you just aren't very good at analysis, apparently



1
I don't think it's nasty or unprofessional to call crap crappy; even if it is, the crap remains crappy regardless. If you want to depict a relationship between "county size and vote change" (whatever exactly those variables are), a standard and reasonable way to do it is a scatterplot -- not a sorted bar chart with a diagonal dotted line through it. The latter raises questions about the intentions and/or competence of the analyst.
------

No, Mr. Other, your attempts to refute the analysis are crap.
You call yourself an analyst; I call you a misinformationist.

You have no idea what county vote size and vote change are?
Then you have no business replying to my post.
If you don’t know what the variables mean, you are woefully ignorant.
If you do know, but are just blowing misinformation, you are just doing your job.

Don’t like the bar chart? Too bad. Unlike your indecipherable swing vs. red shift scatter-brained plot, viewers of TIA’s county vote change vs. size (that’s size of the recorded vote, as if you didn’t know) can actually see the trend lines; downward sloping for Bush from the biggest to smallest counties – a 0.57 correlation. And they can see the county names as well.

2
You didn't directly answer my question, but your own urban legend scatterplot bar chart from hell indicates that Bush did better in 2004 than in 2000 in all but one New York county. So much for Bush "breaking even or losing share in Republican rural areas and small towns."* If that's what you meant by the urban legend being a myth, then I guess we agree, and I appreciate your concession.


* Of course, this chart doesn't display "share" at all, which in my opinion is a weakness. But in this case the answer is the same: Bush's vote share increased in all but one New York county.
---

It shows the CHANGE in COUNTY share vs. COUNTY recorded vote. That is what the Urban Legend is all about, isn’t it? Do you have any clue as to what a statistical correlation is? Stop playing games. You remind me of the deathers who are opposed to health care. Why do you continue to blow smoke? What are afraid of?

What concession? I only concede that you are the most prolific source of disinformation to be found anywhere. You should have conceded a long time ago. You really do work overtime to confuse everyone, don’t you, Mr. Other?

A fair observer with a modicum of intelligence would see that it’s the correlation, it’s the PATTERN. The biggest Bush vote gains were in the BIGGEST urban areas – like 75% in Brooklyn. That is obvious from the graph to any fair observer - which of course you ain’t.

Let me make this as clear as possible. I am not trying to convince you.
Just to expose you as others have done many times before. How can you continue to self-immolate and still stand up?

3
The bar chart from hell does also indicate that Bush did relatively better in some downstate counties (but not in other cities such as Albany, Buffalo, and Syracuse). It hypes that finding by displaying ratios from low bases. For instance, in Brooklyn, Bush increased his vote share by about 8.6 points; it looks very impressive in this chart because Bush's vote share in 2000 was under 16%, but an 8.6-point swing is an 8.6-point swing no matter what the previous percentage was.
----

Hypes by displaying ratios from low bases?

WOW!

MR. OTHER, YOU REALLY HAVE NO CLUE, DO YOU?
THE BIGGEST CHANGES WERE IN THE BIGGEST COUNTIES!

THERE, DO YOU HEAR ME NOW?

4
To look at it another way, altogether Bush got about 190,000 more votes in the five boroughs in 2004 than in 2000 -- and there were about 7.4 million votes cast. Even if we assume -- for no particular reason -- that all those votes are stolen, we're nowhere near the exit poll result. (Go ahead, throw in some more counties. No point in my trying to do all your work for you.)
------

Those are THE BOGUS RECORDED VOTES. Got that? How many times does one have to hit you in the head with that BASIC concept? The point is this. One more time. The Bush votes were INFLATED. Will you ever understand that?

It is really sad to see that you continue on that bridge to nowhere. Since 2005 when TIA was posting here, you hopped on that bridge and are still on it. What’s the point? Who put you on it. The same people who built it for Sarah Palin. Why don’t you come home and get out of the cold.

5
I actually can't replicate your correlations; you claim to have lever-only returns, but you've posted neither the data nor the evidence. So, for now, I'll file that alongside the claims that Oregon is the only 100% paper state (whatever that even means) and the only 2004 battleground or strong Democratic state within the margin of error. At any rate, you may sincerely believe that it is impossible for Bush to have done so 'well' in the NY metro area without fraud, but your sincere belief doesn't constitute evidence. Sorry.
-----
Can’t replicate the correlations? Jeez, why don’t you just get the NY county vote data from 2000 and 2004, like TIA did and crunch the numbers?

As for Oregon, you really have no idea what a 100% paper ballot state is? Are you putting us all on? This is quite pathetic. You read it at the top of the post.

I already admitted that I misspoke about the Oregon MoE. You have certainly had ample opportunities to correct the hundreds of misstatements that you have made over the years. But you have not and will not ever do so. It’s not what you do.

Anyway, I will put a merciful end to this by reminding you that my point was that Oregon was the only Blue state among the all those Red states with a low 1.8 MoE. The Red states, Mr. PolySci, had low WPE’s because they hardly had any Democratic votes worth stealing. Oregon had a low WPE because it was a paper ballot mail-in state.

Mitofsky must be rolling over in his grave.

[OnTheOtherHand]

31. sigh

So, are you claiming that to have all mail-in ballots somehow is an assurance of election integrity? Do I need to walk you through why that is implausible? Are you sure you actually have a point?

I meant to say that Oregon was the only non-Red state among the 14 lowest WPE.

(Quoted for truth.)

You meant to say that? But somehow you made an unrelated claim about margin of error instead? Riiiiiiiight.

Has it crossed your mind that Oregon actually didn't have a WPE at all, because -- as you just pointed out -- it didn't have precincts?

[WillE]

32. Mr. Other, you have been exposed

That is so weak and disingenuous
You can’t even admit that you were wrong. It’s not what you do. You are very good at that.
You questioned my statement up-thread that Oregon is 100% paper ballots. You disinfo without even thinking about it..

So you just build another strawman to change the subject.
Election integrity? Where is your integrity?
1
So, are you claiming that to have all mail-in ballots somehow is an assurance of election integrity? Do I need to walk you through why that is implausible? Are you sure you actually have a point?
I meant to say that Oregon was the only non-Red state among the 14 lowest WPE.
(Quoted for truth.)
You meant to say that? But somehow you made an unrelated claim about margin of error instead? Riiiiiiiight.
---
I admitted I misspoke. Like you did about Oregon paper ballots. But you won't admit it.



2

Has it crossed your mind that Oregon actually didn't have a WPE at all, because -- as you just pointed out -- it didn't have precincts?
-----

Disengenuous # 2. E-M conducted the exit poll via phone since there are no precincts. And they measured the responses to be a 1.8% error from the recorded vote.


I called it WPE. But, you Mr. Literal, are getting frustrated.

The post-election polling ERROR was 1.8%. There, does THAT make you feel better?

[OnTheOtherHand]

34. uh, no

I didn't question that Oregon was 100% paper ballots, nor was that what you claimed. How simple do things have to be for you, anyway?

E-M conducted the exit poll via phone since there are no precincts.

Or, in ordinary English, there was no exit poll in Oregon. Doh.

In your world, apparently this fact is obviously irrelevant. 'Wow, isn't it amazing how accurate the exit poll was in a state where there wasn't an exit poll?' Yeah, amazing.

[OnTheOtherHand]

53. (crickets) n/t

[WillE]

145. CORRECTION TO LATE NY PAPER VOTES; EXIT POLL COMPARISONS

NY Initial (Lever) vs. Late (Paper ballot) Comparison 

Average Dem Election Day Lever vote share (60.0%)
Average Dem Late Paper vote share (66.9%)

2000 small exit poll deviation from late vote: 2.1% (3.3 WPE} 

2004 high exit poll deviation from late vote: 6.6% (12.2 WPE)

2008 Calculated True Vote as exit poll proxy based on Final
NEP 
(exit poll report not released)  

Democratic vote shares						

	Lever	Dem	Share		Paper	Dem	Share
2000	6,270	3,747	59.8%		552	361	65.4%
2004	6,892	3,993	57.9%		499	321	64.3%
2008	7,011	4,360	62.2%		584	412	70.7%
							
Total	20,174	12,100	60.0%		1,635	1,094	66.9%

					Deviation from Lever		
	Total	Official Exit		Paper	Exit	
2000	6,822	60.2%	61.9%		5.6%	2.1%	
2004	7,391	58.4%	64.5%		6.4%	6.6%	
2008	7,595	62.8%	67.5%		8.5%	5.3%	
							
Total	21,808	60.5%	64.6%		6.8%	4.7%	

[Wilms]

146. 4.5 years and you're still making "corrections". That's inspiring. n/t

[WillE]

147. You never have to correct a thing. Cuz you never do analysis. Very uninspiring.

Like your one-liner.
Is that all you can offer?

This thread has really upset you.
I didn't mean to do it.

You did it to yourself.
Because you have your fingers in your ears.
You need to lever your closed mind.

I have nothing against levers per se.
Only that they are not transparent.
They are just machines.
They don't steal elections.
People do.

In NY, PEOPLE enter precinct LEVER data into a COMPUTER PROGRAM.
YOU KNOW THAT, DON'T YOU?

But you are definitely transparent.
Because you must resort to childish personal attacks.

Oh, in case you forgot, my name is WillE.
I just remind you of TIA.
What do you have against him, anyway?

Why don't you download a few of TIA's models like I did.
They are free, you know.
Maybe you'll even learn something from them.

THEY WILL FORCE YOU TO THINK.
YOU NEED TO EXERCISE YOUR MIND.

LEVER(AGE) IT.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00242.htm

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

This week is our third quarter 2009 fund drive. Democratic Underground is
a completely independent website. We depend on donations from our members
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[Wilms]

36. Well, we're gonna let an exit poll define your programming. OK, Grov?

Nothin' personal.

:D

[defendandprotect]

45. The reality is we have had GOP election theft for decades . . . with complicity of corporate press .

See Votescam - The Stealing of America

Two journalists in Florida were investigating computer voting theft back in the late 1960's . . .
and wrote a book on it which was suppressed.

These computers also began to come in -- mid-1960's large ones used by corporate media --
individual voting machines late 1960's -- coincidentally, around the time we were passing The
Voting Rights Act!

http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

[WillE]

81. Election Fraud is endemic. These TIA graphs debunk all the Disinfo.

A Graphic Debunking of Election Myths (TIA)

TruthIsAll

August 10, 2009

THE MYTHS
1 The recorded (official) vote is sacrosanct and equal to the True Vote.
2 Bush 48% approval is not a valid indicator that the election was stolen.
3 2004 pre-election polls did not match the exit polls.
4 2004 Election model projection assumptions were wrong.
5 Bush led the 2004 pre-election polls.

6 Exit polls are not random samples.
7 Reluctant Bush Responder (rBr) explains the 2004 exit poll discrepancies.
8 Bush won by increasing his vote share in Democratic strongholds(Urban Legend).
9 Swing vs. Red-shift: No correlation "kills the fraud argument".
10 False Recall explains the 43/37 Bush/Gore returning voter mix in the Final NEP.

11 Exit poll discrepancies were not due to voting machines/methods.
12 Assumptions used in calculating the True Vote were invalid.
13 Bush won the late voters the early exit polls missed.
14 Mid-term Generic polls are not a good predictor.
15 Hillary and Obama split the popular vote in the primaries.
16 Obama won by 9.5 million votes with a 52.9% share.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/2004ElectionFraudAnalysis.pdf

_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - The recorded (official) vote is sacrosanct and is equal to the True Vote.

Fact - In every election there are millions of net uncounted votes (uncounted less stuffed ballots).
Fact - Net Uncounted Votes = Total Cast - Recorded
Fact - In order to match the recorded vote,the Final National Exit Polls (1968, 1988, 1992, 2004 and 2008) required that returning Nixon and Bush voter turnout exceed 100% (i.e. there were millions of phantom voters).
Fact - Using total votes cast and feasible returning voter turnout, average historical Democratic True Share exceeded the official share by 4.7%.











_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Bush 48% approval is not a valid indicator that the election was stolen.

Fact - In every election since 1972, the incumbent won re-election if his approval
rating exceeded 50%.
Fact - Bush was the ONLY incumbent with approval below 50% to win re-election!
Fact - Bush monthly pre-election approval was highly correlated to the national polls.
Fact - Average incumbent approval EXACTLY matched the average True vote (46.5%)!







_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - 2004 pre-election polls did not match the exit polls.

Fact - After adjusting for undecided voters, the average of the pre-election state
and national polls matched the corresponding unadjusted exit poll.





_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - 2004 Election model projection assumptions were wrong

Fact - the base case assumption was that Kerry would win 75% of the undecided vote.
But a sensitivity analysis showed that he won with 50%.
Fact - Historically challengers have won undecideds over 80% of the time.
Fact - Gallup assigned 90% of undecided voters to Kerry.


_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Bush led the pre-election polls.

Fact - Kerry had a 1% lead in the final pre-election polls before undecided voters
were allocated; he led by 3% after allocation.
Fact - Kerry led Register Voter polls by a higher margin than Likely Voter polls.
Fact - Registered Voter pre-election polls were more accurate than LV polls.
Fact -There were 22 million new voters. Kerry won 57-60% of new voters.








_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Exit polls are not random samples; the margin of error is high.

Fact - Exit pollster notes to the National Exit Poll (13047 respondents) indicate
that voters were RANDOMLY SELECTED as they exited the voting booths.
Fact - the pollsters STATED that the National Exit Poll MoE was 1.0%.



_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Reluctant Bush Responder (rBr) explains the exit poll discrepancies

Fact - The Final National Exit Poll indicated that returning Bush voters comprised
43% of the electorate and only 37% were Gore voters.
Fact - Bush needed 55% of non-responders to match his vote. He had 47% of responders.
Fact - Exit poll response was HIGH in strong Bush states and LOW in Kerry states.






_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Bush GAINED vote share from 2000 to 2004 in DEMOCRATIC Urban locations.

Fact - He LOST vote share in REPUBLICAN rural areas and small towns.
Fact - The strong 0.61 CORRELATION between county size and percentage increase in the Bush vote is a clear indication of fraud and debunks the Urban Legend myth.







_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth: Zero correlation between Swing and Red-shift "kills the fraud argument".

Fact - Swing, the change in Bush RECORDED vote share from 2000 to 2004, is an
incorrect measure. TRUE VOTE Swing, based on total votes CAST, should be used.
Fact- The correlation between TRUE vote swing and recorded red-shift was
significantly NEGATIVE.

Correlation Summary:
Recorded Swing vs. Recorded Red-shift: -0.05
True Swing vs. True Red shift: -0.34
Recorded Swing vs. True Red-shift: -0.56
True Swing vs. Recorded Red-shift: -0.44

Fact - Kathy Dopp of U.S. Count Votes proved that it is not NECESSARY that there be a CORRELATION between swing and red-shift for fraud to occur; the assertion was logically false.

Fact - In 2000 there were 110.8 million votes cast and 105.4 million recorded.
Fact - In 2004 there were 125.7 million votes cast and 122.3 million recorded.
Fact - From 70-80% of uncounted votes were for Gore and Kerry.





