Today is the anniversary of an archived DU thread from Nov. 26, 2004. It's very instructive and should be part of the permanent record.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboa...

I present the thread now to show that virtually all of the current naysayer arguments (reluctant Bush voters, heavy early women turnout, exit poll "cluster effect", forgetful and/or lying Gore voters, bad weather, etc.) are nothing new; they were all proposed immediately after the election to explain the exit poll discrepancies. But smart, sane, analytical DUers were quick to see right through the early fog. They have been proven correct, as subsequent events and new data have shown. There is no longer any doubt among those who have done their homework.

It's the stolen election, stupid.

And yet even after a year has gone by, with all the revelations, some naysayers still cling to the same tortured, debunked hypotheticals of the past. Unlike many of the early doubters who have since come to accept that the election was stolen, there are still some who suffer from tunnel-vision, denial or plain ignorance. They are relentless in their efforts to disparage mathematical analysis of pre and post-election polls which produced Big Bang probabilities of massive fraud.

The fact is that over 130 pre-election AND exit polls all confirm that Kerry won the election. More important, the results agree to WITHIN A VERY SMALL MARGIN OF ERROR - less than 0.5%.

In addition, according to the Census, 125.7 million voted, 3.4mm more than the 122.3mm recorded total. This is nothing new. It's another FACT not pursued by the MSM. Democratic presidential candidates are always in the hole by over a million votes (net) through a combination of spoiled ballots and voter disenfranchisement. Florida 2000 proved it. Google Greg Palast for the details.

The naysayers siren song is this:

Even though Kerry won the polls, this does NOT constitute "PROOF" that the election was stolen. Yet at the same time, the naysayers accept the growing consensus that SOME fraud DID in fact occur, and that Kerry MAY indeed have won Ohio and therefore the electoral vote, but goodness knows, we should NOT believe the polls which dare say he also probably WON the popular vote.

It's a perverse logic which assumes that the vote count was right and the exit polls were wrong. It's quite ridiculous, when you think about it. And here's why: The Ohio Democratic vote share has historically lagged BEHIND the full National vote share.

If Kerry won Ohio by 52-48%, as the exit poll said he did, then we can assume that he did AT LEAST AS WELL EVERYWHERE ELSE... AND MUST HAVE EASILY WON THE POPULAR VOTE, AS THE 12:22AM NATIONAL EXIT POLL OF 13047 RESPONDENTS INDICATED. This is just one example of where a state exit poll was confirmed by the National.

The naysayers want to have it BOTH ways; they KNOW that eventually, when the facts of the 2004 stolen election are finally exposed, they will have to concede that Kerry won, just like Gore did in 2000. So they offer the half-loaf that Kerry may have won the electoral vote, but also claim that the polls which show that he won both the electoral AND popular vote are not "proof". Go figure.

These naysayers are not ignorant. There's got to be a reason for this dichotomy of twisted logic. They know that they have it exactly backwards; the burden of proof is on them to counter the overwhelming polling odds AND the documented evidence of machines switching Kerry votes to Bush, and NOT the other way around.

They know that they can't prove Bush won; there's no paper trail. Republican voting machine manufacturers conveniently decided NOT to provide that feature, just like state election officials decided NOT to allow truly random recounts in Ohio and New Hampshire and New Mexico and Nevada.

You say you want to HAVA fair election?

Follow the money.

Until then:
If you believe Kerry won, you must believe the polls.
If you believe Bush won, you must disbelieve the polls.

Now, regarding the thread...
I came to realize soon after this thread that the probability calculation of 1 in 4.5 billion that the exit poll discrepancy would exceed the MoE in 16 states (all in favor of Bush) was incorrect.

.........The True Probability P is 1 in 19 TRILLION........


The probability that the MoE would be exceeded in any given state is .025 (1/40).
This is the ONE-TAIL probability at the 95% confidence level.

The parameters for the Excel Binomial distribution function should be:
P = 1 - BINOMDIST(15,50,0.025,TRUE)
P = 0.0000000000000524 and 1/P = 19 trillion.

Here are the probabilities of the MoE being exceeded
in at least X states for Bush:
X Prob:1 in
2 3
4 28
6 662
8 31,188
10 2,551,003
12 334,778,890
14 66,847,251,840

16 19,083,049,268,519

17 257,348,550,135,457


Regarding MoE:
The early argument that the Exit Poll Margin of Error used for the probability calculations were bogus due to an exit poll "cluster effect" has been thoroughly exposed as a non-starter. Assuming a given cluster effect, the probabilities are reduced in magnitude from one in trillions to one in billions to one in millions, depending on the assumed cluster.

The bottom line is that the naysayers now concede this major point:
The exit poll discrepancies could not have been due to chance.

In the thread which follows, the MoE calculation (at the 95% level of confidence) presented by c-macdonald is correct:
1) MOE = +/- 1.96* sqrt< (1-p)*p / n >
For p=0.50, MoE = .98/sqrt(N)

This is slightly more precise than the simple approximation I initially used:
2) MoE = 1/sqrt(N)

For sample size N=1000, (1) gives an MoE of 3.10% for p=.50 compared to 3.16% for formula (2). The state exit polls are more likely to exceed the smaller MoE returned by (1) do the probabilities are even lower using (1).

c-macdonald's claim that only 9 of 16 states would exceed the MoE using his formula was incorrect; more states would exceed the MoE, not less. As it turns out, the number exceeding the MoE didn't change. It's still 16.

