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Holy cow. You made some huge assumptions about what you think was assumed when the exit poll analysis was conducted. Members of The National Election Archive Project, the non-partisan watchdog group to whom the the one in 3 billion figure can be attributed, will be the first to tell you that every single factor you just described made its way into their analysis of the polling data. Yes, seriously.

If I were a ruder Slashdot poster, I would have responded with something like "Who the fuck are you? The woman who wrote the white paper on this graduated Cum Laude from the University of Utah with a master's in mathematics and has been analyzing poll data for 10 years..." and so on, but rather than resort to an ad hominem attack, I'll just assume that you replied without taking the time to check the sources that describe in vivid detail how the analysis was performed. Here is a link to the pdf that describes the process that was used. I know reading an 18 page document is not half as easy as just writing a paragraph where you just make random, uneducated guesses about what it contains, but you might want to give it a shot.

Holy cow. You made some huge assumptions about what you think was assumed when the exit poll analysis was conducted. Members of The National Election Archive Project, the non-partisan watchdog group to whom the the one in 3 billion figure can be attributed, will be the first to tell you that every single factor you just described made its way into their analysis of the polling data. Yes, seriously.

If I were a ruder Slashdot poster, I would have responded with something like "Who the fuck are you? The woman who wrote the white paper on this graduated Cum Laude from the University of Utah with a master's in mathematics and has been analyzing poll data for 10 years..." and so on, but rather than resort to an ad hominem attack, I'll just assume that you replied without taking the time to check the sources that describe in vivid detail how the analysis was performed. Here is a link to the pdf that describes the process that was used. I know reading an 18 page document is not half as easy as just writing a paragraph where you just make random, uneducated guesses about what it contains, but you might want to give it a shot.

Could you possible address the facts (although I realize that's asking the impossible of any neocon), instead of making attacks on someone's character? Rolling Stone is not a "gossip rag" but one of the very few remaining mags in this country which actually runs real, important news. The Zogby Exit Poll, the most accurate around, was proven far too wrong against any statistical norm (try reading this study as opposed to repeating those silly neocon talking points.....and could you neocon/draft dodger supporters puhlease stop using that same old tired A bunch of stuff happened from both sides.. routine, it is soooo tediously boring, tiring and redundant....

And perhaps an equally valid point is contained in this study. (Although I would describe the Clintons - both of 'em - as Globalists.)

If he wants to sell an honest analysis he should give the book an honest title.

You can't judge a book by its cover, but I can't waste my time reading every single book out there just to find out whether or not it's been mistitled either.

What about studies from social scientists from UC Berkeley?

The study found counties with e-voting tended to tilt toward Bush, even after controlling for differences between counties including past voting history, income, percentage of Hispanic voters, voter turnout, and county size.

Then there are peer-reviewed studies from statisticians and mathematicians which show "Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount" in Ohio's 2004 elections.

Here's an exerpt:


Ohios exit poll discrepancy pattern includes three precincts with virtually impossible outcomes and an
unusually high number of precincts with significant discrepancy.1

In future elections we may expect to no longer hear any such troublesome reports. The decade old was disbanded following it's troublesome reporting on the election in 2000.

Parent is exactly right. We should be ashamed.

I can't believe the reaction to the 2004 vote. It's like we're all sheep. We have all these indications of massive fraud, but then we stay still as the media tells us that there isn't any evidence of "widespread fraud."

But there is.

Not only that, the same media that is telling us that there is no evidence of widespread fraud is actually withholding that very evidence, the exit polling data, from the people!

Not only that, they then can point to the election in Ukraine and say with a straight face that there was fraud. Why? Because the exit poll data says there was fraud!

Why can exit poll data be used to determine fraud in Ukraine but not in America?

And here we are, waging war on false pretenses. Killing a hundred thousand or more, and for what? WMD's? Don't exist. Ties to bin Laden? Don't exist. Turns out Iraq was in compliance with U.N. sanctions.

And now we have evidence that this was all a ruse, that a man that was never elected deliberately fabricated evidence to start a war. And what do we do?

Absolutely nothing.

Shame.

However, y'all never tire of telling us how you live in the greatest democracy on earth, so, why do you all vote republicrat? or not vote at all?

The people here who object to these kinds of stupid laws probably aren't the same people who claim the US is the greatest democracy on earth; a substantial number would even point out that we don't live in a democracy at all.

I don't know about the congressional elections but in the last two presidential elections the public has NOT elected the Bush regime. In 2000, Bush lost the popular vote by 543987 votes, not even counting vote tampering, yet won the electoral vote. In the 2004 election, there is considerable evidence of tampering and exit polls show that kerry was the real winner of the election.

As much as I would prefer to vote for an independent candidate, such votes are unfortunately entirely thrown away except in elections that are not remotely close. In the 2000 election, Gore would probably have had enough electoral votes to win if those people who voted for Nader (all of who would have prefered Gore over Bush) had not wasted their votes on Nader or if we had a statistically valid method of voting such as instant runoff voting . Our existing method of counting votes (even when the votes are actually counted in compliance with the law and without the electoral college fiasco) is inherently inaccurate when there are more than two parties.

Before I knew about instant runoff elections, I had a different proposal that was better than the current system but not as good as instant runoff. Instead of giving each person a single vote for a candidate, give them one vote for or against. I.E. Instead of voting for Kerry, you could vote against Bush. Which far more accurately reflects what many people are trying to do in the voting booths - we vote against the most evil candidate not for the best one. This system, however, does have the possibility of electing spurious independent candidates. Imagine Dubya getting negative ten million votes, Kerry getting negative 5 million votes, the green party getting negative 1 million votes, and write in candidate Bob Nobody winning the election with positive 3 votes. The book Archimedes' Revenge has an interesting chapter on game theory and voting as well as the Alabama Paradox .

What we need in this country for the presidential elections is

• Instant runoff elections
• It most be provable whether or not votes are counted correctly. Electronic voting machines that give a receipt for every vote. Each receipt would have a unique (but not sequential or tied to voter identity) serial number. When the election results are tallied, the serial numbers of every vote counted would be listed in a file availible for public download. Watchdog organizations would let people log into their websites and check that their vote was counted. Ideally, the receipt would be printed in triplicate (with the ability to identify which copy was which) in human and machine readable form. The first copy stays on a roll inside the voting machine for recounts. The voter takes home the second copy. And the voter takes the third copy and drops it anonymously in the box maintained outside the polling place by the Watchdog group of their choice. If voters are worried about being accosted by thugs outside the poling place, they can discard both of their receipts into the trash or watchdog bins. David Chaum's cryptographically obfuscated receipt system provides more security against people seeing your receipt but is more confusing overall.
• Eliminate the electoral college.

As for co

By the way, I have read the Mitofsky-Edison report to which I assume you are referring regarding the exit polls. I do find it interesting that there are other statisticians who conclude differently.