_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - False Recall explains the 43/37 Bush/Gore returning voter mix in the Final National Exit Poll.

Fact - This assumes that the recorded vote is the baseline.
Fact - Gore won the recorded vote in 2000 by 540,000.
Fact - There is no evidence to suggest Gore voters forgot or were motivated to lie.
Fact - Retrospective surveys matched the True Vote when total votes CAST were used.

In 1968-2008, the average NES winning margin was 11.43%.
The average True Vote winning margin was 10.63%.
The average True Vote winning share deviated by 0.40% from NES.
The average Democratic True winning share deviated by 0.70%.
The average Republican True winning share deviated by 0.46%.




_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth- Exit poll discrepancies were not due to voting machines/methods.

Fact - Lever machines had the highest error (WPE) rates (11%).
Paper ballots had the lowest (2%) rate.
Touch screens and optical scanners had a 7% rate.



_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Assumptions used in the True Vote model were invalid

Fact - The Final was FORCED TO MATCH THE RECORDED VOTE.
Fact - The 43/37 returning Bush/Gore voter mix was IMPOSSIBLE.
Fact - The mix required over 6 million PHANTOM Bush voters
Fact - The Final also adjusted corresponding Bush vote shares to implausible levels.
Fact - A SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS for various vote share assumptions showed that Kerry won all plausible scenarios.








_____________________________________________________________________________

Myth - Bush late voters were missed by the early exit polls.

Fact - Kerry won 55% of the final 6 million votes recorded after election day.
Fact - The National Exit Poll time line (4pm, 730pm, 1222am)had Kerry winning by 3%. Fact - The unadjusted state exit poll aggregate had Kerry winning by 5%.


_____________________________________________________________________________

2006 Midterms

Myth - Mid term Generic polls are not a good predictor of the Recorded Vote.

Fact - That is correct. But they accurately predict the TRUE VOTE.
Fact - The Generic 120 pre-election poll trend had the Democrats winning with 56.4%.
Fast - The Democrats won the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate with 56.4%.




_____________________________________________________________________________

2008 Primaries

Myth - Hillary and Obama were close in the popular vote.

Fact - Pre-election and exit polls showed Obama to be the winner in the NH primary.
Fact - Hillary finished third in the Iowas Caucus behind John Edwards.
Fact - Super Tuesday exit polls showed Obama to be the clear winner.
Fact - Rush Limbaugh called for an "Operation Chaos" to get Republicans to cross
over and vote for Clinton. It worked.





_____________________________________________________________________________

2008 General

Myth - Obama won by 9.5 million votes with a 52.9% share.

Fact - A True Vote analysis shows Obama won by at least double his recorded margin.
Fact - Final National Exit Poll vote shares were used with a revised, feasible mix
of returning Bush and Kerry voters.
Fact - Obama won by 22 million assuming 2004 was FRAUDULENT (Kerry won by 52-47%).
Fact - Obama won by 17 million assuming ZERO FRAUD (Bush won by 3.0 million).

[OnTheOtherHand]

82. TIA FAQ: whined about, but never refuted

table of contents

introduction

PDF of entire document

I haven't bothered to update it for 2008.

Just to take one of your "myths," briefly:

3 2004 pre-election polls did not match the exit polls.

Pennsylvania exit poll: Kerry +13.8 (Best Geo estimate). Got any pre-election polls that match that? even after being TIA-ified? :hi:

[WillE]

83. You concede when all you can do you is cherry-pick

PA 2004 True Vote Analysis								
												
You have conceded and don’t know it.
You always concede when you are forced to cherry-pick
individual polls.
You are thrashing Mitofsky again in favor of one of your
cherry-picked polls.

As a matter of fact, TIA has done a PA True Vote analysis.
You of course, can do nothing but cherry-pick.
You have never done a legitimate analysis.
But TIA does it all the time.

A True Vote PA analysis gave Kerry a 54.6-44.5% margin.
The exit poll was 55.1-44.6%.
So Mitofsky was probably right about PA.
And once again, you are left wanting.

Of course you will surely say that TIA forced the vote match –
like the exit pollsters always do.That’s because you don’t
know the first thing about True Vote analysis and modeling.

But informed readers know that TIA doesn’t cherry-pick.
He does the work that you won't or cannot do.

											
												
PA	2000			2004								
	Recorded
Cast	Alive	Turnout	Mix	Kerry	Bush	Other	Kerry	Bush	Other
DNV	 -	 -	 -	1,201 	20.6%	59.4%	39.3%	1.3%	713 	472 	16   
Gore	2,486 	2,542 	2,415 	2,367 	40.5%	91.5%	7.9%	0.6%	2,165
	186 	15   
Bush	2,281 	2,296 	2,181 	2,138 	36.6%	10.6%	89.4%	0.0%	226
	1,912 	0   
Other	146 	150 	142 	139 	2.4%	64.0%	23.7%	12.3%	89 	33 	17   
												
True 	4,913 	4,988 	4,739 	5,845 		54.6%	44.5%	0.8%	3,193
	2,603 	48  
												
2000	Bush	Gore	Other	Recorded	50.9%	48.4%	0.7%	2,938 	2,794
	38  
Record	46.4%	50.6%	3.0%	Disc	         3.7%	-3.9%	0.2%	255
	(190)	11  
ExitP	46.0%	51.0%	3.0%	Exit Poll	55.1%	44.2%	0.7%	3,180 	2,552
	38  
Cast	46.0%	51.0%	3.0%	Discrepancy	-0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	13 	52  11
	75 
												
										
												
												
PA Sensitivity Analysis	

												
Kerry		Kerry Share				Kerry Share		
% DNV		of Gore					of Bush	 Share of DNV	91%
-	89%	90%	91%	92%	93%		-	55%	56%	57%	58%	59%
												
59%	53.5%	54.0%	54.4%	54.8%	55.2%		12%	55.0%	55.2%	55.4%	55.6%
55.8%
58%	53.3%	53.7%	54.2%	54.6%	55.0%		11%	54.6%	54.8%	55.0%	55.2%
55.4%
57%	53.1%	53.5%	53.9%	54.4%	54.8%		10%	54.2%	54.4%	54.6%	54.8%
55.0%
56%	52.9%	53.3%	53.7%	54.1%	54.6%		9%	53.9%	54.1%	54.2%	54.4%
54.6%
55%	52.7%	53.1%	53.5%	53.9%	54.3%		8%	53.5%	53.7%	53.9%	54.1%
54.3%
												
		Kerry Margin					Kerry Margin
		(in thousands)					(in thousands)			
 												
59%	463 	510 	558 	605 	652 		12%	635 	657 	680 	703   725 
58%	439 	486 	534 	581 	628 		11%	590 	612 	635 	658   680 
57%	415 	462 	510 	557 	604 		10%	544 	567 	590 	613   635 
56%	391 	438 	486 	533 	580 		9%	499 	522 	545 	567   590 
55%	367 	414 	461 	509 	556 		8%	454 	477 	500 	522   545 

[OnTheOtherHand]

85. I didn't cherrypick

PA is a striking example, but looking at pre-election polls across the country leads to the same conclusion. That's the whole point of my "surprise" analysis: if one looks at all the state pre-election polls, they don't indicate fraud, unless the fraud is essentially uniform across states. You haven't rebutted that analysis; you've ignored it.

As a matter of fact, TIA has done a PA True Vote analysis.
I don't give a good goddamn whether "TIA has done a PA True Vote analysis." I asked whether any pre-election polls support the notion that Kerry won by double-digits. But you knew that, right?

[WillE]

84. He refuted it in spades

TruthIsAll
Feb. 26, 2009

The original TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ was written in late 2006 by Mark Lindeman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Mark has frequented election reform sites since 2004, relentlessly attempting to rebut the analyses of many researchers that indicate Bush stole the election beyond a reasonable doubt. He has focused most heavily on the statistical analysis that I have presented on the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections in various election forums. Most election researchers agree that the election was stolen in 2004. The statistical evidence is just as strong that election fraud cut the 12% Democratic landslide margin to 6% in the 2006 midterms, costing them 10-20 House seats. And fraud reduced Obama’s 15% margin to less than 7%, reducing his mandate from over 20 million to 9.5 million recorded votes.

That is what the evidence shows, regardless of whether or not it is ever discussed in the media. Statistical analysts and political scientists who have looked at the evidence are well aware of the fraud, but are still waiting for the Democratic politicians and the GOP controlled media to get the ball rolling. In the meantime, only a handful of bloggers and truth-seekers will even touch the subject. Books hane been written which show that massive fraud in the form of voter disenfranchisement and vote miscounts occurred in 2000-2008, yet not one that presents a statistical analysis to show how Bush won in 2004.

The TruthIsAll FAQ Response was written within a month of Mark’s posting. Now that the 2008 election is history, the National Exit Poll and other anomalous results confirm to a virtual 100% probability, that the 2006 landslide was denied, just like 2006 confirmed that the 2004 election was stolen. This update to the original response will show why 2008 is further confirmation that the elections were stolen in 2000 and 2004, and that landslides were denied in 2006 and 2008.

In order to help the reader quickly become familiar with the main areas of focus, I have included a brief summary of the questions posed to Mark in the original FAQ – along with a short (often a one-line) summary of our responses. The full text follows the summary.

A TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ
by Mark Lindeman

TruthIsAll (TIA) is the pseudonym of a former Democratic Underground (DU) regular who now posts elsewhere. Many of his writings are available at http://www.truthisall.net. TIA argues, among other things, that the 2004 U.S. presidential pre-election polls and the exit polls both indicate that John Kerry won the election.

Who is TruthIsAll (TIA) and why do you care what he says?
I don't know who he is. Apparently he has worked in quantitative analysis for many years; he has described himself as an "Excel expert." His allegations of election fraud -- in particular, his enumeration of (presumably far-fetched) things one must believe in order to believe that Bush won the 2004 election -- formed the template for the 2005 Project Censored story making the same case.

Many people believe that TIA's arguments irrefutably demonstrate that John Kerry won the popular vote and the election. Many more people believe that TIA's arguments have no merit whatsoever, and therefore don't bother to try to refute them. I do not like to see weak arguments go unchallenged. (But plenty of people have criticized TIA's arguments -- I make no claim to originality.)

I also think that these particular weak arguments lead to poor political judgments. If TruthIsAll is right, it follows that the 2004 election was obviously stolen. So, one might conclude, among other things, that (1) most voters preferred Kerry to Bush, (2) Democratic political leaders are effectively complicit in a cover-up, and (3) Democrats cannot win crucial elections until and unless the current voting systems are thrown out. I disagree with all of these conclusions.

(Now that the Democrats have won House and Senate majorities in the 2006 election, argument #3 must be modulated. Fraud-minded observers now often argue that the Republicans stole some votes and even some seats, but that either for some reason they could not -- or did not dare? -- steal enough votes, or that they had to decide how many votes to steal several weeks in advance, and were caught flat-footed by a late Democratic surge. As I address on the Miscellaneous page, I have seen no convincing evidence of widespread vote miscount.

OK, so what are TIA's arguments?
He has many posts, but many of them make these basic claims:
Pre-election polls (both state and national) gave Kerry better than a 99% chance of winning the election.
Well-established political generalizations, such as the "incumbent rule," buttress the conclusion that Kerry should have won.
The exit polls gave Kerry a lead in the popular vote well beyond the statistical margin of error, and diverged substantially from the official results in many states, generally overstating Kerry's vote total. (This claim is largely true, although not everything TIA says about it is.)

Fraud is the only good explanation of the exit poll discrepancies. In particular, there is no good reason to believe that Kerry voters participated in the exit polls
at a higher rate than Bush voters. Since Kerry did better than Bush among people who did not vote in 2000, Bush would have had to do much better among Gore 2000 voters than Kerry did among Bush 2000 voters -- and that can't have happened.

It is pretty easy to look around and determine that not many political scientists are expressing agreement with these views. But why not? It could be that political scientists have a status quo bias and/or are afraid to rock the boat by confronting unpleasant truths; perhaps some are even paid by Karl Rove. It could be that political scientists simply haven't looked at the evidence. It could be that political scientists see gaping holes in TIA's arguments. It could be some combination of those factors, and others besides. For what it's worth, I will explain at some length why I don't agree with TIA's views.

Please note that this is not a one-size-fits-all election integrity FAQ.

Do you think that electronic voting machines are almost ridiculously insecure and unreliable?
I do, although I certainly don't agree with every word of every critic. Do you think that John Kerry won or should have won Ohio? You may be right. I don't know. I doubt it, but I haven't set out to knock down each and every argument about fraud or vote suppression in the 2004 election -- in fact, I agree with several of them. But the arguments (by TIA and others) that Kerry won the popular vote are not at all likely to be true, in my opinion.I have rarely quoted TIA at length because (1) the FAQ is already very long and (2) TIA's writing is often hard to read. But if you think I have mischaracterized one of his arguments, or if you have other questions or comments about the FAQ, please feel free to contact me at @bard.edu.

TIA:
These are just a few well-known researchers whose analyses confirm mine: Steve Freeman, Ron Baiman, Kathy Dopp, Greg Palast, RFK Jr., Mark C. Miller, Bob Fitrakis, Michael Keefer, John Conyers, Richard Hayes Phillips, Paul Lehto, etc. At least four have advanced degrees in applied mathematics or systems analysis. I have three degrees in applied mathematics.

It would be useful if you would mention the names of the political scientists or statisticians who disagree with my analysis and believe that Bush won the election fairly in 2004. How do they account for his 3 million “mandate”? How do they explain where Bush found 16 million new voters net of voter mortality and turnout? What are their confirming demographics? Do any of the analysts you refer to have degrees in mathematics or statistics? Did their 2004 projections match the exit polls? Or did they match the vote miscount? Have any of them ever written about or considered election fraud in their analysis? Have they analyzed the impact of uncounted votes on election results? What is their track record? Were their projections based on economic or political factors or did they use state and national polling? What was the time period between Election Day and their final projections?

FAQ Summary and response
(click the chapter title and scroll to view the full text)

1. The Pre-Election Polls

1.1. What did the national pre-election polls indicate?
According to most observers, most pre-election polls put George W. Bush slightly ahead of John Kerry.

TIA: That is simply not true. The final pre-election polls had the race essentially tied, with Kerry slightly ahead. For example, Gallup’s final had it 49-47 Bush leading, but they allocated 90% of the undecided to Kerry to arrive at a 49-49 tie. Real Clear Politics lists the final LV samples and not the RVs. Kerry and Obama did better in the RVs since there were many newly registered voters. In 2004, the final five pre-election polls understated registered voter turnout by approximately 6% based on post-election Census data.

1.2. How does TIA come up with those 99+% probabilities of a Kerry victory?
Basically, those probabilities (for both state and national polls) assume that all his assumptions (for instance, about how "undecided" voters will vote) are right, and that the only source of uncertainty is random sampling error.

TIA: The probabilities do not assume a specifc undecided voter allocation (UVA) percentage; it shows a range of outcomes for UVA from 50-87%

1.3. Doesn't the high turnout in the election mean that the registered-voter poll results are probably more accurate than the likely-voter results?
No, high turnout is not a reason to dismiss the likely-voter results. Most pollsters already expected high turnout.