For reference, this is an MoE table for various n-samples.
Formula (1) is shown for three vote splits p/(1-p):
.50/.50, .55/.45, .60/.40

1.96*sqrt(p*(1-p)/n)
n 1/sqrt(n) 0.50 0.55 0.60
1000 3.16% 3.10% 3.08% 3.04%
2000 2.24% 2.19% 2.18% 2.15%
3000 1.83% 1.79% 1.78% 1.75%
10000 1.00% 0.98% 0.98% 0.96%
13047 0.88% 0.86% 0.85% 0.84%

The complex formula gives a lower MoE for a given n-sample. But it's a moot point; sixteen (16) states exceeded the MoE, regardless of the formula used.

I have consistently used formula (1). It makes the case for fraud even stronger, because it lowers the MoE threshold; the probability of the discrepancy exceeding the MOE is more likely.

The individual state probabilities are calculated using the Normal Distribution Function.

For example, consider Florida:
The exit poll sample size N = 2846.
Assume p=0.5.
The MoE is 1.96*sqrt(.5*.5/2846) = 0.98/sqrt(2846) = .0184
The standard deviation = 0.0094 (.0184/1.96)
Kerry's exit poll percentage: 50.51%
His actual vote: 47.47%.
The 3.04% deviation is far beyond the MOE.

To calculate the probability that the deviation was a random event, we enter the actual vote share, exit poll share and standard deviation into the normal distribution function:

Probability = 1/1666 = NORMDIST(.4747,.5051,.0094,TRUE)

http://progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?a...



These FACTS are never discussed in the media.
- election fraud
- undecided voters break for the challenger, especially if the incumbent is unpopular. Bush was at 48%.
- Many newly registered voters are not included in LV (likely voter) polls.
- Since 1988, Democrats have won 60-70% of new voters. In 2008, Obama had 71%+.
- MILLIONS of mostly (70-80%) Democratic votes are uncounted in every election
- The 2004/2006/2008 Final National Exit Polls indicated there were millions of returning phantom Bush voters from the prior election (more than were alive).
- The Final National and State exit polls are always FORCED TO MATCH the recorded vote.
- By definition, the RECORDED VOTE never reflects the TRUE VOTE since millions of votes are UNCOUNTED in EVERY election.
- Uncounted votes alone provide overwhelming evidence that elections were stolen in 1968, 1988, 2000 and 2004.
- 1968: 6 million net uncounted votes.
Nixon won the recorded vote by 500,000.
- 1988: 10.6 million net uncounted votes. Bush won the recorded vote by 7m.
- 2000: 5.4 million net uncounted votes. Gore won the recorded vote by 540,000.
- 2004: Nearly 4 million uncounted votes.
Bush won the recorded vote by 3.0 million.
Kerry won the True Vote by 10m.
Approximately 5 million were switched from Kerry to Bush on UNVERIFIABLE voting machines.

- 2006 midterms: Democrats won by more than double the recorded 52-46%% margin.
10-20 House seats were stolen.

- 2008: Obama won by more than double his recorded 9.5m margin.

1988-2008: the average Democratic TRUE VOTE margin was reduced from 10% to a 4% RECORDED MARGIN by Election Fraud.

VOTER FRAUD was virtually non-existent.

came out then.  How quickly they organize; how consistent the talking points. 

What was true then is true now.  They practiced some more in Ohio's 2nd and
then they nailed it down in the most intense, obvious way they could in the
Ohio special election.  Shifts on issues 2 & 3 of 30-42% within 8-9 days of
the election are just to rediculous to believe, particularly when it comes to
what was judged the best political poll around.

I recall this post. It had a major influence on me.  Your analysis, along with
Alastair's quick reponse were extremely persuasive.  My favorite, of course, is
the "demographics" post from the exit polls.  I knew we were doomed
after that startline and obvious discrepancy was never once disucssed for any
length of time in the CM (corporate media).

I noted my little piece of history, the remarkably insightful:

----------------------------------------------------------- 

autorank  (1000+ posts)      Fri Nov-26-04 02:12 AM
Response to Original message 
5. UDAMAN TIA. Those who have ears should hear! 
 
Thank you so much for this 


-----------------------------------------------------------

Replies like this brought me very little attention, and for good reason!  But
at least I was on time (post #5).

Great stuff.

Obrador for President Site

If we assume that elections were held every four years, since the universe is 14 billion years old, there would have been 3.5 billion elections since the Big Bang.

Therefore, your results indicate that it is extremely unlikely that what happened in the 2004 election (16 states beyond the MoE) would have occurred even once since the birth of the universe.

But then again, it's still possible...which is why we give thanks this weekend for the opportunity to live in a country where literally "anything can happen...and will" in this best of all possible worlds.

Namaste!

