Reply #30: Thank you posting this Melissa

[Time for change]

Yes, I agree that Freeman did a very good job of presenting this.

There was a large discrepancy between the official results and the exit polls, and only fraud or exit poll bias, or a combination of both can explain it. If fraud explains most of the PLD, that means that Kerry really won the popular vote (and almost certainly Ohio and the electoral vote).

Here is what I find convincing explanations that it was most likely fraud:

1. PLD significantly higher in swing states. Yes, as Febble says, it is possible that greater exit poll bias in swing states could be responsible for this. But certainly fraud is a more plausable explanation for this.

2. PLD lower with the use of paper ballots. Yes, as Febble notes, it is possible that this finding is not statistically significant, and it is possible that when controlled for other variables that the relationship could disappear. However, Mitofsky did not present the statistical signifcance of this result, and as far as I know, no data has been publically released that would allow one to calculate the significance of the lower PLD when controlled for other variables.

3. No other Mitofsky exit poll has been as far off as in this election, where we have secret vote counting by computer on a massive scale. Yes, the exit polls were off in 92 by a comparable amount, but still I find it significant that in no other election have they been this far off.

4. Mitofsky's report (from earlier this year) presents little or no evidence that bias accounted for a good proportion of the PLD, as Freeman meticulously and lucidly explained. Yes, it's possible, as Febble points out, that when multivariate analysis is performed that something could be found to change this. But this was not presented in Mitofsky's report, and as far as I know the data is not available for public analysis anywhere else.

5. Higher PLD where Republican Governors are in charge is additional evidence.

6. So is higher PLD where voter complaints are more numerous -- though I would like to know more about what kind of complaints these were and what kind of statistical analysis was done on this. I do find it a bit confusing that Ohio wasn't near the top with regard to these complaints.


On the other side of the ledger I will mention two things:

1. It is not at all clear to me the point that Freeman is trying to make by correlating the percent of blacks with PLD (I wasn't at his presentation, so maybe this would have been clear had I been there). If the point is that black voters are suppressed, I don't get it, because then they wouldn't have shown up in the exit polls. In other words, I don't see what the percent of black voters could plausibly have to do with PLD.

2. The finding of no correlation between Bush swing (from 2000) is the best point (and maybe the only one) that I have heard Mitofsky make on this subject. However, it is not clear to me how much swing would have had to occur before it could have been statistically detected. Also, I haven't seen this data in written form anywhere, so it is difficult to know what to make of it. Of course, as OTOH has pointed out, Freeman was not familiar with this data either, at the time of the debate, so he would have been quite handi-capped in trying to combat that point.