TIA: As stated above, the final five LV poll sub-sample average turnout was 82.8%; the actual turnout was 88.5%. A regression analysis showed that Kerry had 49% given the 82.8% turnout, but had 52% given the 88.5% post-election Census. RV polls are more accurate then LV polls by definition, since they would include new voters while LV polls in general do not. Since a high turnout means a large number of new (mostly democratic voter), they would be missed by the LV polls that understate the Democratic total share. In 2004, there were approximately27 million new voters. Depending on the Final NEP timeline, Kerry won new voters and others who did not vote in 2000 by 57-62%. In the Final NEP, which was forced to match the recorded vote, the exit pollsters lowered Kerry’s share to 54% while changing the returning Bush/Gore voter mix to 43/37% (13660 respondents) from 41/39% (1222am, 13047 respondents)

1.4. How about the state polls?
There TIA's data hold up somewhat better, although his probabilities don't. While the national polls (prior to TIA's massaging) fit the official results rather closely, the state polls do not fit as well.

TIA: The RV polls, adjusted for undecided voters, did in fact confirm the unadjusted state exit polls: Kerry was a 52-47% winner

1.5. What about cell phones?
TIA and others have argued that the pre-election polls were biased against Kerry because they do not cover people who only use cell phones -- and these were disproportionately young voters who favored Kerry.

TIA: It seems to most to make sense intuitively. Young people (Democrats) are out and about; older voters are home with their landlines.

The "Rules": Did They Favor Kerry?

2.1. Don't undecided voters break sharply for the challenger?
Undecided voters probably sometimes break sharply for the challenger. But I can find no evidence that this rule is useful in "allocating" reported undecided voters in presidential elections.

TIA: Yes, they do. Pollsters know that. Gallup has a policy of allocating up to 90% of undecided voters to the challenger, especially when the incumbent is unpopular. Bush had a 48% approval rating. In 2008, the average pollster allocated undecided voters to Obama by 62-37% .

2.2. What about the rule that incumbents don't do better than their predicted shares in the final polls?
On average, it is true that incumbents don't do better -- or, rather, much better -- than their predicted shares in the final polls.

TIA: And since incumbents don’t do better than their final polling, it is another way of saying that undecided voters break for the challenger.

2.3. What about the rule that incumbents don't win when their final approval rating is below 50%?
TIA has stated that Bush's approval rating on November 1 was 48.5% based on the "average of 11 polls."

TIA: That is true. You can look it up in the 2004 Election Model.

Describing the Exit Poll Discrepancies

3.1. How do the exit polls work?
Let me say first of all that the main point of the exit polls is not to project who will win the election -- although the exit poll interviews are combined with vote count data in order to make projections.

TIA: They work just fine – until the “final” exit poll is forced to match the recorded vote. That makes no sense at all. It assumes the election is fraud-free. We know 2004 was not fraud-free.

3.2. How accurate are exit polls?
It depends, of course. Most attempts to argue that exit polls are highly accurate strangely steer around U.S. national exit polls.

TIA: It depends on whether they are the initial, unadjusted, pristine polls or the Final exit poll, which is always forced to match the recorded vote.

3.3. Couldn't spoiled ballots and/or fraud account for these past discrepancies?
Probably not, although they certainly may contribute. Greg Palast offers an estimate of 3.6 million uncounted ballots in 2004 alone.

TIA: Definitely, yes. In 2004, uncounted votes accounted for 25% of the discrepancies. Approximately 3.4 million were uncounted in 2004 and 5.4 million in 2000. The best evidence indicates that 70-80% are democratic. Had 3.44m uncounted votes been counted in 2004, Bush’s margin would have been cut from 3.0 million to 1.3m. In 2000, 5.4m uncounted votes reduced Gore’s margin from 3.0 million to 540,000.

3.4. What about exit pollster Warren Mitofsky's reputation for accuracy?
Here is how Mitofsky International's website puts it: " record for accuracy is well known”.

TIA: Mitofsky’s accuracy is near-perfect if you are referring to the Final National Exit poll, which is always forced to match the recorded vote (Bush 50.7-.48.3%). And it is also quite accurate if you mean are referring to the unadjusted state aggregate exit poll (Kerry 52-47%), which matched closely to the True Vote. Either way, yes, Mitofsky is quite accurate.

3.5. Didn't the exit polls indicate that Kerry won by more than the polls' margin of error?
It depends on what one means by "the exit polls" and "won."

TIA: The question needs to be rephrased: in how many states the the exit polls exceed the margin of error? The unadjusted exit polls exceeded the margin of error in 29 states – all in Bush’s favor. The probability of that is ZERO. Included were Ohio, Florida, NM, Iowa – which all flipped from Kerry to Bush. How does one explain that none of the solid Bush states exceeded the margin of error? Well, for one thing,they were states with a small voting population (not good for vote padding).

3.6. Why are the pollsters' estimates of uncertainty larger than the ones calculated by TruthIsAll and others?
TruthIsAll sometimes has argued that the exit polls should be treated as simple random samples (like drawing marbles from a hat). In this instance, the margin of error for Ohio, with a reported sample size of 2040, would be about 4.5 points on the margin using the 95% standard.

TIA: Not true, the MoE for Ohio is closer to +/- 2.2%. Mitofsky states that exit poll respondents are randomly selected and that the National Exit Poll MoE is 1.0%. He says it right in the notes.

3.7. Doesn't E/M's own table show that the margin of error is plus-or-minus 1% for 8000 respondents or more?
That table (on page 2 of the national methods statement) applies to percentages in the tabulations, not to the vote projections.

TIA: The 1.0% MoE applies to the total vote share for any given category sample in which at least 8000 have been polled. Over 13,000 males and females were polled.

3.8. Doesn't everyone agree that the exit poll results were outside the margin of error?
Yes: overall, and in many states, the exit poll results differed from the official results by beyond the margin of error, overstating Kerry's performance.

TIA: More accurately, the official vote understated Kerry’s True Vote. The Edison-Mitofsky Evaluation of the 2004 Election System, reported than the MoE was exceeded in 29 states – all in favor of Bush.

3.9. Aren't survey results far outside the margin of error prima facie evidence of fraud?
Margins of "error" refer to random sampling error. Most survey researchers would say that results outside the calculated margin of error most likely evince non-sampling error in the survey, such as non-response bias, sampling bias, or measurement error.

TIA: They evince non-sampling error? What about a fraudulent vote count? Or is that inconceivable?

3.10. Which states had the largest exit poll discrepancies? Wasn't it the battleground states?
No, the largest exit poll discrepancies were generally not in battleground states.

TIA: The fact is that the largest numerical exit poll discrepancies by vote count were in democratic strongholds like New York, California, Ohio and Florida. The New York discrepancy accounted for 750,000 of Bush’s 3.0m vote margin. Kerry won the unadjusted exit poll by 64-35% winner; his margin was cut from 29% to 18% in the recorded vote (58.5-40%). Furthermore, the key battleground states (FL, OH, NM, IA) flipped to Bush and except for IA, all exceeded the exit poll margin of error. Again, it must emphasized that the exit poll discrepancies exceed the margin of error in 29 states – and none were red states.

Explaining the Exit Poll Discrepancies

4.1. How did the exit pollsters explain the discrepancies in 2004?
In their evaluation report, they stated Within Precinct Error was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters".

TIA: How do they know that? Where is the data? How does E-M explain the mathematically impossible 43 / 37% returning Bush/Gore voter mix in the final National Exit Poll? They cannot have it both ways. No, most likely it was due to vote miscounts. And the Final NEP was forced to match the miscounted recorded vote.

4.2. What is the "reluctant Bush responder" (rBr) hypothesis?
What the pollsters concluded in the evaluation report was simply that Kerry voters apparently participated at a higher rate.

TIA: It was a trial balloon floated by the exit pollsters to explain away the discrepancies; it had no basis in fact. But no one in the media called them on it. And the exit poll report data suggested otherwise. It has been disproven mathematically by the impossible returning voter weights in the Final Exit Poll. Unfortunately, few read the report.

4.3. Does the participation bias explanation assume that fraud is unthinkable?
I will present several lines of argument that participation bias accounts for much of the exit poll discrepancy, and that fraud does not.

TIA: Do the “lines of argument” include any facts from the E-M report that indicate Bush voters participated more readily?

4.4. Don't the high completion rates in "Bush strongholds" disprove the rBr or bias hypothesis?
No, and I'm amazed how much mental effort has gone into elaborating this very weak argument.

TIA: Amazed that a regression analysis shows that the completion rate trend line declined moving from Bush to Kerry states? Mark calls the regression analysis a “weak” argument even though the regression graph clearly proves it.

4.5. How can you explain the impossible changes in the national exit poll results after midnight?
As I explained above, the tabulations are periodically updated in line with the projections -- and, therefore, in line with the official returns.

TIA: But what if the official returns are corrupted through vote miscounts? Doesn’t matching to the vote count require a major leap of faith – especially since we all know what occurred in 2000?

4.6. Why were the tabulations forced to match the official returns?
If the official returns are more accurate than the exit polls -- and bear in mind that exit polls have been (presumably) wrong in the past -- then weighting to the official returns should, generally, provide more accurate tabulations.

TIA: That’s a BIG if. One cannot just assume that the exit polls have been wrong in the past. For one thing, we know that part of the discrepancies could be explained by largely Democratic uncounted votes.

4.7. Wasn't there an effort to cover up the exit poll discrepancies?
Not that I can see.

TIA: That’s because you refuse to consider the evidence. The media and the pollsters have not been very forthcoming in providing the data for peer review. When they did provide “blurred” Ohio unadjusted exit poll data (without divulging the precincts), a comprehensive analysis pointed to a solid Kerry victory. But of course the main stream media will never (not even Keith and Rachel) will discuss it..

4.8. Is there any specific reason to think that the exit poll discrepancies don't point to fraud?
One of my favorites is based on TruthIsAll's observation: "Based on the pre-election polls: 41 out of 51 states (incl DC) deviated to Bush. Based on the exit polls: 43 out of 51 deviated to Bush."

TIA: Is that supposed to be sarcasm or just a joke? Mark, you cannot be serious. How can you say that even if the pre-election polls (adjusted for the allocation of undecided voters) match the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate, the exit poll discrepancies don’t point to fraud? How can the margin of error be exceeded in 29 states, all in favor of Bush (with ZERO probability) not point to fraud?

4.9. Is there any specific reason to believe that participation bias does explain the discrepancies?
Yes, beyond the facts that participation bias is common, that past exit polls have overstated Democratic performance, and that the exit poll discrepancies don't correlate with pre-election poll discrepancies, "swing" from 2000, or electronic voting machine use, there is also some evidence indicating participation bias in 2004.

TIA: No, not participation bias, it’s because the Democrats always do better in the exit polls due to vote miscounts: a) uncounted, b) switched and c) stuffed ballots.

4.10. Aren't you offering a lot of unproven speculation?
You could call it that, or you could call it scientific reasoning on the basis of incomplete evidence.

TIA: It is by now expected that nothing would convince Mark. In fact, he has seen more than enough evidence – and has never accepted any of it.

4.11. Are you saying that the exit polls disprove fraud?
No. As noted earlier, many forms of fraud may be compatible with the exit poll results. However, it seems hard to reconcile massive, widespread fraud – on the order of many millions of miscounted votes -- with the exit poll results unless one begins by discounting the details of the exit poll results.

TIA: When votes are miscounted by unverifiable machines at touch screens or at the central tabulators a 4-5% vote switch is very possible. What is a “massive”? Uncounted votes alone accounted for over half of Bush’s 3 million margin. There were 122 million recorded votes in 2004. There were only about 95 million returning 2000 election voters, therefore there were 27 million new voters. How did they vote? There were 3 million returning Nader voters. How did they vote? Of the 30 million new and returning Nader voters, Kerry had about 18 million (60%), a 6 million vote margin – and that is apart from the fact that Gore won the popular vote by 540,000. So how did Bush turn a 6 million deficit into a 3 million surplus? That’s a 9 million net vote switch. Are we to believe, as Mark maintains, that 9 million more returning Gore voters defected to Bush than returning Bush voters defected to Kerry? That is beyond implausible.

4.12. Are you saying that you are sure Bush didn't steal the election?
No, depending on what one means by "steal." In particular, I think it is at least possible that some combination of vote suppression (purges, long lines, intimidation, etc.) and uncounted votes cost John Kerry a victory in Ohio, and therefore in the election. (Obviously "uncounted votes" can be regarded as a form of vote suppression.) I doubt it, but I am not arguing against it here.

TIA: There you go again, refusing to even consider the real probability that votes may have also been miscounted electronically. At this point in time, after all the anecdotal evidence of vote miscounts, you are still denying that it could happen and throw will only go as far as “vote suppression”. That’s what “steal” means. But why do you exclude the possibility that votes were miscounted at the central tabulators or in the touch screens where there is no paper trail? To put it bluntly, why would fraudsters utilize highly visible vote suppression methods but not resort to invisible, unverifiable machine vote miscounting?

Comparing 2004 to 2000

5.1. Why has TruthIsAll called the "2000 presidential vote" question the clincher?
TIA emphasizes two aspects of this table. First, he notes, it is impossible that 43% of the 2004 electorate voted for Bush in 2000. That would be over 52 million Bush voters, whereas Bush only got about 50.5 million votes in 2000. (Some of those voters must have died, or not voted for other reasons.)

TIA: Actually, these are the numbers: The 43% stat implies 52.6 million returning Bush voters – 2.1 million more than he had. But let’s not stop there. Approximately 2.5 million died, so at moist 48 million could have voted. Even if we assume that 46 million actually did (a 96% turnout), that means that the Final NEP overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 6.6 million. In 2008, it’s even worse. The returning Final NEP Bush/Kerry returning voter mix was 46/37%. Even if one believes that Bush won by 3 million votes and there was zero fraud in 2004, the returning voter mix implies that there were almost 12 million more returning Bush voters than Kerry voters.

5.2. What is wrong with the "impossible 43%" argument?
It assumes that exit poll respondents accurately report whom they voted for in the previous election. In reality, exit poll respondents seem to have overstated their support for the previous winner in every exit poll for which I could obtain data, ten in all, going back to 1976. Lots of other evidence indicates that people often report having voted for the previous winner although they didn't. Perhaps most telling is an (American) National Election Study (NES) "panel" in which people were interviewed soon after the 2000 election, and then re-interviewed in 2004.

TIA: Well, for one thing, Gore had 540,000 more official votes than Bush (actually 3 million were it not for uncounted votes). Number 2: would returning Gore and Kerry voters misstate past votes and not returning Bush voters? Number 3: The How Voted in 2004 question was only posed to 3,000 out of 13,000 exit poll respondents. The other questions based on voter demographics had nothing to do with past votes, such as by sex, race, income, party-id, location, when voted, military background, etc. The respondents were asked whom they just voted for in this election five minutes ago. No fog, no forgetting. The past vote question does not apply. And they said they just voted for Kerry. I cannot believe, Mark, that after all this time, you are still using that “false recall” canard. If anything Bush voters would be embarrassed, considering that he had a 48% approval rating in 2004, 30% in 2006 and 22% in 2008. Are we also to believe that the reason for the equally ridiculous 2008 Final NEP 46/37% Bush/Kerry returning voter mix is also because Kerry voters lied to the exit pollsters? You might as well argue that returning Kerry voters were reluctant to be interviewed by the exit pollsters.