Obrador for President Site

Questions, questions- from January... still no explanation...

And the coaster didn't even consider the WP/NEP 12:22am timeline (13047)
in which Kerry led by...you guessed it, 51-48..

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003440.php#003440

Tuesday :: Jan 4, 2005 
Exit Poll Results Leaked Out, Causing Even More Questions

Remember when I speculated several weeks ago that Mr. Mitofsky's exit poll may
be subject to question when it was found out that he significantly
overestimated Bush's share of the Hispanic vote? As you will recall, the early
exit polls done in the early afternoon caused consternation at the White House
when they reflected that Kerry was winning by 2-3%. The official line from Rove
and later Mitofsky was that these polls had to be wrong because 1) they were
premature and had too many Democrats in them; and 2) obviously GOP voters
weren?t responding to the exit poll requests as they were leaving the polls.
This left us with the conclusion that a flood of GOP voters swept over the
polls late on Election Day to deliver the election to Bush, even though to this
day there is no evidence of that, or Rove?s claims about the early exit polls.

Well now, it turns out that someone has posted Mitofsky's PDF exit poll files,
which show the first set of exit polls done early Tuesday afternoon on Election
Day (which caused the heartburn at the White House), another set of exit polls
done as polls were closing on Election Day, and the final exit polls released
the next day after Mitofsky weighted them to match the tallied 51%-48% Bush
victory.

I haven't had much time to dig into the actual PDFs that were posted, but what
I found troubles me so far. 

First, in order to get the final 11/3 weighted exit poll to match Bush's final
tallied count of a 51%-48% margin, 60% of Mitofsky's sample of 13,660
respondents had to be pulled from the South and Midwest (over 8100 of the
13,660 came from these two regions) while the West and East regions (in other
words, Kerry country) were suppressed in the weighted exit poll that Mitofsky
did the day after the election to conform to the tallied results.

Second, if you want to accept the South's regional final (11/3) weighted exit
poll results that were used by Mitofsky to construct his final conforming exit
poll with a 51%-48% result for Bush, you would also have to accept that the
South went 58%-42% for Bush. Yet the exit poll on 11/2 done near poll closing
(7:33 PM Eastern) had only a 54%-45% Bush advantage, but it had the same gender
breakdown as the 11/3 conforming poll the next day. So in order for Mitofsky to
weight the final exit poll to reflect the tallied vote results of a 51%-48%
Bush victory, he had to find a way to weight the South with a larger tilt to
Bush than it had the day before while keeping the gender breakdown consistent
with what it was on 11/2. 

And he had to pull 60% of his final exit poll sample from the South and the
Midwest in order to make his final national exit poll reflect the tallied
results. 

I ask you: how plausible is all of this? 

I'll have more on this in the days ahead after more sleep and better informed
people weigh in. But feel free to check out the tables yourself, and you will
see that in order to get his final exit poll the day after the election to
conform to a tallied 51%-48% result for Bush, Mitofsky had to do some real
contortions with his poll results, and suppress the vote for Kerry in all
regions from what was reported in the last exit poll on Election Day the night
before while somehow keeping the gender breakdown the same.

Yeah, right.

http://progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?a...



These FACTS are never discussed in the media.
- election fraud
- undecided voters break for the challenger, especially if the incumbent is unpopular. Bush was at 48%.
- Many newly registered voters are not included in LV (likely voter) polls.
- Since 1988, Democrats have won 60-70% of new voters. In 2008, Obama had 71%+.
- MILLIONS of mostly (70-80%) Democratic votes are uncounted in every election
- The 2004/2006/2008 Final National Exit Polls indicated there were millions of returning phantom Bush voters from the prior election (more than were alive).
- The Final National and State exit polls are always FORCED TO MATCH the recorded vote.
- By definition, the RECORDED VOTE never reflects the TRUE VOTE since millions of votes are UNCOUNTED in EVERY election.
- Uncounted votes alone provide overwhelming evidence that elections were stolen in 1968, 1988, 2000 and 2004.
- 1968: 6 million net uncounted votes.
Nixon won the recorded vote by 500,000.
- 1988: 10.6 million net uncounted votes. Bush won the recorded vote by 7m.
- 2000: 5.4 million net uncounted votes. Gore won the recorded vote by 540,000.
- 2004: Nearly 4 million uncounted votes.
Bush won the recorded vote by 3.0 million.
Kerry won the True Vote by 10m.
Approximately 5 million were switched from Kerry to Bush on UNVERIFIABLE voting machines.

- 2006 midterms: Democrats won by more than double the recorded 52-46%% margin.
10-20 House seats were stolen.

- 2008: Obama won by more than double his recorded 9.5m margin.

1988-2008: the average Democratic TRUE VOTE margin was reduced from 10% to a 4% RECORDED MARGIN by Election Fraud.

VOTER FRAUD was virtually non-existent.

I wonder if he still thinks the same or has just moved on.

It is interesting to me that he noticed back then that the gender splits stayed
the same and everything else changed.

"We are the ones we've been waiting for...." The Elders, Hopi Nation.

Past liberal, past progressive, all the way to full blown dissident.... Me

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