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Who won?
doom writes "I think they call them "exit polls" because people
bolt for the exits when you mention them, but I'm still
fascinated by the subject myself, and this book is one of the
reasons why. In Was the 2004 Presidential Election
Stolen?, the central focus is, of course, on the infamous
exit-poll discrepancies of the 2004 US Presidential election;
but the authors also put it into context: they discuss the
2000 election, the irregularities in Ohio in 2004, the electronic
voting machines issues, and the media's strange reluctance to
report on any of these problems. Further, in the chapter "How
did America really vote?", they compare the indications of the
raw exit-poll data to other available polling data. Throughout,
Freeman and Bleifuss do an excellent job of presenting arguments
based on statistical analysis in a clear, concise way." Read the rest of doom's review
Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?
author
Steve Freeman & Joel Bleifuss
pages
265
publisher
Seven Stories Press
rating
9
reviewer
doom
ISBN
1583226877
summary
Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count
The heart of the book in my opinion, is Chapter 5, "The inauguration eve exit-poll report": The Edison and Mitofsky firms that conducted the NEP exit polls later released a report trying to explain how they could have gotten it so far wrong. Freeman and Bleifuss, of course, take issue with the presumption that the discrepancies must be "errors", and argue in a different direction. This section makes an exciting read (in a nerdy sort of way) it's an impressive piece of statistical judo: Freeman and Bleifuss take on Edison/Mitofsky with their own data, and totally shred their conclusions. The authors show: That the exit-poll discrepancies had a statistically significant correlation with the use of electronic voting machines, with races in battleground states, and in almost all cases favored the Republicans. The "Reluctant Bush Respondant" theory looks extremely unlikely: response rates actually look slightly better in Bush strongholds than in Kerry strongholds; and while media skepticism remains strong among conservatives, it has been on the rise among Democrats, and yet the data shows no shift in relative avoidance of pollsters. They also deal with the various other excuses that were floated shortly after the election: The discrepancies can't be shrugged off with an "exit polls are not reliable" — theory shows that they should be better than any other survey data, and history shows that they always have been pretty reliable. There was no upswing of support for Bush throughout election day — that impression was entirely an artifact of the media "correcting" the exit-poll figures to match the official results. One of the book's authors, Steven Freeman, was one of the first to examine the exit-poll discrepancies, and as a professor at University of Pennsylvania with a background in survey design, he was well equipped to begin delving into the peculiarities he had noticed.
Overall, this is an excellent book for people interested in evaluating the data; with lots of graphs that make it easy to do informal estimates of the strength of their conclusions (just eye-balling the scatter, the correlations they point to look real, albeit a little loose, as you might expect). There's also an appendix with a very clear exposition of the the concept of statistical significance, and how it applies to this polling data. There are of course, limits to what one can conclude just from the exit-poll discrepancies: "We reiterate that this does not prove the official vote count was fraudulent. What it does say is that the discrepancy between the official count and the exit polls can't be just a statistical fluke, but commands some kind of systematic explanation: Either the exit poll was deeply flawed or else the vote count was corrupted. "
This is a remarkably restrained book: unlike many authors addressing this controversial subject, Freeman and Bleifuss have resisted the temptation to rant or speculate or even to editorialize very much. Freeman claims that he is not a political person (and adds "I despise the Democrats"); possibly this has helped him to maintain his neutrality and focus on the facts of the case.
Personally, I found this book to be something of a revelation: in the confusion immediately after the 2004 election, I had the impression that the people who wanted to believe that it was legitimate at least had some wiggle room. There was some disagreement about the meaning of the exit polls: there was that study at Berkeley that found significant problems, but then the MIT study chimed in saying there wasn't, so who do you believe? The thing is, the MIT guys later admitted that they got it wrong: they used the "corrected" data, not the originally reported exit poll results. The media never covered that development, and I missed it myself...
On the subject of electronic voting machines, They include a chapter discussing electronic voting in general which covers ground that is by now familiar with most readers here: the strange case of Wally O'Dell and Diebold; and also the lesser known problems with ES&S. Have you heard this one? "In 1992, Hagel, then an investment banker and president of the holding company McCarthy & Co., became chairman of American Information Systems, which was to become ES&S in 1999. [...] In the 1996 elections, Hagel launched his political career with two stunning upsets. He won a primary victory in Nebraska [...] despite the fact that he was not well known. Then, in the general election, Hagel was elected to the Senate in what Business Week described as 'an unexpected 1996 landslide victory over Ben Nelson, Nebraska's popular Democratic governor.'"