5.3. What is wrong with the second argument, where new (and Nader) voters break the stalemate in favor of Kerry?
The second argument assumes that Kerry did about as well among Bush 2000 voters as Bush did among Gore 2000 voters. Superficially, the exit poll table supports this assumption.

TIA: In fact, the 12:22am National Exit Poll said that Kerry did better among returning Bush voters (10%) than Bush did among returning Gore voters (8%) – but that was before the numbers were changed to 9% and 10% in the Final in order to match the recorded, miscounted vote. And in the Democratic Underground “game” thread you had to change the Final shares to have Bush winning 14.6% to force a match to the Bush vote. You agreed to the stipulation than that no more returning Bush voters could have voted than were still living. But when that meant that you had to raise the Bush vote shares to implausible levels, you had to abandon that argument like a hot potato, and revert back to “false recall”, the final Hail-Mary argument that has been laid to rest in 2006 and 2008 when we see that the Final is always adjusted to impossible weightings to force a match to the “official” count. The Democratic landslide was denied in 2006 midterms and the Obama landslide was denied in 2008.

5.4. But... but... why would 14% of Gore voters vote for Bush??
If one thinks of "Gore voters" as people who strongly supported Gore and resented the Supreme Court ruling that halted the Florida recount, then the result makes no sense. For that matter, if one thinks of "Gore voters" in that way, it makes no sense that they would forget (or at any rate not report) having voted for Gore. Nevertheless, the NES panel evidence indicates that many did. (Of course, the figure may not be as high as 14% -- although it could conceivably be even higher).

TIA: It’s not just returning Gore voters that make no sense, neither do your vote share adjustments to new voters and returning Bush/Kerry voters in the “game” Yes, it is true. The results make no sense whatsoever.

TruthIsAll FAQ:
Miscellaneous

M.1. What about the reports of flipped votes on touch screens in 2004?
Many people reported difficulty voting on electronic voting machines (DREs), in particular, that attempts to vote for one candidate initially registered as votes for another. The Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS), connected to the "OUR-VOTE" telephone hotline, recorded close to 100 such incidents. TruthIsAll has asserted that 86 out of 88 reports of electronic vote-flipping favored Bush. He cites the odds of this imbalance as 1 in 79,010,724,999,066,700,000,000.

TIA: Yes, the probability is correct. It is one in 79 sextillion that the switches were not a random occurrence. And these reports came from widely diverse precincts. The 88 reports were just a drop in the bucket. It seems most people know someone whose vote was switched right before their eyes. And you still refuse to accept that electronic vote-switching occurred – which of course is a major reason for the exit poll discrepancies? Besides, the switching was not only done on the voting machines; central tabulators sum up the votes for precincts by county and state. No one was around to report those vote flips to EIRS.

M.2. Did the 2006 exit polls manifest "red shift" compared with official returns?
Yes. For instance, the initial national House tabulation -- posted a bit after 7 PM Eastern time on election night -- indicates that Democratic candidates had a net margin of about 11.3 points over Republican candidates. The actual margin was probably about 7 points, depending on how uncontested races are handled.

TIA: Yes, they did. That’s true. What else is new?

M.3. Do pre-election "generic" House polls in 2006 match the initial exit poll returns?
Not really. A "generic" poll is one that asks respondents whether they would vote for (in Gallup's words) "the Democratic Party's candidate or the Republican Party's candidate," rather than naming specific candidates.

TIA: Yes, they did. The trend-line through 120 pre-election Generic Polls (which were all won by the Democrats) projected a 56.4% Democratic share.
THIS EXACTLY MATCHED THE UNADJUSTED EXIT POLL 56.4%. Most final pre-election polls had the Democrats winning by more than 12%.

Last edited by TruthIsAll on Sat Aug 08, 2009 8:52 pm; edited 3 times in total
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TruthIsAll
Novice Truthseeker


Joined: 10 May 2008
Posts: 66


PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 6:00 am Post subject: An Updated Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ Reply with quote
An Updated Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ

TruthIsAll

7/29/09

The original "Election Fraud Analytics/Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ" is here:
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm

This is an updated compact summary version. It includes my latest response to "False Recall" and "Swing vs. Red-shift". The original version has not yet been updated.

The original TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ was written in late 2006 by Mark Lindeman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Since 2004, Mark has frequented election reform sites, relentlessly attempting to rebut the polling analysis of researchers that indicate elections have been stolen since 2000. “On the Other Hand”, his Democratic Underground screen name, is apropos to his mission.

In January 2007, I wrote "Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ" along with a detailed statistical analysis: "2000-2006 Election Fraud Analytics". Now the 2008 election is history and similar anomalous results indicate that election fraud cut Obama’s landslide in half, just like the Democratic margin was in the 2006 midterms. Furthermore, 2008 confirms that the 2004 election was stolen and that in 2000 Gore won the popular vote by close to 3 million.

Most election researchers agree that the election was stolen in 2004. But statistical evidence also indicates that election fraud cut the 12% Democratic landslide margin to 6% in the 2006 midterms, costing them 10-20 House seats and that Obama’s True Vote mandate was reduced from approximately 20 million to 9.5 million.

That is what the evidence shows, regardless of whether or not it is ever discussed in the media. Statistical analysts and political scientists who have looked at the evidence are well aware of the fraud, but are still waiting for the Democratic politicians and the GOP controlled media to get the ball rolling. In the meantime, only a handful of bloggers and truth-seekers will even touch the subject. A number of books have been written which show that massive fraud in the form of voter disenfranchisement and vote miscounts occurred in 2000-2008, but not one that provides a statistical analysis to prove that Bush won in 2004.

In order to help the reader quickly become familiar with the main areas of focus, I have included a brief summary of the questions posed to Mark in the original FAQ – along with a short update summary of his response followed by mine. The original full text response follows the summary.
____________________________________________________________________________________

[OnTheOtherHand]

86. nope

Look, if there is one* of these arguments that you want to discuss, go for it. The FAQ already substantially incorporates TIA's initial attempt to respond; I could copy and paste as much as the DU interface can accommodate, but there would be no point. TIA's mere ability to string words and tables together doesn't constitute a rebuttal.

* Why one? Because, in your other response, you haven't even managed to respond to my single question on a single topic, so I see no point in trying (or pretending) to discuss several simultaneously.

[WillE]

87. No point in trying to discuss? Of course, because you can't.

"No reply"....
Reminds me of the Beatles.

Then why don't you just go back and cherry-pick another poll?
Then we can do another True Vote Analysis.
You'll like that, won't you?

Oh, I forgot.. you don't do analysis.
You've got better things to do.

It's OK for you to bring up your TIA FAQ.
But when his updated response posted on another forum is provided you find it annoying.
So annoying in fact that all you can say is "Nope".

Why did you bother to write the FAQ anyway?
Sounds quite obsessive.
Is TIA THAT important to you?
As important as RFK was in '06 when you helped Manjoo write that Salon hit piece?
You did a great job on that one, didn't you?
You helped out the Mystery Pollster, didn't you, when he also tried to debunk RFK?

Let's see who else have you worked over besides TIA and RFK?
I have a little list:
Mark C. Miller
Steven Freeman
Brad from Bradblog
Jonathan Simon
Kathy Dopp
Ron Baiman
Ion Sancho
anaxarchos
Michael Collins (autorank)
PeacePatriot
And so many other truthseeksers on DU, Buzzflash, Mike Malloy, Pollster.com, Daily KOS...

Anyway, it's a good thing you wrote that TIA FAQ.
Because without all your efforts, he would have had nothing to debunk, would he?

Your relentless naysaying and nitpicking just reminds us all what we are up against:.
That this is not the Age of Enlightenment.
It's the Age of Entitlement.

Unfortunately for you, some will take the time to review those 16 myths/graphs, the PA True Vote analysis and the Updated TIA FAQ Response. They will surely find at least a few things they may not have seen before. Like how the 2006 and 2008 elections confirmed that 2004 was stolen.

And how Democratic Landslides were denied in 2006 and 2008.
Of course you attempted to refute Simon and O'Dell and TIA on that.
Because that's what you do. That's ALL you do.
Who would ever expect anything else from you?

Hopefully viewers of this thread will see through that "slow drifting fog".
And not be reluctant responders who will fail to recall this thread.
May this thread live a long and fruitful life.

[OnTheOtherHand]

88. what point have I not responded to? be specific

I link to a 36-page detailed response, and you retort that I "don't do analysis." But you haven't actually rebutted any of the analysis in the 36-page detailed response. So, what am I supposed to do except call bullshit?

Since my invitation got me nowhere, I will double dog dare you to pick one subject where you think TIA's "updated response" improves on the original. Or, for that matter, one where you think the original was good enough. Doesn't matter to me. Is there any subject whatsoever that you are prepared to have a serious discussion about?

What's with this list of people I've supposedly "worked over"? Simple. In effect, you're saying, 'This guy is the enemy. Don't listen to him.' Again, what am I supposed to do except call bullshit? Heck, I don't remember ever disagreeing with Ion Sancho about anything, but it may have happened once. I remember disagreeing with the rest. Why not? What on earth is your problem with my stating and supporting my opinions? A buzz kill for you? Meh. Reality is not a team sport.

So, I repeat: is there any subject whatsoever that you are prepared to have a serious discussion about?

[WillE]

89. Once again, you are hoisted on your own petard.

Once again, you are hoisted on your own petard.

You should just leave well enough alone.
How do you see through all that blood?

1) You cherry picked the PA GEO 13.8% exit poll margin.
You do this all the time. It’s getting quite tiresome. I
always look at the big picture.
You always ignore the composite aggregate vote share (i.e. the
Law of Large Numbers and Central Limit Theorem).

You are King of the cherry-pickers and reigning champ of the
nit-pickers.

Your apparent lack of any analytical acumen is frightening.
And you have the gonads to go up against all those election
activists with doctorates and masters degrees on math..

Your alma mater should take back half of your Poly Sci degree
– the Science half.
You should be left with just a degree in Politics. A Phi Beta
Kappa.

2) Compare the Unadjusted exit poll  methods:
WPE  Margin 
 IMS  10.9
 DSS  13.5
 VNS 11.3

Ok, still big But the 12:40am Composite had Kerry  ahead by
54.1-45.4%, an 8.7% margin. 
Why didn’t you pick that one?

3) But wait, you wanted to see the PA pre-elects. Check the
trend:
Date	Kerry	Bush
Sept 7   46 	47
Oct 7	 52 	46
Nov 1	 50 	45  (4 undecided)

After allocating 75% of the undecided vote for Kerry 
(remember Gallup gave him 90%),
he leads PA by 53-46, within 1.5% of the Composite.

4) But these were LV polls. As RV subsets they missed the 22
million new voters.
So give Kerry another 1-2% and he’s at 54-55%.

The pre-elects, properly adjusted, matched the exit polls.

See what happens when you ANALYZE.
Try it sometime. You may like it. 
And then you can go back for the Science half of your degree. 


http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/PreElectionConfirmation.htm

State Pre-election Polling Trend
 
The Election Model Monte Carlo Simulation forecast was updated
during the four months leading up to the election as new state
polling data was introduced. The projections below assume that
Kerry, running against the unpopular Bush, would win 60-75% of
undecided voters (UVA). 
 
                                       7-Sep          7-Oct   
       1-Nov Final      
                                   Kerry   Bush     Kerry  
Bush      Kerry   Bush
Before UVA:
Unweighted Average                 43.94   47.65    46.84  
46.86     45.70   47.60  
Weighted Average                   45.54   46.45    47.97  
46.66     47.88   46.89                   
 
Projection (75% UVA): 
2-party vote                       51.54   48.46    51.99  
48.01     51.80   48.20
Total vote (Other: 1%)             50.79   48.21    51.24  
47.76     51.05   47.95
 
Projection (60% UVA): 
2-party vote                       50.71   49.29    51.10  
48.90     51.02   48.98
Total vote (Other: 1%)             50.21   48.79    50.60  
48.40     50.52   48.48
 
 
State    Date    Pollster         Kerry    Bush     Kerry   
Bush     Kerry    Bush
 
AL       Oct 27   Survey USA       34       54       40      
56       39       57
AK       Sep 11   ARG              33       56       39      
55       30       57
AZ       Oct 26   Rasmussen        42       45       47      
50       45       50
AR       Oct 29   Mason-Dixon      47       48       47      
47       48       48
CA       Oct 27   Field Poll       50       42       51      
43       49       42
 
CO       Oct 30   Zogby            47       47       49      
48       47       48
CT       Oct 28   Research 2000    45       38       47      
38       52       42
DE       Sep 25   W Chester U      55       42       45      
38       45       38
DC       Sep 13   ARG              86       9        78      
11       78       11
FL       Oct 30   Zogby            44       48       50      
48       50       47
 
GA       Oct 29   Zogby            38       55       42      
53       42       52
HI       Oct 20   SMS Res          48       41       51      
41       45       45
ID       Sep 10   ARG              25       55       30      
59       30       59
IL       Oct 29   Survey USA       52       38       55      
38       54       42
IN       Oct 29   Survey USA       40       52       40      
53       39       58
 
IA       Oct 30   Zogby            47       47       51      
44       50       44
KS       Oct 27   Survey USA       36       56       35      
57       37       60
KY       Oct 20   Bluegrass        39       56       38      
53       39       56
LA       Oct 22   SE LA U          36       52       42      
50       40       48
ME       Oct 21   Zogby            49       44       42      
39       50       39
 
MD       Oct 29   Survey USA       53       42       48      
45       54       43
MA       Oct  5   Merrimack        56       30       64      
27       64       27
MI       Oct 30   Zogby            48       44       52      
42       52       45
MN       Oct 30   Zogby            46       46       53      
44       52       44
MS       Sep 17   ARG              30       61       42      
51       42       51
 
MO       Oct 29   Mason-Dixon      45       49       49      
50       44       49
MT       Oct 20   Mason-Dixon      33       53       36      
54       36       57
NE       Oct 20   RKM Research     33       62       30      
61       32       61
NV       Oct 29   Survey USA       48       46       48      
47       49       49
NH       Oct 30   ARG              51       43       51      
44       47       47
 
NJ       Oct 29   Survey USA       50       46       50      
45       50       42
NM       Oct 30   ARG              42       45       55      
43       49       49
NY       Oct 28   Survey USA       56       37       53      
41       57       39
NC       Oct 26   Mason-Dixon      45       51       47      
50       47       50
ND       Oct 19   Minn St U        33       61       33      
62       35       55
 
OH       Oct 30   Zogby            42       48       48      
47       50       47
OK       Oct 24   Wilson Res       38       57       29      
52       28       61
OR       Oct 29   Mason-Dixon      54       43       55      
44       50       44
PA       Oct 30   Zogby            46       47       52      
46       50       45
RI       Oct 27   Survey USA       49       25       55      
37       56       36
 
SC       Oct 24   Survey USA       42       53       37      
55       42       55
SD       Oct 24   McLaughlin       40       54       40      
52       42       52
TN       Oct 21   Mason-Dixon      50       48       48      
50       48       50
TX       Oct 28   Survey USA       33       57       37      
58       37       59
UT       Oct 28   Dan Jones        22       67       27      
64       24       69
 
VT       Oct 12   Research2k       51       36       50      
40       53       40
VA       Oct 29   Survey USA       45       49       47      
50       47       51
WA       Oct 27   Strat Vision     48       43       54      
44       52       44
WV       Oct 29   Mason-Dixon      42       49       44      
50       46       49
WI       Oct 30   Zogby            49       45       51      
48       51       44
WY       Sep 11   ARG              28       68       29      
65       29       65
 
___________________________________________________________________
 
 
Weekly Average State Polling Trend
 
Although Bush led in the unweighted average, Kerry led the
weighted average trend (based on the 1992-2000 average state
vote) from July to Election Day, except for the first two
weeks in September. The projections assume Kerry would win 75%
of the undecided vote.
 
