TIA
First of all, eomer, let me begin by saying that I have always admired your logic and analytic skills. We have both analyzed Florida adjacent precinct vote match through simulation. But I think you are missing the overall by focusing on possible precinct level fraud scenarios as explanations to prove exit poll fraud. Specifically, you fail to take into account the confirmation between 1) the pre-election state and national polls, 2) the state exit polls and 12:22am National Exit Poll and 3) the Bush 48.5% approval rating on election day. You don't consider the 12:22am National Exit Poll, which establishes the total implausibility of Bush gaining 18mm new voters from 2000. Only 48.7mm Bush 2000 election voters were still alive to vote in 2004 and about 5mm (10%) of them voted for Kerry. If that isn't powerful circumstantial evidence of massive fraud, what is? The swing/redshift argument has been refuted by USCV. A few simple scenarios contradict it.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboa...

eomer (1000+ posts)
Tue Sep-19-06 09:46 AM
Response to Reply #112

113. Well, I do have a few ways that massive fraud would not show up as swing/redshift correlation, but I don't think any one of them really works as an explanation by itself.

Scenario #1 - Avoidance of exit poll precincts
One way is if they avoided exit poll precincts when committing fraud.

The likelihood of this first scenario is doubtful because of the degree of control over the fraud mechanism that would be required. They would have to either somehow obtain knowledge of the secret exit poll precinct list in advance or else find out at the last moment and then control the fraud to avoid them. For old technology fraud like punchcard stuffing or opscan ballot tampering this may have been easy enough but for DRE or tabulator fraud some kind of control mechanism would be needed. Maybe they could pull off such a feat in one or even a few states but it is hard to believe they could pull it off across almost all of them.

Another point about this scenario is that even if it is true it still would not be the explanation of the exit poll discrepancy. Since this scenario is based on fraud having avoided the exit poll precincts then fraud cannot be the explanation of redshift in those precincts.

TIA
The avoidance of exit poll precincts is, as you say, highly unlikely. But that does not mean fraud did not occur in those precincts. What about that Ohio recount, in which precincts were pre-selected. Why would the SOS be alllowed to do that?

Punch-card and opti-scan precincts were far more numerous than DRE’s in 2004, so why focus on DREs? I have never assumed DRes as the sole explanation for the exit poll discrepancies. It was a smorgasboard of methods.

eomer
Scenario #2 - Uniformity over time
Another way is if fraud occurred in 2000 in pretty much the same amount and pattern (distribution over precincts) as it did in 2004. Swing would then have no measure of fraud in it while redshift would and there would be no reason to expect that swing and redshift would correlate.

This second scenario seems to be ruled out by the fact that redshift in 2000 and 2004 had different patterns. If it were caused by fraud that was much the same in both years then it (redshift) should also be the same in both years -- but it wasn't, at least at the state level.

TIA:
No one assumes the fraud was uniform. In fact, it could not have been. Fraud in 2004 was different than Fraud in 2000 in kind, magnitude and distribution. It was much more massive, because Bush needed to overcome Kerry’s solid 57-41% lead in newly registered (over 60% of them democratic) and former Nader voters (71-21%) in order to build his 3 million mandate. How else could he manage that magic other than through massive fraud? How do we know this? By just looking at the 12:22am National Exit Poll. The weighting and/or vote share changes from the 12:22am timeline to the Final made no sense in these demographics: Gender, PartyID, How Voted in 2000, When Decided, etc.

eomer
Scenario #3 - Uniformity over geography
If fraud were uniform across all the exit poll precincts -- say 3% everywhere -- then it would not show up as swing/redshift correlation.

This scenario seems unlikely for the same reason that the first one does -- the degree of control that would be required to accomplish it.