My experience is that a lot of people need to hear this point: "The voting machine company Datamark, which became American Information Systems and is now known as ES&S, was founded in 1980 by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich. Today, Todd is a vice president at ES&S and Bob is CEO of Diebold Election Systems."
It's impossible to see how you can come away from this situation without seeing that we badly need reform of the electoral system: even if you don't believe the 2004 election was "stolen", how do you know the next one isn't going to be? A paper trail that can actually be recounted would be a nice start, eh? But only a start. As the author's point out: "We devoted a chapter to the ills of electronic voting, but a critical lesson of the 2004 election is that not only DREs, but all kinds of voting machine systems are suspect. Edison/Mitofsky data showed that while hand counted ballots accurately reflected exit-poll survey results, counts from all the major categories of voting machines did not."
In one short passage, the authors list a few "grounds for hope", but following up on these points is not encouraging: The Diebold-injunction law suit in California brought by VoterAction has since been denied and one attempt at a paper trail amendment, HR 550 has stalled out.
If you're looking for an answer to the question posed by the book's title, the authors conclude: "So how did America really vote? Every independent measure points to a Kerry victory of about 5 percentage points in the popular vote nationwide, a swing of 8 to 10 million votes from the official count."
Of the many and various potentially depressing books out there about the state of the United States, I recommend this one highly: it addresses a critical set of issues that everything else depends on.
You can purchase Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The heart of the book in my opinion, is Chapter 5, "The inauguration eve exit-poll report": The Edison and Mitofsky firms that conducted the NEP exit polls later released a report trying to explain how they could have gotten it so far wrong. Freeman and Bleifuss, of course, take issue with the presumption that the discrepancies must be "errors", and argue in a different direction. This section makes an exciting read (in a nerdy sort of way) it's an impressive piece of statistical judo: Freeman and Bleifuss take on Edison/Mitofsky with their own data, and totally shred their conclusions. The authors show: That the exit-poll discrepancies had a statistically significant correlation with the use of electronic voting machines, with races in battleground states, and in almost all cases favored the Republicans. The "Reluctant Bush Respondant" theory looks extremely unlikely: response rates actually look slightly better in Bush strongholds than in Kerry strongholds; and while media skepticism remains strong among conservatives, it has been on the rise among Democrats, and yet the data shows no shift in relative avoidance of pollsters. They also deal with the various other excuses that were floated shortly after the election: The discrepancies can't be shrugged off with an "exit polls are not reliable" — theory shows that they should be better than any other survey data, and history shows that they always have been pretty reliable. There was no upswing of support for Bush throughout election day — that impression was entirely an artifact of the media "correcting" the exit-poll figures to match the official results. One of the book's authors, Steven Freeman, was one of the first to examine the exit-poll discrepancies, and as a professor at University of Pennsylvania with a background in survey design, he was well equipped to begin delving into the peculiarities he had noticed.
Overall, this is an excellent book for people interested in evaluating the data; with lots of graphs that make it easy to do informal estimates of the strength of their conclusions (just eye-balling the scatter, the correlations they point to look real, albeit a little loose, as you might expect). There's also an appendix with a very clear exposition of the the concept of statistical significance, and how it applies to this polling data. There are of course, limits to what one can conclude just from the exit-poll discrepancies: "We reiterate that this does not prove the official vote count was fraudulent. What it does say is that the discrepancy between the official count and the exit polls can't be just a statistical fluke, but commands some kind of systematic explanation: Either the exit poll was deeply flawed or else the vote count was corrupted. "
This is a remarkably restrained book: unlike many authors addressing this controversial subject, Freeman and Bleifuss have resisted the temptation to rant or speculate or even to editorialize very much. Freeman claims that he is not a political person (and adds "I despise the Democrats"); possibly this has helped him to maintain his neutrality and focus on the facts of the case.
Personally, I found this book to be something of a revelation: in the confusion immediately after the 2004 election, I had the impression that the people who wanted to believe that it was legitimate at least had some wiggle room. There was some disagreement about the meaning of the exit polls: there was that study at Berkeley that found significant problems, but then the MIT study chimed in saying there wasn't, so who do you believe? The thing is, the MIT guys later admitted that they got it wrong: they used the "corrected" data, not the originally reported exit poll results. The media never covered that development, and I missed it myself...