Poll      Unweighted       Weighted            2-party        
Projected         
Date     Kerry    Bush     Kerry    Bush     Kerry    Bush    
Kerry    Bush
2-Jul    43.5     46.5     45.4     44.6     50.5     49.5    
52.2     46.8
10-Jul   43.8     46.7     45.8     44.9     50.5     49.5    
52.0     47.0
17-Jul   44.5     46.5     46.5     44.3     51.2     48.8    
52.6     46.4
24-Jul   44.2     46.1     45.6     43.6     51.1     48.9    
52.9     46.1
 
2-Aug    44.4     46.5     46.3     44.6     50.9     49.1    
52.3     46.7
10-Aug   44.3     46.4     46.4     44.3     51.2     48.8    
52.7     46.3
18-Aug   44.1     46.4     46.2     44.3     51.0     49.0    
52.6     46.4
26-Aug   45.2     47.5     47.2     46.6     50.3     49.7    
51.1     47.9
 
7-Sep    43.9     47.6     45.5     46.5     49.5     50.5    
50.8     48.2
14-Sep   43.7     48.4     45.6     47.3     49.1     50.9    
50.2     48.8
22-Sep   45.0     48.7     47.3     47.1     50.1     49.9    
50.8     48.2
29-Sep   44.1     47.6     46.0     45.5     50.3     49.7    
51.7     47.3
 
7-Oct    45.7     47.6     47.9     46.7     50.7     49.3    
51.2     47.8
14-Oct   45.4     47.9     47.3     46.7     50.3     49.7    
51.0     48.0
21-Oct   46.0     48.1     48.4     46.4     51.1     48.9    
51.5     47.5
28-Oct   45.4     47.4     47.1     45.9     50.7     49.3    
51.6     47.4
 
1-Nov    45.55    48.28    47.88    46.89    50.52    49.48   
51.05    47.95
 
___________________________________________________________________
 
 
Battleground Polls
 
Final pre-election Zogby polls for nine battleground states
were included in the Election Model Monte Carlo simulation
forecast.  
Kerry was leading in 8 of the 9 states by an average of
50.2-44.8%.  The base case assumption was that he would
capture 75% 
of the undecided (UVA) vote and win all 9 states by a
53.7-45.9% margin.  The conservative assumption was that he
would capture 
55% UVA and win 8 states by 52.7-46.8%.  He won just 4 by
50.1- 49.4%.  The margin of error was exceeded in 7 states, 
a 1 in 4.7 billion probability.
 
                           75% UVA            55% UVA         
                        
Zogby   Oct. 31 Poll       Projection       Projection       
Recorded          75% UVA    
State    Kerry    Bush     Kerry    Bush     Kerry    Bush    
Kerry    Bush     Dev      Prob
 
CO       47       48       50.3     49.1     49.4     50.0    
47.4     52.1     2.97     3.27%
FL       50       47       51.9     47.6     51.4     48.2    
47.3     52.3     4.65     0.20%                              

IA       50       44       54.2     45.4     53.1     46.5    
49.5     50.1     4.73     0.17%
ME       50       39       57.6     41.5     55.6     43.6    
54.1     45.1     3.54     1.42%                              
                                                              
 
MI       52       45       53.9     45.6     53.4     46.1    
51.5     48.0     2.40     6.83% 
MN       52       44       54.5     44.8     53.8     45.5    
51.5     47.9     3.08     2.82%                              

OH       50       47       52.3     47.8     51.7     48.4    
48.9     51.1     3.30     2.03%
PA       50       45       53.8     46.3     52.8     47.3    
51.3     48.7     2.48     6.18%
WI       51       44       54.3     45.1     53.5     46.0    
49.9     49.6     4.43     0.30%
                                                              
                                          
Mean     50.2     44.8     53.7     45.9     52.7     46.8    
50.1     49.5     3.51     2.58%
 
 
Probability of average deviation (in parenthesis):
 
Sample   MoE             75% UVA (3.51%)      55% UVA (2.58%) 
1000     3.16%            1 in 68             1 in 19  
6000     1.29%            1 in 20 million     1 in 25 thousand
                         
9000     1.05%            1 in 30 billion     1 in 1.5 million
       

 
Comparison of Zogby Battleground Pre-election polls and
Unadjusted exit polls
 The 9-poll projection average was within 0.5% of the exit
poll average. 
 
Average of 9 Battleground states
Poll       Kerry   Bush
Zogby      50.2   44.8 (final pre-election polls)
Projection 53.7   45.9 (75% undecided to Kerry) 
Exit (WPE) 53.2   45.8
 
         
         Zogby Poll         Projection      Exit Poll         
  Recorded      
St       Kerry Bush        Kerry   Bush     Kerry Bush        
 Kerry Bush    
                                                              
       
CO       47       48       50.3     49.1     50.1    48.6     
  47.4   52.1    
FL       50       47       51.9     47.6     50.9     48.3    
   47.3   52.3    
IA       50       44       54.2     45.4     50.7     48.4    
   49.5   50.1    
ME       50       39       57.6     41.5     55.5     42.7    
   54.1   45.1    
MI       52       45       53.9     45.6     54.4     44.7    
   51.5   48.0    
 
MN       52       44       54.5     44.8     55.7     43.0    
   51.5   47.9    
OH       50       47       52.3     47.8     54.2     45.4    
   48.9   51.1    
PA       50       45       53.8     46.3     55.3     44.0    
   51.3   48.7    
WI       51       44       54.3     45.1     52.0     47.0    
   49.9   49.6    
                                                              
                        
Average  50.2     44.8     53.7     45.9     53.2     45.8    
   50.1   49.5    
 
_

[OnTheOtherHand]

90. trash talk aside, you're wrong again

As I explained previously, analyzing pre-election polls from all states leads to the same conclusion. I'll briefly walk you through the reasoning, again. If the extent of fraud varies from state to state, then in general states with more fraud should have (1) larger deviations between the official returns and pre-election polls, and (2) larger red shifts (exit poll deviations). Therefore there should be a significant correlation between surprise and red shift. Of course, in any one state, things could play out differently due to sampling error or other circumstances, but across all the states, it's reasonable to expect a relationship. But it doesn't exist, even when I used your poll numbers. The plot is here; I assume you've seen it before.

2) Compare the Unadjusted exit poll methods:
WPE Margin
IMS 10.9
DSS 13.5
VNS 11.3

Ok, still big But the 12:40am Composite had Kerry ahead by 54.1-45.4%, an 8.7% margin.
Why didn’t you pick that one?

In 2009, you still don't know the answer to that question? Really?

You seem to think that you can take the three different ways of reckoning Within Precinct Error and call them "Unadjusted exit poll methods." That is a very strange mistake for you of all people to make, because WPE depends on the official precinct-level returns. None of these numbers is an "exit poll method()" -- you've derived them from after-the-fact estimates of one source of error in the exit poll, and that on the assumption that the official results are correct. The Call 3 Best Geo estimate was the pollsters' best contemporaneous estimate of the vote shares and margin, based on exit poll data in comparison with historical results.

Your question ("Why didn't you pick that one?") could have been an excellent one, if it had been asked in good faith four years earlier. The reason not to use the composite estimate is in the definition of the estimate: "The Composite Estimate is a weighted average of the Prior Estimate and the Best Survey Estimate." What is the "Prior Estimate"? "Prior Estimates are based upon pre-election surveys conducted in each state." (You know this, right? I mean, are you kidding me?!)

So, apparently you're trying to argue that I'm exaggerating the gap between the exit poll estimate and the pre-election polls because if one uses a composite estimate that averages in the pre-election polls, the gap narrows! Doh.

So give Kerry another 1-2% and he’s at 54-55%.

The pre-elects, properly adjusted, matched the exit polls.

No, because the Best Geo estimate put Kerry at 56.9%. This information has been freely available since January 2005.

No, too, because you claim to have "properly adjusted" "the pre-elects" -- but, setting aside the properness of your adjustment, you've cherry-picked a single pre-election poll, which just so happens to be the one that gives Kerry the biggest margin. (Gee, imagine that?) The CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll where Bush led? Down the memory hole. And then you added a few more points. And you still couldn't match the exit poll projection. Impressive, but not in a good way.

(Oh, and, no yet again, because your contemporaneous and very generous "base case" projection for Kerry was 53.8%, so to goose it to "54-55%" now is yet another reach.)

[WillE]

92. You conveniently ignore the analysis which refutes you

Your pre-election challenge to find a PA pre-election poll to match the exits was a perfect illustration of why no one believes you anymore.

1) Besides being a ridiculous challenge, it was blatant cherry-picking.
2) But I fooled you. I gave you more TIA information than you asked for.
3) It showed that the unadjusted exits had a lower margin.
4) It showed that the final pre-election trend was to Kerry at 50-45.
5) A reasonable allocation was applied to the undecided 4%.
6) Final pre-election LV polls understated Kerry's projected share in that high turnout election of 22 million new voters. The larger RV poll superset would surely have indicated a bigger margin for Kerry everywhere, not just in PA. In 2004 the pollsters underestimated turnout.
So a 51-44 or 52-43 split was very feasible.
7) But undecided voters need to be allocated.
8) It was a 53-46 projection using the 50-45 LV poll(conservative)
9) It was 54-45 or 55-44 in the RV. Kerry did 2% better in RVs (see the pre-election RV/LV graph).

THIS SIMPLE EXERCISE IN BASIC LOGIC GAVE AN EXACT MATCH TO THE EXITS.
NOTHING IMPLAUSIBLE HERE. JUST BASIC ARITHMETIC ON THE BACK OF AN ENVELOPE.
BUT YOU PREFER NOT TO CONSIDER IT.

YOU WOULD RATHER WAX POETIC ABOUT "SURPRISE".
YOU NEVER FAIL TO DISAPPOINT. NO SURPRISE.
YOU NEVER CONSIDER A RATIONAL ANALYSIS INCOMPLETE PRE-ELECTION AND EXIT POLL DATA.

You prefer to get into interminable pissing contests - even when you are drowning.
Could you name one analyst or political scientist who agrees with you at this point?
How come we have never heard of even one "expert" lauding your work?
The graphs debunked 16 myths that you helped propagate.

Your bag of tricks have included
Swing vs. red-shift
False recall
Slow drifting fog
Surprise
Retrospective bandwagon effect
Lousy exit polls
Cherry-picked pre-election polls
and on and on...see the pattern, Mr. Other?
It's all faith-based mumbo jumbo.

On the Other Hand, you never consider factual data such as
Approval ratings
Undecided voters
RV vs. LV polls
Net Uncounted votes
Correlation analysis
Late votes
Mortality
Voter Turnout
New voters
Returning voters
Third-party voters
Phantom returning voters
Sensitivity analysis of alternative scenarios
Expected value
Correlation analysis
Monte Carlo simulation
Probability analysis
Recursive True Vote Models
Aggregate state exit polls
Forcing exit polls to match the recorded vote
....
In other words...you never do an analysis.
But I am repeat myself.

Not many tricks are left in that bag of yours, eh?

[Wilms]

93. And I thought electronic vote counting schema was a pretty iffy way to determine outcomes.

Then along comes TIA & the Surrogates xpectin' me to join an argument claiming an election outcome can be reliably determined by examining, "Approval ratings, Undecided voters, RV vs. LV polls, Net Uncounted votes, Correlation analysis, Late votes, Mortality, Voter Turnout, New voters, Returning voters, Third-party voters, Phantom returning voters, Sensitivity analysis of alternative scenarios, Expected value, Correlation analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, Probability , analysis, Recursive True Vote Models, Aggregate state exit polls, Forcing exit polls to match the recorded vote".
If kster read that he'd curl up in a ball and just :rofl:.

That's what I do...right before I :puke:.

At what point should exit poll arguments been considered beside the point and yielded to an examination of Ohio we all know was essential and left undone?

Feelin' distracted, anyone?

[Bill Bored]

97. Distracted? Uh, this is a thread about why we should trust computers to count votes in NY, right? nt

[OnTheOtherHand]

94. you're simply misrepresenting the PA exit polls

2) But I fooled you. I gave you more TIA information than you asked for.

WTF is "TIA information"? Is it something like Unification Thought?

3) It showed that the unadjusted exits had a lower margin.

Status: False. It takes some nerve to call an estimate that incorporates pre-election polls "the unadjusted exits." (For further details, see my previous post.)

YOU WOULD RATHER WAX POETIC ABOUT "SURPRISE".
YOU NEVER FAIL TO DISAPPOINT. NO SURPRISE.
YOU NEVER CONSIDER A RATIONAL ANALYSIS INCOMPLETE PRE-ELECTION AND EXIT POLL DATA.

In this world rather than the one of "TIA information," I explained and linked to an analysis of pre-election and exit poll data. Nothing poetic about it. I just use the word "surprise" so we can talk about "surprise," "swing," and "shift" as shorthand for "deviations between pre-election poll results and official returns," "deviations between previous results and official returns," and "deviations between exit poll results and official returns," respectively.

Dunno if all this is too much reading for you, or what. Your propensity to ignore other people's posts and repeat yourself (with new insults) instead is remarkable.

:hi:

[WillE]

91. A FREE online book about Kerry's 2004 landslide

No smoke, no false recall, no reluctance to analyze, no shift swinging.
Just a comprehensive analysis for those who may be interested.

Imagine. A free book.
From TIA, that lazy SOB.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/FurtherConfirmationOfaKerryLandslide.htm

[WillE]

95. TIA FAQ Response Summary Update - Includes 2008 reference

Previous post did not link to the latest update summary,
So here it is.

PDF
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse222.pdf

HTML
http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse222.htm

[OnTheOtherHand]

96. my double dog dare stands n/t

[WillE]

98. The analysis that you won't do proves you dead wrong once again. Your move...

OTOH, 
THIS is how you SHOULD do a logical True vote analysis.
But you never do it. Because it undermines your case.

