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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.
... what happened in November? Did they forget to press the "cheat" button, or did they maybe lose on purpose in a conspiracy to discredit all the people who showed how they cheated before? (How fiendish of them!)
The Democrats lost in 2004 because they had a crappy candidate, and let the republicans control the debate. Get over it already.
Or maybe he hates the republicans just as much, but that kind of goes without saying. Honestly, what intelligent person WOULDN'T hate republicans? I'd say he's neutral if he hates both equally.
Do you have anything to say that isn't ignorant, dishonest or plain insulting?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
The problem isn't "that if you watch Fox News [...] you're politically unsophisticated or [...] you have a personal agenda that flies in the face of common sense".
The problem is precisely the reverse. If you're politically unsophisticated, or you have a personal agenda that flies in the face of common sense, you're more likely to watch Fox News. And then, since Fox News produces mainly rightwing/Republican propaganda, those viewers have their political unsophistication and common nonsensical personal agendas reinforced. And watch Fox News more.
If you think Fox News has "liberal" content, you must be referring to allen colmes, the sacrificial liberal milquetoast Sean Hannity wears as a fig leaf. Or maybe the various tabloid features appealing to hypocritical "Conservatives", like the excuses of moral outrage used to broadcast video of scantily clad young girls and other salacious content. Or maybe you're just so rightwing yourself that Fox's merely authoritarian content looks "left" from your extreme right position. Fox offers all kinds of ways to pretend it's "fair and balanced" (though mainly depending on chanting that propaganda tagline like hypnosis).
Your belief in "liberal bias" comes from where? Fox News? Your minister? God told you? Nearly all mass media, especially counted by viewership, is corporate. Corporations are "conservative", because they worked and spent hard to create the status quo that feeds their bottom line. Because "Conservatism" is authoritarian in its political effects, and corporations are not democratic, they're authoritarian. No one who analyzes actual media content and activity believes it's "liberal", except people with an antiliberal agenda who work to push everthing steadily further to the right.
You even admit Fox News is "Conservative" when you say "I am a conservative, so Fox News naturally appeals to me". Come on, if you just read your own posts honestly, I wouldn't have to reply with anything.
Many Christians have a persecution complex. To avoid getting trapped in inverted logic about political sophistication/agendas and Fox News viewership, I'll clarify how it works. Some people have a persecution complex, for various reasons. Christianity's central beliefs are tied up in a sacrificed god, persecuted by the public and government in its holiest episodes. People with a persecution complex are attracted to this acting out of their own fantasies, and are more likely to join. Current American pop Christianity has many people promoting the persecution complex. Ignoring that nearly all government power in America has always been controlled by Christians, even despite explicit setups to prevent Christianity (or any religion) from controlling government power. And ignoring the destruction of many of those protections from religious control of society - because that would reveal how Christianity is far from persecuted, but rather privileged in government concessions to Christian interests at the expense of nonbelievers and their interests. The persecution complex perpetuates itself despite reality, because it works to get more power (at least for the leaders who promote it all), and because that power, and the Christianity itself, does little to solve the personality problems from which the actual persecution complex comes.
Man, I could go on for days with you. You claim you're not a "straw man", but what you're supposed to be claiming (or denying) by that is totally unknowable. Because you threw out several straw man arguments, like your introduction of the idea that "if you watch Fox News that you're politically unsophisticated / have an agenda", as if someone had said that, so you could argue against it. Or your introduction of "conservatives are uneducated", so you can argue against it, though no one said so to begin with. Or even your introduction of the (incomprehensible) idea that "you are a straw man", which no one said you were (what would they mean if they d
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make install -not war