On the subject of electronic voting machines, They include a chapter discussing electronic voting in general which covers ground that is by now familiar with most readers here: the strange case of Wally O'Dell and Diebold; and also the lesser known problems with ES&S. Have you heard this one? "In 1992, Hagel, then an investment banker and president of the holding company McCarthy & Co., became chairman of American Information Systems, which was to become ES&S in 1999. [...] In the 1996 elections, Hagel launched his political career with two stunning upsets. He won a primary victory in Nebraska [...] despite the fact that he was not well known. Then, in the general election, Hagel was elected to the Senate in what Business Week described as 'an unexpected 1996 landslide victory over Ben Nelson, Nebraska's popular Democratic governor.'"
My experience is that a lot of people need to hear this point: "The voting machine company Datamark, which became American Information Systems and is now known as ES&S, was founded in 1980 by two brothers, Bob and Todd Urosevich. Today, Todd is a vice president at ES&S and Bob is CEO of Diebold Election Systems."
It's impossible to see how you can come away from this situation without seeing that we badly need reform of the electoral system: even if you don't believe the 2004 election was "stolen", how do you know the next one isn't going to be? A paper trail that can actually be recounted would be a nice start, eh? But only a start. As the author's point out: "We devoted a chapter to the ills of electronic voting, but a critical lesson of the 2004 election is that not only DREs, but all kinds of voting machine systems are suspect. Edison/Mitofsky data showed that while hand counted ballots accurately reflected exit-poll survey results, counts from all the major categories of voting machines did not."
In one short passage, the authors list a few "grounds for hope", but following up on these points is not encouraging: The Diebold-injunction law suit in California brought by VoterAction has since been denied and one attempt at a paper trail amendment, HR 550 has stalled out.
If you're looking for an answer to the question posed by the book's title, the authors conclude: "So how did America really vote? Every independent measure points to a Kerry victory of about 5 percentage points in the popular vote nationwide, a swing of 8 to 10 million votes from the official count."
Of the many and various potentially depressing books out there about the state of the United States, I recommend this one highly: it addresses a critical set of issues that everything else depends on.
You can purchase Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Granted, something needs explaining and voting machines are vulnerable. But what are the chances that a conspiracy of this magnitude has remained secret? Not to say that an election can't be rigged, but wouldn't there be so many people with direct involvement that it would be impossible to keep everyone silent? Until someone steps forward and says "I did X & Y at the direction of Mr Z," I'm going to lump it along side of "The CIA killed Kennedy." Possible, but lacking solid evidence.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Thats what I got too.
Bias is not wrong by any means, but understanding that bias and choosing why that bias applies to you us a beginning to understand how to factor it out of your judgments.
Now on to election stuff... Our country has a well defined system of voting presidents and thats via the electoral votes. Those votes are made by the electoral members we choose to send, and these numbers are based upon congress and senate votes (congress is population based, and senate is 2 per state). Because of thos, we can technically have one president declared the winner by mass majority, but our system prevents democracy by limiting damage by the majority.
And when it comes down to the election itself, Im a Libertarian and want the government to stop nannying me around and to get their hands out of my wallet. That aside, voting with these terminals are horrendously insecure. This insecurity affects all candidates, as election skew undermines the will of the people. So what if the "Republicans are in bed with Diebold" or whatnot. Im sure Democrats are also.
Id rather have the most liberal democrat voted as president (Im thinking Chavez'ian socialist) than have a illegally voted in Libertarian.
The problem is, you can only cheat just so much without making it terribly obvious. If your candidates win all the elections all the time, everybody knows you are cheating. However, if you use cheating just to give your team an edge, you can get away with it. If the elections are close, you can flip them; if not, you would attract a lot of attention if the outcome was wildly different than all of the polls.
I heard some story somewhere that there was the same level of 'discrepancies' in the vote in 2006; but that it wasn't enough to turn elections. The author claimed that there *was* cheating, but that the turnout was so great that the cheating didn't flip the election.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Historically, exit polls have been amazingly accurate. Only in the last two elections have there been a wide disparity between the exit polling numbers and the official vote count. Secondly, in the last election data, why is there a wide disparity between exit polling data and the official vote count primarily in areas that used touch-screen voting with no paper trail, but yet be dead-on in areas with paper ballots?