You resorted to simplistic, cherry-picking when you challenged
me to 
explain the "divergence" between the PA pre-election
and the exit polls.

But as usual, you are hoisted on your own petard.
The analysis you never do proves you dead wrong once again.

The 2004 PA pre-election poll PROJECTION (adjusted for
undecided voters) 
MATCHED the exit polls which MATCHED the True Vote. 

When have you ever been right about anything?
_______________________________________________________________________________

2004 PA Projection and Post-election True Vote model vs. the
exit polls

Kerry’s projected share: 55.0% 
GEO exit poll share: 56.9%
Post-election True Vote: 55.3%


Project the True Vote using the latest polling data
1) Start with the LV pre-election polls (50-45% in favor of
Kerry)
2) Add 2% to Kerry’s share because of heavy NEW RV turnout
(52-43%)
3) Allocate 75% of undecided voters to Kerry.
4) Calculate the projection: 55-44%

Calculate the True Vote using Post-election data
Base Case Scenario
1. Input recorded and total votes cast for 2000 and 2004
2. Allocate uncounted votes (75% Dem; 25% Repub)
3. Enter the mortality rate (1.22%)
4. Enter an estimated turnout percentage of LIVING 2000
election voters (no phantoms allowed)
5. Enter NEP vote shares adjusted using the state/national
recorded share ratio
6.	Understand that since the above are base case estimates,
also run a sensitivity analysis. 
7.	Calculate the base case True Vote:  55.3-44.1%

The True Vote models were ALL within the 2% MoE of each Exit
Poll.

The exit polls:
WPE/IMS:   55.1-44.2 within 0.1% of the 55-44% projection
GEO:       56.9-43.1 within 1.4% 
Composite: 54.2-45.7 within 0.8% 

True Vote Models
Pre-elect: 55.0-44.0   within 1.9% of GEO
Post-elect:55.3-44.1 within 1.6% of GEO

Post-election Sensitivity Analysis:
1:Gore voter turnout vs. uncounted share 
Worst case: Kerry 54.7%
Turnout: Gore 91%; Bush 95% 
Gore 65% of uncounted

2. Kerry share of Gore voters vs. share of New voters
Worst Case: Kerry 52.8%
Kerry 88% share of Gore; 56% share of New


Pennsylvania 2004 True Vote Election Calculator 		
							
2000 Recorded	 	 	2004 Recorded 	 
Gore	Bush	Other	Total	Kerry	Bush	Other	Total
2.485	2.281	0.120	4.886	2.938	2.793	0.034	5.765
50.9%	46.7%	2.5%	- 	50.9%	48.4%	0.6%	 

Uncounted			 	 			 
0.045	0.013	0.002	0.059	0.057	0.019	0.000	0.075
75%	22%	3%	1.20%	75%	25%	0%	1.29%
							
Uncounted Votes 	 	12:22am	Final
	Pct	 Cast	Unctd	Kerry	Est.	NEP	NEP
2004	1.29%	5.840	0.075	DNV	60%	57%	54%
2000	1.20%	4.945	0.059	Gore	92%	91%	90%
				Bush	11%	10%	9%
2004	Share	2000	Share	Nader	67%	64%	71%
Kerry	75%	Gore	75%				
Bush	25%	Bush	22%	Bush			
Other	0%	Nader	3%	DNV	39%	41%	45%
				Gore	8%	8%	10%
2000 Voter Mortality 		Bush	89%	90%	91%
Total Voters	1.22%		Nader	16%	17%	21%
Gore share	50%						
				Other			
2000 Voter Turnout in 2004	DNV	1%	2%	1%
Gore	95%			Gore	0%	1%	0%
Bush	95%			Bush	0%	0%	0%
Nader	95%			Nader	17%	19%	8%

 	 	 	 	 	 
2000 Recorded		
Voted	Record	Uncount	Cast	Deaths	Alive
DNV					
Gore	2.49	0.04	2.53	0.12	2.41
Bush	2.28	0.01	2.29	0.11	2.18
Nader	0.12	0.00	0.12	0.01	0.12
 					
Total	4.89	0.06	4.95	0.24	4.70
 	 	 	 	 	 

 	 	 	 	 	 	 
2004 Calculated 	 
Voted	Turnout	Voted	Weight	Kerry	Bush	Other
DNV	 - 	1.37	23.5%	60%	39%	1%
Gore	95%	2.29	39.2%	92%	8%	0%
Bush	95%	2.07	35.4%	11%	89%	0%
Nader	95%	0.11	1.9%	67%	16%	17%
 						 
Share	4.47	5.84	100%	55.30%	44.14%	0.56%
Vote 	 	 	5.84 	3.23 	2.58 	0.03 

 	   2004 Calculated
 	Kerry	Bush	Other
Cast	3.230	2.578	0.032
Share	55.30%	44.14%	0.56%
ExitP	55.30%	44.00%	0.70%


Sensitivity Analysis 1

Bush 2000 LIVING Voter Turnout: 95.0%	  	 	 	 	 	 
 					 
Gore%  	
Unctd		Gore Voter Turnout		 
55.3%	91.0%	93.0%	95.0%	97.0%	99.0%

 		Kerry Vote Share	 

85.0%	54.8%	55.1%	55.4%	55.6%	55.9%
80.0%	54.8%	55.1%	55.3%	55.6%	55.9%
75.0%	54.8%	55.0%	55.3%	55.6%	55.8%
70.0%	54.7%	55.0%	55.3%	55.5%	55.8%
65.0%	54.7%	55.0%	55.2%	55.5%	55.8%
 					 
 		 Kerry Margin		 
 					 
85.0%	0.60 	0.63 	0.66 	0.69 	0.72 
80.0%	0.59 	0.62 	0.66 	0.69 	0.72 
75.0%	0.59 	0.62 	0.65 	0.68 	0.71 
70.0%	0.58 	0.62 	0.65 	0.68 	0.71 
65.0%	0.58 	0.61 	0.64 	0.67 	0.70 

Sensitivity Analysis 2

Kerry share of Bush 2000 voters: 11.0%	  	 	 	 	 	 
 					 
Kerry%	
Gore 	 Kerry % of New voters (DNV in 2000)	 
55.3%	56.0%	58.0%	60.0%	62.0%	64.0%

 		Kerry Vote Share	 

96.0%	55.9%	56.4%	56.9%	57.3%	57.8%
94.0%	55.1%	55.6%	56.1%	56.6%	57.0%
92.0%	54.4%	54.8%	55.3%	55.8%	56.2%
90.0%	53.6%	54.0%	54.5%	55.0%	55.5%
88.0%	52.8%	53.3%	53.7%	54.2%	54.7%
 					 
 		 Kerry Margin		 
 					 
96.0%	0.72 	0.78 	0.83 	0.89 	0.94 
94.0%	0.63 	0.69 	0.74 	0.80 	0.85 
92.0%	0.54 	0.60 	0.65 	0.71 	0.76 
90.0%	0.45 	0.51 	0.56 	0.61 	0.67 
88.0%	0.36 	0.41 	0.47 	0.52 	0.58 

[OnTheOtherHand]

99. sorry, you're still pwned

You now admit, obliquely, that the best you can do with respect to Pennsylvania is to get the exit poll projection within the MoE of your pre-election projection. (Naturally, you have nothing to say about your, charitably, ignorant question about why one shouldn't use the composite projection; that's just another thing down the memory hole.) But you still offer no defense or excuse for ignoring every pre-election poll result except the one most favorable to Kerry.

You also offer no defense or excuse for "Add(ing) 2% to Kerry’s share because of heavy NEW RV turnout (52-43%)." You call that the "True Vote," but to the rest of us, it looks an awful lot like the Made-Up Vote. (If you could demonstrate that the LV models assumed low turnout, you would have a case -- but you haven't demonstrated that, and you can't.)

But perhaps most telling, you still have nothing whatsoever to say about the surprise analysis. Even if the pre-election polls are all biased against Kerry until subjected to your Truification, that doesn't explain why Kerry does no better against the Truified numbers in states with low "red shift" than in states with high red shift.

[WillE]

100. Your myths vs. the facts. Now show us your cherry-picked PA LV polls

You never give up, do you?
Even when the evidence stares you right in the face.

Myth - Bush led the pre-election polls.
Fact - Registered Voter pre-election polls were more accurate than LV polls.
Fact - There were 22 million new voters. Kerry won 57-60% of new voters.



Your shortcomings are obvious to all.
You have shown us nothing.

Where are your pre-election LV polls?
Where are your pre-election RV polls?
Where are your uncounted votes?
Where is your voter mortality?
Where is your evidence that Undecided voters did not break for Kerry?

You ignore everything. Like this:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x512608

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 national 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.

OTOH, you only continue to show us how pathetic your game is.
You always try to get in the last word on this DEMOCRATIC Forum.
You always seek to blow fog on any and all analysis.
You always try to debunk any evidence which showed that Bush stole the election from a DEMOCRAT.

That's why you instructed Manjoo in that RFK Jr hit piece.
And that's why you have never failed to thrash ALL the work of True acivists:
TIA
RFK Jr.
John Conyers ("Ohio Report")
Greg Palast (investigative reporter, exposed FL 2000)
Mark C. Miller ("Losers Take All", etc.)

Steve Freeman ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?")
Ron Baiman (USDC)
Kathy Dopp (auditing math)
Ion Sancho (an American Hero - Leon Cty Fl Elections Supervisor}
Paul Lehto (legal election activist)

Jim Lampley (HBO Boxing reporter)
Thom Hartmann (radio)
Mike Malloy (radio)
BradBlog (election activist, investigative reporter- he gave it to you good, didn;t he)
althecat (Scoop, DU)

autorank (DU, "Urban Legend")
Jonathan Simon (2006 Landslide Denied)
Bruce O'Dell (2006 Landslide Denied)
etc., etc.

But you support:
Edison-Mitofsky
Farhad Manjoo
Mystery Pollster (another Mark)

Your siren song ended in 2005 in the Game thread.
But you are singing that "crap" to this day.

OTOH, get over it.
Bush lost.
You lost.

The true activists are winning, no thanks to you.

[Wilms]

101. Hmmm. "true activists are winning" you say.

Can you or, cough, TIA share with the forum what it is that was won?

All I see is a bunch of computers, the majority of races not even given an inadequate audit, and a self-absorbed accountant that doesn't seem to care that Ohio '04 wasn't examined because--who cares--his exit poll analysis impresses a peanut gallery of people that have an eighth grade math level they find sufficient cause to believe what they're told

Wow. What's it like being the king of all that? :eyes:

[WillE]

102. Show us your numbers and stop whining!

...

[Wilms]

104. I'm whinning.

'04 was over four years ago, and all that you "true activists" have to show for it is the marginalization of real activists.

I got your number, TIA. That's the important one relative to this discussion.

:hi:

[WillE]

105. Take your pick. Column A or Column B? Steak or Pork?

Just whose side are you on?
Do you mean these guys?

Column A

TIA
RFK Jr.
John Conyers ("Ohio Report")
Greg Palast (investigative reporter, exposed FL 2000)
Mark C. Miller ("Losers Take All", etc.)

Steve Freeman ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?")
Ron Baiman (USDC)
Kathy Dopp (auditing math)
Ion Sancho (an American Hero - Leon Cty Fl Elections Supervisor}
Paul Lehto (legal election activist)

Jim Lampley (HBO Boxing reporter)
Thom Hartmann (radio)
Mike Malloy (radio)
BradBlog (election activist, investigative reporter- he gave it to you good, didn;t he)
althecat (Scoop, DU)

autorank (DU, "Urban Legend")
Jonathan Simon (2006 Landslide Denied)
Bruce O'Dell (2006 Landslide Denied)
etc., etc.

Or these pretenders:

Column B

Edison-Mitofsky
Farhad Manjoo
Mystery Pollster

Just who would you call the real "activists"?
Column A or Column B?

Go ahead.

Choose B annd OTOH will love you.

Because he believes all of those mentioned in A are always wrong.
And all mentioned in B are always right, because he consulted for them.

[Wilms]

106. Analysis is anything but black and white.

Except for you.

Your junior high school litmus test is almost as boring as the rest of your work.

You've been made aware of my opinion of the 2K4. But I don't share your view of what constitutes proof.

Unlike bootlickers, I'm on my own side.

And I don't take cues from entertainers. And I don't equate probabilities analysis with vote counting.

You got a problem with that, I know.

[WillE]

108. HS Litmis test?I have no problem with your having a problem...

You think for yourself, great.

So do the folks in Column A.

[WillE]

115. It's time for you to recognize some facts.....

My name is Bill (you can call me Will). I admit to being very familiar with TIA's work and have read all of his analysis. Have you?

I said that the activists are winning by 1) proving endemic election fraud and 2)forcing election officials to replace their unverifiable voting systems. I agree that the audits are inadequate. So are the recounts.

Who is this accountant you speak of? I am not an accountant.

By the way, Ohio 2004 was examined by Richard Hayes Phillips. He wrote a book on it. And ballots destroyed were destroyed in 55 of 88 Ohio counties.

It's a good thing we also have the Ohio exit polls. Ron Baiman and Kathy Dopp of USCV also proved that OHIO was stolen by analyzing raw precinct exit poll data. Are you aware of that? Are you familiar with what USCV has done?

You made this outrageous statement:
"His exit poll analysis impresses a peanut gallery of people that have an eighth grade math level they find sufficient cause to believe what they're told".

Know this: it was the exit polls that brought attention to the 2004 fraud on DU!
You should thank the exit poll math analysts like TIA, Freeman, Baiman, Dopp, etc.

Without 2004 state and national exit polls this forum would probably never have been created because no one would have questioned the theft back then. The exit poll analysts jump-started the debates right here on DU.

People came to DU looking for answers. The only evidence they had were the exit polls. But trolls tried to debunk the exit poll analysts immediately after the election. Now, there is only one individual left on this forum who still thrashes exit poll and believes that Bush won legitimately.

Here's a question for you: What would have been your rationale to suggest that the 2004 election was fraudulent had there been no exit polls to analyze? What other evidence would you have pointed to? If it was just a "gut" feeling or mere "belief", you would have gotten nowhere. Without numerical evidence you have squat.

Based on your lack of substantive response, you appear to be math challenged. You demean the efforts of all the exit poll math analysts who have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the election was stolen. In 2004 that was not obvious. But now virtually all DUers believe it, including you.

And if you think about it, the primary reasons reason for your “belief” are the pre-election and exit polls. You just won't admit it.You and Bill Bored should stop knocking the exits! It's because of them that you are posting on DU Elections.

[Wilms]

116. Gimme an example.

You said:

"The activists are winning by proving endemic election fraud and forcing election officials to admit that their voting systems need to be replaced."


Then please name the election officials who have admitted "that their voting systems need to be replaced" while citing supporting data that includes exit polls.

[WillE]

117. Strawman. You avoid my question and are putting words in my mouth.

They didn't have to cite the exit polls. But the election activism was a direct result of the exit polls which drew immediate attention to the fraud.