TIA
No one ever claimed that fraud was applied at a geographically uniform rate. That would make no sense. But 16 states deviated beyond the MoE to Bush and none to Kerry. And 42 of 50 states deviated to Bush, regardless of MoE. This is highly suggestive of fraud, in and of itself.

eomer
Scenario #4 - Smorgasbord
Another scenario is that of a combination of various factors -- some of the above plus some unknown ones. It could be the case that some of the exit poll precincts were avoided, that some of the precincts had fraud in 2000 that was the same as in 2004, and that some of the precincts had a fairly uniform percentage of fraud. For any given precinct, if it was covered by just one of those three factors then it would slip by the correlation test. You would need enough, but not all, of them to slip by so that you would not conclude there was a significant correlation.

TIA
I agree. It may very well have been a smorgasbord.

eomer
Scenario #5 - Morass
This scenario builds on the previous one by adding hidden relationships among the various factors. For example, if fraud was intentionally committed mainly when swing wasn't going the way they wanted, if fraud took the form of intentionally duplicating or approximating the vote count from 2000, if fraud was intentionally uniform in exit poll precincts, and so on.

The last two scenarios are difficult to assess without doing a bunch of modeling and, even if you did, I'm going to guess that assessing the morass hypothesis could be challenging. I wouldn't be inclined to spend a lot of time on it because personally I think this whole line of investigation is not the most important point anyway. To me the question of whether there was massive fraud of millions of votes that gave Bush a popular vote mandate is much less important than the question of whether fraud in the tens of thousands of votes were one component (along with vote suppression and other tricks) of stealing the electoral college result. I understand why you address this question repeatedly -- it is because the argument is made repeatedly and you only respond to the argument when it is made. What I want to do every time the massive fraud argument is made and then disputed by you is to argue that the more important point is whether the electoral college result was stolen. The massive fraud argument is a bit like two (American) football fans arguing over which team had more total yards gained running and passing. That may be interesting but is much less important than the question of which team put more points on the scoreboard. The popular vote is like total yards gained. The electoral college is points on the scoreboard.

TIA
I agree, the Electoral vote is the one that matters, but the fact is that an unpopular president had to overcome massive democratic registration through disenfranchisement, spoiled votes AND vote switching in order to get his 3 million “mandate”.

You also need to take into account the Final Exit Poll, in which 43% of 2004 voters claimed they voted for Bush in 2000 and just 37% for Gore. But 43% of 122.3mm is 52.57mm, and Bush only got 50.46mm votes in 2000. Since about 1.7mm of them died, this means that the Final inflated Bush's vote by over 4mm and reduced Kerry's vote by 4mm. Since Bush won the recorded vote by 62-59mm, the 4 million phantom votes suggests that Kerry actually won by 63-58mm (not including "spoiled" or lost votes which were never counted. See below.) Do you have another explanation?

You need to take into account that pre-election polls matched the exit polls, when the pre-election polls are adjusted for the allocation of a solid majority of the undecided vote to Kerry. Pre-election state and national polls matched the exit polls to within 0.5%. Since they matched, what does this tell us about exit poll nonresponse bias?

Democratic new voter turnout was so strong that Bush needed more then the usual kickstart that Republicans get from old-fashioned voter disenfranchisement, spoiled votes and long lines in democratic voting precincts. To get his mandate, Bushco had NO choice; they needed electronic switching of Kerry votes to Bush votes in the voting machines or central tabulators. It has been proven time and again (most recently at Princeton) that the machines could easily have been hacked. And if they needed to do it, what would stop them? If a vote for Kerry was counted for Bush, would that not show up in the exit poll? And if there was massive fraud, where else would it show up other than the exit polls? Vote switching without a paper ballot cannot be proved.

But we know from the EIRS database that of about 88 vote switching incidents, 86 were Kerry to Bush. Not ONE vote should have switched. These were not programming or computer "glitches". Machines don't make mistakes unless they are programmed to. The programmers made sure that Bush got the vast majority of the switched votes. Of course, they worked for the Republican controlled voting machine companies. It is totally naive for anyone to believe that the 3 million electronic votes which Bush needed to obtain his 3mm "mandate" (in addition to Kerry votes lost to "spoilage") would NOT have been switched.
Means, Motive, Opportunity.