One thing to keep in mind is that correlation != causation. The use of electronic voting machines is highly suspect, but it's not a smoking gun. It could be as simple as the voting machines were problematic for the democratic population segment. Another possibility is that the areas deploying the machines did so because they were more Republican leaning to begin with. (Remember, electronic voting was a push from Bush after the 2000 "hanging chad" scandals.)
So more evidence is still needed to determine if the election was actually stolen. Certainly, this does add credence to the possibility.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering where I stand on this:
1. I am republican. Truth be told, I've become disgusted with both parties. Yet I'm too conservative to go libratarian.
2. I think the government should mandate that Diebold is no longer allowed to sell voting machines to the government as they are "unsuitable" to tally votes according to legal requirements.
3. If the vote was stolen, it should be exposed. As should all the dirty laundry of politicians. Sadly, too much will remain hidden.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Simple; if anyone can find out how you actually voted, it's easy to use that information against you. If your boss is a fervent Republican, and you vote Democrat, it's just barely possible that you might be passed over for that promotion or raise, or perhaps caught up in the next "Workforce Reduction". As things stand, you can refrain from talking politics around your boss and nod politely when he makes some political comment you vehemently disagree with. There are laws against discrimination, but don't try to tell me that people don't get around them.
Also, it makes the purchase and sale of votes possible. "I'll pay you $100 to vote Democratic. Just bring your receipt that proves your Dem vote, and you get the cash."
-Mike
I'm sorry; I don't know what I was thinking!
OK, so the forces of evil agreed in advance to steal the election. Where was the meeting held? Did they rent out a conference room? What was the cover story? How about the meeting to agree on the cover story for the meeting? How many phone calls, secretaries, coffee gofers, etc. were involved? Did the meeting run long? Did they get lunch catered in?
So at a minimum, how many people were involved in a conspiracy to steal democracy? 200? 500?
And NOBODY ratted them out?
Lay off the bong hits kids.
Here Here... Other than the last two elections, where is the evidense for the original poster's claim that "They are often wildly innacurate". A person conducting the poll has no basis to make a statement like this no matter how much cooperation they think they are or are not getting during the polling. The only measure of accuracy is 'did the real results match the results predicted by the polls?' Where are the examples of the results being "wildly inaccurate" in other elections?
Keep passing the open windows...
we have to first ask about the 2000 election.
bush never won legally. in Volusia County, FL one precinct tallied -16000 votes for Gore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volusia_error
that's right, negative votes. which logically and legally is impossible. but technically possible.
since they say bush won by 500 votes, this proves that bush never won the presidency legally.
They're using their grammar skills there.
There isn't much time left before the President goes so things will happen quickly from now. Ask the question again at the end of the year when Iran is being attacked for WMD and there is a draft - perhaps the Republicans will remove him themselves?
My solution is to have all Americans votes counted equally. California has 15,837,108 registered voters, and gets 55 electoral votes. That breaks down to each vote being determined by 287,947 people. Wyoming has 257,715 registered voters, and gets 3 electoral votes. That's 85,905 people per vote - those voters have considerable more sway - about 3 1/3 times - than we do here in California. How is that fair?
Another glaring problem with the system is that most states work on the "all or nothing" principal - in 2004 Kerry got 54.4% of California Votes, and Bush got 44.4%. However, Kerry got all 55 electoral votes. Things tend to average out over the 50 states, but like we saw in 2000, sometimes the popular vote winner isn't the electoral vote winner. Do you consider that fair?
Thirdly, while it's unlikely, it's possible for someone to win by winning just the 11 most populous states. And since all those states give the total of electoral votes to the candidate getting the majority of popular votes, the president, in theory, could be elected by just over half the voters in 11 states, even if every other vote went to another candidate. Don't you think that's pretty messed up?
For fairness, you should note that the "colleages" you mention often either didn't know him personally or were misquoted or duped. Others (including some who did know him) had a deep, vitriolic, long-standing grudge against him over his testimony about the war.
My father is good friends with the soldier who was rescued by Kerry, and who spoke at the convention for him. Sure, his perspective is colored by Kerry having saved his life - but he can say with certainty that Kerry did save his life, which the Swift Boaters tried to poo-poo. And he was a life-long Republican as well (he switched for one reason - to vote for Kerry in the primary). Kerry didn't seek him out for publicity for the election, either - he came to Kerry and offered. Kerry hadn't seen him since Vietnam.