Answer the questions:
What brought you to DU in the first place?
Without the exit polls, would you even be posting on DU?
What other evidence would you have cited to suggest that the election was stolen?

It's late.
Go to sleep and think about it over breakfast.

[Bill Bored]

118. Don't be silly! Activism was a result of the radical Bush regime and FL 2000.

If the regime had been more moderate Republican, and the election hadn't been close enough to steal in 2000 (and 2004), no one would give a shit. In fact, that's where we're at right now. We have moderate Dems in power after a not-so-close election, and election reform is a dead issue.

It will take another unpopular regime elected unfairly to get people to wake up about e-vote counting.

Maybe some unlikely implausible upsets in New York after the lever machines are gone and the courts deny the recount requests by the "sore loser" candidates.

[WillE]

119. Activism was muted in 2001; it became widespread in Nov. 2004

It was so muted in 2001 that it resulted in HAVA, setting the stage for the 2004 theft

The DREs that we all hate were exposed initially by the exits you love to hate - on Nov.2, 2004.
Right here on DU. That set the stage for exposing how the DREs could be hacked by true activists like Ion Sancho in FL (the Hursti hack). Sancho thinks TIA's analysis raises issues that need to be raised.

SO IT ALL STARTED WITH THE EXITS IN 2004!

But, it is true, election fraud is endemic. Democratic landslide margins were cut in HALF in 2006 and 2008. You are correct, the Vichy Dems and moribund media are still silent. And the same disinformation regarding the exits is still being spread today - 5 years later. On this forum.

Ask yourself this question:
Why has the 2008 exit poll report not been released? It should have been 8 months ago.
The only logical answer:
It would only confirm that election fraud is endemic; the algorithms are still in place from 2004.

[Bill Bored]

120. Ah, but most Dems in Congress voted FOR HAVA! They considered themselves to be reformers!

And what about Max Cleland's race in 2002? I suppose there may have been some polls involved in that one, and even a poll is better than paperless, hackable, unverifiable DREs -- but not much better.

Computer scientists and activists have been warning against e-vote counting for decades. They didn't need a poll to suggest that we wouldn't know who won or who lost. You guys are Johnnies-come-lately with your polls! The best evidence of uncertain winners of elections has always been the non-transparent voting systems themselves.

There's plenty of paper in most states now, but it's counted by DRE software masquerading as ballot scanner software and no one wants to recount enough of the paper by hand to see who won.

Your application of exit polling to lever elections in NY, which are pretty much unhackable, is misplaced, and it undermines whatever credibility the polls may have had in other states where they have no way to know who won their elections. If the polls were so far off in NY where the vote switching wasn't possible, then why would anyone believe they were right anywhere else?

You would have been better off staying out of the Empire State. We don't count votes with computers here, and hence could not steal a statewide election unless it's practically a tie, and could not pad the popular vote for the same reason.

In short, you're really shooting yourself in the foot to suggest that exit polls are more accurate than lever machines!

[WillE]

121. You just don 't get it, do you?

Bill,

You have blinders on. If you read the posts up-thread, and I
know you did, you would have learned that even assuming the
levers 0.79% spoilage rate in 2004 (for those who did not
leave the voting place in frustration), lack of transparency
enables humans to spoil the count.

Apparently, you believe that the human counters and election
officials could not have been influnced by BushCo.

Now, address this anomaly since you failed to do so up-thread:

1- The average NY WPE when Clinton was the incumbent (1996,
2000) was 0.6%.
Good Levers. Good people. Low WPE. Within the MoE.
Bill, you win. Levers are fraud-proof.

2- The average WPE when a Bush was the incumbent (1988, 1992
and 2004) was 8.0%.
Good levers. Bad people. High WPE. Way beyond the MoE.
Bill, you lose. People are not.

         1988 1992 1996 2000 2004
WPE      -7.2 -4.6 +2.1 -3.3 -12.2

Cast     7174 7613 6830 7001 7618
Recorded 6456 6927 6316 6823 7391
Unct(net) 718  686  514  178  277

Dem Share (%)
ExitPoll 55.2 52.0 58.4 61.4 64.5
Recorded 51.6 49.7 59.5 60.2 58.4
Diff      3.6  2.3 -1.1  1.2  6.1

So now I assume that you will say:
The NY exit polls were right in 1996 and 2000 when Clinton was
the incumbent.
The NY exit polls were wrong in 1988, 1992 and 2004 when a
Bush was the incumbent.

But with those blinders still on, you will be engaged in
wishful thinking.

[Wilms]

122. You're still not listening. And may well never.

Your little cottage industry wouldn't survive a trip outside self-absorption.

Bill already slapped around regarding the imagined genesis of ER being rooted in your exit poll quagmire.

Again and again I've watched you expose your ignorance about the NY voting systems, accompanied by your active resistance to educating yourself.

To you, Truth is Shit.

[WillE]

125. You avoid the content of the post.

You know the Truth?

You are getting very frustrated aren't you?
You cannot answer, so you resort to "shit".

Now address the issue: human miscounts
You have not addressed it. Neither has Bill.

Anyone reading this thread can see just who is getting slapped around.

[Wilms]

134. Human Miscounts?

That would be by the same people who would do the fabled HCPB in NY.

So you want to make the case against HCPB, too?

Anything to prolong your self-infatuation. Anything. Desperate. Pathetic.

[Bill Bored]

123. I don't CARE what the polls say. They are just polls -- not voting systems.

There's no way to hack the NY voting system to produce an 8% average vote shift in every election district (precinct) in the state. So yes, the polls were wrong if that's what they say. If the shift was greater in 2004, then the polls were even more wrong in 2004. However, on edit, I see that WPE is margin error so:

Since you won't answer the question of how many lever machines had to be hacked, I'll do it for you:

To get an 6% vote shift on 20,000 machines, you could hack:
1,200 machines with 100% vote shifts, or
2,400 machines with 50% vote shifts, or
4,800 machines with 25% vote shifts, or
9,600 machines with 12.5% vote shifts, or
all 20,000 machines with an 6% vote shift on every machine.

If you use undervotes instead of vote shifts, because vote switching on lever machines during elections is physically IMPOSSIBLE (and the machines are canvassed immediately after the polls close), then you have to double the numbers of machines above to account for an 6% vote shift. That means you'd have to have a 12% undervote rate at the top of the ticket on ALL 20,000 machines. Kind of like Sarasota County, FL, CD-13 2006 on steroids (a statewide undervote rate of 12% for President, almost as high as for CD-13 in a single county in FLORIDA)! Unfortunately (for you) the undervote rate was only 0.77% in 2004 -- not 12% -- which I think even included paper absentee ballots, although they accounted for only a few % of the vote.

Keep it up and you'll do more damage to your exit poll theory than OnTheOtherHand!

Maybe you're not TIA, and rather just an anti-exit-poll infiltrator! Anyone who'd claim these polls are more accurate than lever voting machines is no friend to exit-poll believers. In fact, you're making them look like they're out of their minds!

[Wilms]

124. In fact, where are all the true-believers?

If they've gotten over their self-defeating notion that an exit poll is an election verifying procedure, TIA may have a tough time rallying the troops.

Then there's his effective advocacy of Optical Scan for NY that must be winning hearts and minds like Condi Rice does in the ME.


Yep. TIA is really on the ropes right now, and no amount of name-calling at OTOH can bring about a come-back.


You really wanna make TIA's head explode. Ask him to show us where BradBlog claims the 2004 exit poll proves Kerry won.

[WillE]

127. Now it is clear...

You are so disturbed you resort to demeaning TIA?
You are obviously in a state of pure panic.

It is now very clear.
This thread has exposed you.

Just who are YOUR troops?

[Wilms]

135. I have no troops.

Nor am I the leader of a faith-based cult.

[WillE]

126. You really DO have blinders on.

You really DO have blinders on.
You just plow straight ahead with your meaningless, irrelevant calcs.

No one is contesting that the levers are accurate.
Who do you think you are fooling?

You are getting very frustrated, aren't you?
You have not addressed the variance in WPE between Clinton and Bush..
You fail to even mention the possibility of vote miscounts.

I ALREADY CONCEDED 0.79% LEVERS SPOILAGE.
WHY WON'T YOU CONCEDE THE ACCURACY OF THE EXIT POLLS?

Now address the issue: human miscounts.
You have not addressed it.
I told you in the last post that you would ignore it.
And you did.

You have one more chance.
Address it.

[Bill Bored]

128. You wrote: "No one is contesting that the levers are accurate." Good! Then my work here is done.

Have a nice life! :woohoo::yourock::toast::bounce: :loveya: :applause: :fistbump::pals: :party:

[WillE]

129. No, your work has just started..

You still ignore the Bush/Clinton NY WPE disparity.

YOU THINK YOU HAVE WON THE "DEBATE" IF THE LEVERS ARE GOOD AND THE COUNTERS ARE BAD?
YOU KNOW WHAT STALIN ONCE SAID...

NO BILL, YOU HAVEN'T WON DIDLY.
You are in even worse shape now than you were when this thread began.

You are caught in a dilemma.
It's a Hobson's choice for you.

Were the exit polls also WRONG in 1996 and 2000 when Clinton was the incumbent?
The average MoE was 0.6%.

Because you turn a blind's eye to HUMAN CORRUPTION AS THE CAUSE OF THE WPE DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN CLINTON AND BUSH.

YOU CANNOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS, BILL.
YOU CANNOT JUST SAY THAT THE EXIT POLLS WERE WRONG WHEN BUSH WAS THE INCUMBENT...
AND THEY WERE SPOT ON WHEN CLINTON WAS.

ARE YOU GOING TO CLAIM THAT MITOFSKY'S EXPERIENCE WORKED AGAINST HIM IN 2004?
HE WAS JUST FINE IN 1996 AND 2000.
DID HIS ABILITY TO CONDUCT EXIT POLLS DIMINISH IN 2004?
WHY DID HIS 30+ YEARS OF EXPERIENCE FAIL HIM WHEN A BUSH WAS RUNNING?

COME ON BILL.
YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT.

[yowzayowzayowza]

131. Didn't Bush run in 2000?

Oh, nevermind.

[WillE]

132. Bush was NOT the incumbent in 2k. He was in '04. He had means, motive and opportunity.

Yowza,

You are missing the overall:

1) Clinton was the incumbent. Bush did not have the means nor the opportunity.

2) Bush knew that he could not steal NY from Gore even if he wanted to. He had no motive.

3) Gore won the official popular vote in 2000 by 540,000; he would have won by 3 million if the 5.4 million uncounted votes been counted.

4) Bush needed a "mandate" in 2004. He had a motive.

5) He could not afford to steal a close election and lose the popular vote again. He was the incumbent. He had the means.

6) So the ILLEGITIMATE INCUMBENT WHO STOLE THE 2000 ELECTION HAD TO REDUCE KERRY'S MARGIN IN NY. He had the opportunity.

7) Election fraud reduced Kerry's NY margin by over 700,000 votes.

8) Since Bush had a stolen election popular vote mandate of just 3.0 million, NY accounted for one quarter of his "margin".

And now you've heard the rest of the story.

[yowzayowzayowza]

133. Welp, at least we agree that it is a ...

story.

:hi:

[OnTheOtherHand]

137. but, WillE,

1. You've never offered any coherent rationale why Bush would have more "means or opportunity" to subvert the lever counts in 2004 than in 2000, despite repeated requests. Your thinking on this point seems to be strictly magical. How would he actually have gone about doing it? Not a rhetorical question, something that anyone who claims to care about election fraud actually ought to think about.

2. Bush knew that he could not steal NY from Kerry, either. But if you think Bush needed extra votes in 2004 to have a "mandate," surely he could have used some extra votes in 2000, when he actually lost the popular vote! Objectively, Bush had far more motive to steal NY votes in 2000 than in 2004.

[WillE]

139. You either don't read or you quickly forget: Motive. Means. Opportunity

This has been mentioned over and over again.

in 2000, he did not the means (Republican prosecutors).
He was not in power. Not only was he illegitimate, he lost the popular vote.
A double whammy.

He could not let that happen in 2004.
He controlled Justice in 2004.

He had the motive: To pad the vote
He had the means: He controlled Justice.
He had the opportunity. He was in power.


How did he fix the Supreme Court in 2000?
How did he fix Florida in 2000 and 2004?
Why were Jeb and Katherine Harris and Feeney never prosecuted?

How did he fix Ohio in 2004?
Why was Blackwell never prosecuted?

[OnTheOtherHand]

141. projection much?

In the previous post, you claimed, "Bush knew that he could not steal NY from Gore even if he wanted to. He had no motive." Apparently you've now ditched the assertion that Bush had "no motive" to steal votes in NY, but you haven't actually withdrawn it. I'm shocked, shocked to encounter this degree of evasiveness.

In 2000, he did not the means (Republican prosecutors).

I'm reminded of Steve Martin's advice on how to be a millionaire without paying any taxes. First, get a million dollars. Then, don't pay taxes. And when you're asked why you didn't pay taxes? Two simple words: "I forgot."

"(Republican prosecutors)"? How, specifically, do you think "(Republican prosecutors)" enabled Bush to steal votes in New York in 2004 but not in 2000?

[OnTheOtherHand]

136. of course he can "have it both ways" -- think about it

There is no logical reason on earth why the polls have to be equally accurate or inaccurate every time.

In New York, your own figures show that there was little difference between 1992 (when you claim that the exit polls were Wrong) and 2000 (when you claim that they were Right). There's also little difference in New York between 1988 and 1992 (both of which you score as Wrong) -- but we know that on average nationwide, the exit poll error was much larger in 1992 than 1988. You're imposing your false binaries on the data.

Now, step away from the caps lock key before you hurt yourself, and see if you can come up with a reason for your blind faith in exit polls. No one is really buying this idea that Bushes have magic powers over the thousands of people who check the lever machine results, so maybe you can try for something better.

[WillE]

140. You want to talk about "blind faith"? OK.

You talk about "blind faith". I'll give you blind faith:

The NY LV poll had a 3% MoE.
But you hold on to it for dear life.
THAT'S FAITH-BASED CHERRY-PICKING.

Come away from your fog machine and see if you can come up with a valid reason for your blind faith in ONE NY pre-election poll.

Next:
Was the Bush average WPE 8%?
Was the Clinton average WPE 0.6%
Now, just answer the question, YES or NO?

Next:
Since you claim to be one, let's do some poly sci.

2000: Gore 60; Bush 35; Nader/other 5%
2004: Bush 48% approval, but just 35% in NY
3 of 4 Nader voters defect to Kerry

Net: Kerry 63; Bush 36; Other 1

Here's where it gets interesting. Try to follow, if you can:

To match the recorded (58-40) vote, Bush needed to flip 4 of 60 Gore voters (6.7%), net of Bush defectors. But among Gore voters, Bush approval was probably only 25% since it was 35% among all NY voters, including Republicans and Indies.

Therefore, realistically, only 25% of Gore voters were vulnerable defectors. Bush needed 4 of 25 voters (16%) to match the recorded vote - again NET of Bush defectors.