If we are to believe the Census, 125.7mm votes were cast, a significant discrepancy from the 122.3mm recorded vote. Let's assume the 3.4mm difference is due to "spoiled" or lost votes. Since over 75% of spoiled votes are primarily in minority districts, we can esitimate that Kerry lost 2.5mm and Bush 0.9mm votes. Then 3mm switched votes from Kerry to Bush would account for the 12:22am National Exit Poll result (Kerry won by 51-48%).

Start with the recorded vote:
Bush: 62mm
Kerry: 59mm

Add the spoiled votes which were never counted:
Bush = 62.9 = 62+0.9
Kerry = 61.5 = 59+2.5

Now return the 3mm votes switched from Kerry to Bush to get the true vote:
Kerry = 64.5 = 61.5 + 3.0 = 51.3%
Bush = 59.9 = 62.9 - 3.0 = 47.6%

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eomer

Summary
So here's how I sum up the question of whether there was massive fraud:
1. I haven't seen evidence that makes a clear and compelling case that there was.
2. I haven't been convinced, on the other hand, that it is clearly and indisputably ruled out.
3. If there was massive fraud, the exit poll discrepancy appears to be orthogonal to it rather than an index of it and massive fraud is therefore not a sufficient explanation by itself of the exit poll discrepancy.
4. Conversely, but for the same reason, the exit poll discrepancy by itself is not a sufficient argument to prove massive fraud.
5. Whether there was or wasn't massive fraud isn't, to me, the most important point.
6. What is the most important point is whether the electoral college result was stolen. I know it was in 2000 in Florida and I think it probably was in 2004 in Ohio.

TIA
In summary, it's the exit poll discrepancies which were the motivations for all the investigated analysis that followed. In this context, the exit polls constitute circumstantial proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the election was indeed stolen. Because it’s not just the state and national exit polls; it’s that they were confirmed by the state and national pre-election polls - and the low Bush job approval (48.5%). And of course, by all the other evidence of fraud on the ground and in the statehouse.

Cheers
TIA

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.

Welcome eomer!

I remember you from my early days on DU in the old ER & D forum.

Glad you found your way over here!

Never stop. One always stop as soon as something is about to happen. (fortune cookie)

I'm glad to be here.

You were always one of my favorite DUers and your dedication to the cause of election reform is legend. I'm proud to have been with you as we worked to expose facts about our elections that the gatekeepers were trying to keep under covers. Even the corporate media is starting to get a clue lately so maybe we will eventually win (although I won't be shocked if they just dabble in it for a bit and then go back to runaway blond stories).

I'm not sure I want to debate most of these specific points with you. I've always been somewhat in the middle on the issues we're talking about here (which is where I tend to be in general, probably a personality trait) but I've typically only argued with those who say fraud didn't occur and not with those who claim that it did, even if I'm not fully convinced on a specific theory. There have been isolated cases, like the adjacent precinct thing you mentioned, when I've come out against a particular fraud theory but those cases are few and are an exception to my general rule. Another one you may remember from the "old days" is Rodney and his "rigged aggregators" story, which seemed so garbled and incoherent that I had to say there was no merit to it unless Rodney could explain it much better than he had.

On the exit poll questions, I've stuck mainly to arguing against any conclusion that the exit poll proves that fraud did not occur. I've sort of staked out the middle ground where I insist that fraud is consistent with the exit poll data but do not claim that fraud is proved by the exit poll data. I think fraud is proved by other evidence so it is something of a technicality that we have a different approach to.

As I said, I believe that fraud occurred. I believe that enough of it occurred to steal the election by way of stealing the electoral college votes of Ohio. I'm not convinced that there was massive fraud of the magnitude that would be implied if the exit poll discrepancy was caused almost totally by fraud -- but you won't hear me say that too often and I definitely don't want to spend time arguing it. Maybe you will eventually convince me of it. Or maybe Febble will eventually convince me of the opposite. In any event, if the investigation ongoing in Ohio can uncover direct evidence of fraud and a fairly direct inference that there was enough of it to steal Ohio then I'm not sure the rest of it matters so much.

I'll try to come by here now and then. I'd like to stay in touch with you and I also see at least one other ex-DUer here that I haven't heard from in ages.

Regards and best wishes,
eomer