Now to believe THAT takes some real BLIND FAITH - BECAUSE BUSH HAD 35% APPROVAL IN NEW YORK.
I MUST SHOUT OTHERWISE YOU MAY NOT HEAR ME.

But since YOU are the one who is faith-based, that should not be a problem for you.
Stop smoking.
It's not good for your health.

[OnTheOtherHand]

142. darling, you're in a panic

ONE NY pre-election poll.

No, four NY pre-election polls in the last week alone. As far as I know, there never was a NY pre-election poll that showed Kerry winning by anywhere near 31 points, even after being subjected to Truification. That's probably why you didn't project that Kerry would win NY by anywhere near 31 points.

And as I've pointed out repeatedly, and you've consistently ignored, the problem isn't just New York, and it isn't just Pennsylvania. The problem is that Bush doesn't perform any better against the pre-election polls (Truified or not) in the states with big red shift than in the others. Just like he doesn't perform any better against his 2000 baseline, at the state level or at the precinct level. These are all empirical findings that you disregard, because you have to, just like you have to disregard the NES evidence. And so it goes.

No, I don't agree that the "Bush average WPE" was 8.0. I don't disagree with the arithmetic, only the actual substance. Some of us think substance matters more. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.

You still haven't made an intelligible argument about why Bush's approval rating has any bearing on the Gore defection rate. People -- whether they voted for Gore or not -- didn't have to approve of Bush's performance in order to vote for him. (And, lest you confuse anyone, we all know and agree that most New Yorkers didn't vote for Bush. The only thing at issue is the magnitude of the rout.)

[WillE]

143. Show us YOUR numbers. Here is the NY True Vote analysis you WON'T DARE do.

Show us YOUR numbers. Do a True Vote analysis.

Show us the pre-election polls.
Were they LVs.? Bet they were.
Were undecided voters allocated?

In any case, everyone but you knows that exit polls are more
accurate then pre-elects.
No undecideds. All decided.
No likely voters. All voted.

What do you have against Mitofsky, anyway?

Since you brought it up. 
May I introduce you to the NY True Vote.
You know, the analysis you NEVER do.
Why would you?
It makes too much sense.

It ain’t rocket science.
Even you can do it.
I can easily cut and paste as many times as necessary until
you get it.

Base Case Sceario:
It’s Kerry by 63.5-35.4%.
A 2.2 million vote landlside.

Total votes CAST in 2000 and 2004
5% Mortality.
98% Turnout.

Kerry NY share = National share + 10%

Sensitivity Analysis: 
Assume 94% Gore 2000 voter turnout; 
98% LIVING Bush 2000 voter turnout (no PHANTOMS allowed).

Kerry wins with 63.0% (2.1 million votes)

Just for you, a 
Worst Case scenario:
Kerry 89% of returning Bush voters? In NY?
Kerry 47% of New voters? In NY?

Kerry wins with 58.9% (1.45 million votes)

New York 2004 Election Calculator 			
							
2000 Recorded	 	 	2004 Recorded 	 
Gore	Bush	Other	Total	Kerry	Bush	Other	Total
4.108	2.403	0.311	6.822	4.314	2.963	0.114	7.391
60.22%	35.22%	4.56%	 	58.37%	40.09%	1.54%	 

Uncounted			 	 			 
0.131	0.035	0.009	0.175	0.231	0.071	0.006	0.308
75%	20%	5%	2.50%	75%	23%	2%	4.00%
							
Uncounted Votes 		        Est.    NEP     NEP
	Pct	 Cast	Unctd	Kerry	NY	12:22am	Final
2004	4.00%	7.699	0.308	DNV	67%	57%	54%
2000	2.50%	6.997	0.175	Gore	92%	91%	90%
				Bush	11%	10%	9%
2004	Share	2000	Share	Nader	71%	64%	71%
Kerry	75%	Gore	75%				
Bush	23%	Bush	20%	Bush			
Other	2%	Nader	5%	DNV	31%	41%	45%
				Gore	7%	8%	10%
2000 Voter Mortality 		Bush	89%	90%	91%
Total Voters	1.25%		Nader	21%	17%	21%
Gore share	60%						
				Other			
2000 Voter Turnout in 2004	DNV	2%	2%	1%
Gore	98%			Gore	1%	1%	0%
Bush	98%			Bush	0%	0%	0%
Nader	98%			Nader	8%	19%	8%

 	 	 	 	 	 
 		2000 Recorded		
Voted	Record	Uncntd	Cast	Deaths	Alive
DNV					
Gore	4.11	0.131	4.24	0.21	4.03
Bush	2.40	0.035	2.44	0.12	2.31
 Nader	0.31	0.009	0.32	0.02	0.30
 					
Total	6.82	0.175	7.00	0.35	6.65
 	 	 	 	 	 

 	 	 	 	 	 	 
	2000		2004 Calculated 	 
 	Turnout	Voted	Weight	Kerry	Bush	Other
DNV	 - 	1.185	15.4%	67%	31%	2%
Gore	98%	3.949	51.3%	92%	7%	1%
Bush	98%	2.268	29.5%	11%	89%	0%
 Nader	98%	0.298	3.9%	71%	21%	8%
 						 
Total	6.51	7.699	100%	63.48%	35.39%	1.13%
 	 	 	7.70 	4.89 	2.72 	0.09 

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS				
Kerry NY Vote Share	 				

1.

Bush 2000 Turnout:98.0%	 	 	 	 	 	 

 					 
Gore% 	
Unctd		Gore Voter Turnout		 
63.5%	94.0%	95.0%	96.0%	97.0%	98.0%

 		Kerry NY Vote Share	 
85.0%	63.1%	63.3%	63.4%	63.5%	63.7%
80.0%	63.0%	63.2%	63.3%	63.4%	63.6%

75.0%	63.0%	63.1%	63.2%	63.3%	63.5%

70.0%	62.9%	63.0%	63.1%	63.3%	63.4%
65.0%	62.8%	62.9%	63.0%	63.2%	63.3%
 					 
 		 Kerry Margin		 

85.0%	2.11 	2.13 	2.15 	2.17 	2.19 
80.0%	2.10 	2.12 	2.14 	2.16 	2.18 

75.0%	2.08 	2.10 	2.12 	2.14 	2.16 

70.0%	2.07 	2.09 	2.11 	2.13 	2.15 
65.0%	2.05 	2.07 	2.09 	2.11 	2.13 

2. 	 	 	 	 	 

Kerry share of Bush 2000 voters:11.0%	 

Gore voters	New voters (DNV in 2000)	 
63.5%	47.0%	57.0%	67.0%	77.0%	87.0%

                Kerry  NY Vote Share	 
93.0%	60.9%	62.5%	64.0%	65.5%	67.1%
92.0%	60.4%	61.9%	63.5%	65.0%	66.6%

91.0%	59.9%	61.4%	63.0%	64.5%	66.0%

90.0%	59.4%	60.9%	62.5%	64.0%	65.5%
89.0%	58.9%	60.4%	61.9%	63.5%	65.0%
 					 
 		 Kerry Margin		 
 					 
93.0%	1.77 	2.00 	2.24 	2.48 	2.72 
92.0%	1.69 	1.93 	2.16 	2.40 	2.64 

91.0%	1.61 	1.85 	2.08 	2.32 	2.56 

90.0%	1.53 	1.77 	2.00 	2.24 	2.48 
89.0%	1.45 	1.69 	1.93 	2.16 	2.40 

[OnTheOtherHand]

144. as usual, you have no counter to ANY of my points

You can moan about LVs and undecideds, but all that was supposedly taken into account in your original projections.

As for your "NY True Vote analysis," I think the actual true vote (whatever it is) should sue. :hi:

[yowzayowzayowza]

130. You really *are* an optimist!!! n/t

[OnTheOtherHand]

103. you didn't respond to any of my points

There really isn't any point in responding to your asinine demand for my "cherry-picked" polls, since you refuse to defend your own work. However, since in the past you've appealed to Sam Wang's rather similar work, I direct you to his Reference sheet for Election Night 2004, page 4, "Average poll margins in battleground states, Polls finished during the week of October 25 to November 1, 2004." For Pennsylvania, Wang reports an average margin of Kerry +2.1, with an SEM of 0.7. His own estimate is Kerry +5.

[WillE]

107. As usual, you are a no show

They were an average of polls taken from Oct. 25
Why don't you show us the polls that made up the average?
Go ahead do some work.

Bet you they are all LV polls
Like Zogby's Oct. 31 50-45 LV
You call it cherry-picking.
Hey OTOH, this was the latest poll.

Again, show us the earlier ones that Wang was referring to.
Bet you can't do it.

In any case, even if you could, your efforts will be fruitless.
Because all you do is cherry-pick without doing any analysis.

Can you explain why RCP's final list of pre-election polls in 2004 and 2008 do not include ONE RV?

What do you have against newly registered voters?
What do you have against undecided voters?
What do you have against those whose votes are uncounted?

Why do you prefer phantom Bush returning voters to live ones?

As a Democrat, why do you spend all of your time trolling boards to try to prove that Bush won without cheating and that all the activists and analysts are FOS.

Jeez, it's 2009. I could see you believeing it in 2004, but it's FIVE fucking years later and you have yet to make a case.

Is there anyone else out there besides Bush apologists who still maintains that he really did win?

Here you are trying to make a case based on PA. How pathetic. It's just one state.
Buy your cherry-picking got you no where. A simple analysis hoisted you on your own petard. Yet you persist.

EVEN IF YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT PA (WHICH YOU AIN'T) IT WOULD NOT MAKE A HILL OF BEANS DIFFERENCE....BECAUSE IT IS JUST PATHETIC CHERRY-PICKING.
IT ONLY MAKES YOU LOOK FOOLISH.
YOU ARE CAUGHT IN THE WEB OF YOUR OWN DISINFO.

YOUR MIND IS A CLOSED BOX.
YOU ARE NOT A TRUTHSEEKER.

THIS THREAD PROVES IT ONCE AND FOR ALL

[OnTheOtherHand]

109. care to try again in English?

"They were an average of polls taken from Oct. 25"

Ah.

And your point would be?

Bet you they are all LV polls
Like Zogby's Oct. 31 50-45 on Oct. 31.
You call it cherry-picking.
Hey OTOH, this was the latest poll.

Did Wang use LV polls? Certainly. Are you confessing that you ignored, disregarded, threw away all the other poll data? Yup. Was it the latest poll?

Well, no, it wasn't. Sorry about that. Even the final Zogby number was 50-46. But, hey, you were pretty close.

According to the electoral-vote.com database (no longer available, AFAIK, but I have to assume that you have a copy on your hard drive, right?), the other poll based on interviews through 11/1 (in fact, only 10/31 and 11/1) was from SurveyUSA. It had Kerry 49, Bush 48.

With that, I feel I've done more than enough of your work for you. If you want to accuse Sam Wang of thoughtcrime, go right ahead.

ETA: Oh, you ask with great indignation (or innuendo, or something) why RCP doesn't seem to include any RV polls in its final list. You may not have noticed this in all these many years, but pollsters who report Likely Voter results do so because they consider their LV estimates more, well, likely than their RV estimates. I've made other points on this subject over the years, and -- true to form -- you have consistently ignored them.

Meanwhile, you're still ignoring (and therefore conceding) my other points entirely, and it appears that feeble attempts to smear me are all you've got left. Just for the record, I've never argued or believed that "all the activists and analysts are FOS." Do I think some people are FOS? Yes, indeed.

[WillE]

110. Now about those LVs and Rvs- you have shown us NADA

I showed you proof that Kerry's RV pre-elect was uniformly 2% higher than the LV.
You conveniently ignore that.

I provided an RV/LV analysis from 2004 based on the differential in the final national polls and 22 million new voters.
You conveniently ignore that.

It shows that Kerry's True Vote margin was largely due to new voters (he had 57-60%).
That's a 4.4 million vote margin in NEW voters.
This does NOT include Nader and Bush defectors.

Yes, OTOH, there was a net defection of returning Gore and Bush voters to Kerry.
You conveniently ignore that.

Oh, thanks for that late PA poll.
You did some work for a change.

So Zogby was 50-46, not 50-45.
Big Deal!
So it's 52.25-46.75 when undecideds are allocated - and it's still an LV poll.

In any case, the adjusted pre-elects are within the Exit Poll MoE.
Your cherry-picking is fruitless.

Not only that, it's demeaning and unprofessional.

You still have no conception of the fact that the state exit poll AGGREGATE (114,000 respondents)showed Kerry to be a 52-47% national winner - a 7% WPE.

The GEO gave him 51-48%
A True Vote analysis gave him 53-46%.

Cherry-picking a single state like PA which had a 2% MoE makes no sense whatsoever.
Especially when the PA True Vote matched the exits.

All that smoke you are throwing is rapidly dissipating.

[WillE]

111. JIm Lampley on Bradblog in 2005

I will get the mp3

[WillE]

113. Must Listen! Jim Lampley of HBO on Bradblog in May 2005

Must Listen! Jim Lampley of HBO on Bradblog in May 2005

Lampley comes on about 8 minutes into the tape.

Ok, it's over 5 years old.
But we know a lot more now than we did in 2005.

We have seen landslides denied in 2006 and 2008.
How come we have never seen Lampley on Olberman or Maddow or CNN?

It's a great interview.
Enjoy.

http://www.bradshow.com/Archives/BradShow_052105_Hour1.mp3


http://www.bradblog.com/?p=1423

[Wilms]

114. I recall that interview. Was very happy to hear it.

Like me, he thinks something was wrong with 2K4.

But here's a difference between me and you, TIA. I think pointing out that our election results are the product of software is a better way to get people to take responsibility for their blind faith in reported results. And you think exit polls (once they've been subjected to your brand of adjustments) are proof. All it proves to me and others is your blind faith in a different non-verifiable scheme.

Let's face it, I'm not sure why Olberman or Maddow or CNN would host Lampley...unless it was to talk about sports. Again, like me he thinks something was wrong. But a sportscaster or an entertainer is no substitute for a reliable voting system. You think otherwise. And that says a lot.

[OnTheOtherHand]

138. here's an interesting part

LAMPLEY: ...My premise is that the election results are what were flawed, not the exit polls. So they could write a thousand pages on the premise that there's something wrong with their exit polls, and I'm not even bothering to read it, it doesn't matter.

I can see why you like it. Reaching your conclusions before examining the evidence saves a lot of trouble.

[OnTheOtherHand]

112. no, you haven't

It's patent bullshit that Kerry's RV numbers were "uniformly" 2% higher than his LV numbers. So I'm pretty confident that you haven't shown me "proof."

Most of your analyses are unsupported and incoherent, so there isn't much more to be said about them. I've spent more time hacking through your work than anyone else alive AFAIK, but there are limits.

"Yes, OTOH, there was a net defection of returning Gore and Bush voters to Kerry. You conveniently ignore that." Well, no, I've inconveniently rebutted that. Sorry, you're still pwned.

I note that you've sent the SurveyUSA poll right down the memory hole with everything else.

I'll stick with E/M's WPE estimate of -6.5. No clue why you think I have "no conception" of it.