Salon.com on SoCalDemocrat's challenge on Electronic voting

[RedSox02]

This from Salon.com's "War Room" blog.


Lefty Web sites are buzzing with a supposed "statistical analysis" that they say proves that Republicans stole the election by rigging paperless touch screen machines. According to the analysis -- the link is here, but the site's down at the moment due to high traffic -- performed by a Democratic Underground regular who goes by the handle SoCalDemocrat, states that use electronic machines were all showing strong Kerry support in exit polls, but when the results came in, the states went to Bush. The polls (which are based on interviews with voters as they leave the polls) indicate that voters in the state really voted for Kerry, the lefties say; the machines distorted or changed their votes. "Maybe Dubayah believes God will see him through this, but it's going to take more than blind faith to pull the wool over the data and the facts," SoCalDemocrat writes.

But as we see it, SoCalDemocrat's evidence is quite thin. For one thing, he appears to be wrong on the facts. While he's correct that exit polls showed a Kerry victory in many states that actually went to Bush, this didn't only happen in states that use paperless touch screen machines.

The most obvious example here is Nevada, the only state in the nation to use what many computer scientists consider to be the safest touch screen machines -- machines that print a paper ballot that is reviewed by the voter as each vote is cast, a so-called voter-verified paper trail. In Nevada, the last exit polls showed Kerry leading Bush by 49 to 48 percent, with 1 percent for Ralph Nader. The actual result was a win for Bush by 51 to 48 percent.

And even in states that do use paperless touch-screen machines, it's not clear that Bush made his gains in touch-screen areas of the states, rather than regions that use other machines. For instance, in Florida, it's the state's large South Florida counties that use paperless touch screens. But Bush did worse in these regions in 2004 than in 2000. In the 2000 race in Miami-Dade, Bush got about 47 percent of the two-party share of the vote, while Al Gore received 53 percent; this year, Bush only got 46 percent of the two-party vote there, while Kerry got 54 percent. What this means is that in the move from punch-card machines (which, as everyone remembers, Miami-Dade used in 2000) to paperless touch screens, Bush actually did worse, not better. At the same time, the president gained in Orange County, Florida. In 2000, Gore beat Bush in Orange County, whose largest city is Orlando; this year, Kerry lost to Bush there. And Bush didn't need rigged machines to do it -- Orlando uses paper-based optical scan voting machines, which computer scientists consider more reliable than the touch screen systems.

Even if unfounded, the Democratic Underground set's suspicion is understandable. The exit polls were odd. And who can forget the infamous pledge of Wally O'Dell, CEO of touch-screen machine vendor Diebold, to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush this year? (Ohio, though, used no paperless touch screens.) One way to make sure future presidential races are above such suspicion would be to add paper trails to all the paperless machines.

[Skinner]

1. Thanks for posting.

Salon thought it was worth checking into. Even if they don't buy it, I think it's great that the idea got their attention. Way to go, DU.

[RedSox02]

5. Keep up the good work Skinner

We have a great batch here. Hopefully we will be heard from even mroe these next four years.

[Carla in Ca]

21. Here is another DU mention, on Americablog today

Lead story <http://americablog.blogspot.com/>

snip>



3. Read more analysis here at the Democratic Underground.

I find myself casting a doubting eye at conspiracy theories. Then again, would I put it past GOP operatives in the various states - the kind of right-wing-nuts who have been posting the hate-filled vitriol on this blog the past 2 days - to cheat? Hardly. Do they have a record of cheating? Yeah. So is it possible they cheated enough to steal the election? Well... yeah it is.

It does mean they did cheat, but I'm kind of creeped out by the fact that I honestly couldn't swear that Bush won for real this time. Is this a great country, or what?

[SoCalDemocrat]

30. It wouldn't be at all hard

Swapping out a memory card in just just a few precincts in a state would swing the election. If you were blatant enough, or the race were close enough, swapping or modifying results from a single precinct could tip the scales for a state.

When the software has never been verified, and there are no audit trails, what exactly can be done? We are at the mercy of the machines.

[glitch]

2. Some optical scan machines are made by Diebold too - and if you

don't do a hand count they are just as bbv.
Same problem in WA state which has a neck-neck Governors race right now. Optical scans are good in that you do have a paper trail, not so good if you don't bother to test them against hand counts.
And - they often feed into the same hackable central counting machines anyway.

I am looking forward to a presidential campaign who bothers to hire and use computer professionals. Thought that was Kerry, guess not.

[bloom]

38. Plus - I hear ballots are being pitched in Florida-

preventing any recounting of them.

[RememberTheCoup]

3. related thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x82290

[RememberTheCoup]

4. This Farhad Manjoo guy is full of crap

Here's what I posted on the other thread:

First off, he's wrong about Nevada.

"The most obvious example here is Nevada, the only state in the nation to use what many computer scientists consider to be the safest touch screen machines -- machines that print a paper ballot that is reviewed by the voter as each vote is cast, a so-called voter-verified paper trail. In Nevada, the last exit polls showed Kerry leading Bush by 49 to 48 percent, with 1 percent for Ralph Nader. The actual result was a win for Bush by 51 to 48 percent."

Touch screen machines with a paper trail are not any more trustworthy in their initial count that those without paper trails. They are only more trustworthy if those paper receipts are counted. Everyone knew NV would not be counted.

To clarify, these are not true paper BALLOTS that are used to count the votes. They are RECEIPTS that are only used in recounts. And it was a safe bet that Nevada would never be recounted -- but maybe it should be.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-gov/2003/d...



fallacy #2

"And even in states that do use paperless touch-screen machines, it's not clear that Bush made his gains in touch-screen areas of the states, rather than regions that use other machines. For instance, in Florida, it's the state's large South Florida counties that use paperless touch screens. But Bush did worse in these regions in 2004 than in 2000. In the 2000 race in Miami-Dade, Bush got about 47 percent of the two-party share of the vote, while Al Gore received 53 percent; this year, Bush only got 46 percent of the two-party vote there, while Kerry got 54 percent. What this means is that in the move from punch-card machines (which, as everyone remembers, Miami-Dade used in 2000) to paperless touch screens, Bush actually did worse, not better."

His basic argument is this:
1. In Miami-Dade, they use paperless touch screens.
2. Bush did very slightly better in Miami-Dade in 2000 than in 2004.
3. Therefore, there was no cheating in Miami-Dade or in any other place that uses touch screens.

First, there is the logical fallacy that if Miami-Dade is honest, all touch screen counties must be honest. But he hasn't even shown that Miami-Dade is honest. Just because Bush got a certain percentage in 2000 doesn't mean he should expect to get that exact same percentage in 2004. (Even here he fudges his numbers by going with something he calls the "two-party vote" instead of the real vote. Bush got 46% in Miami-Dade in BOTH 2000 and 2004. Gore got 53% in 2000 and third-party candidates -- mainly Nader -- got 1%. Kerry got 54%.) So despite the massive outrage over the last election, Miami-Dade did almost exactly the same as last time -- except Nader votes went to the Democrat this time. I think that is suspicious in and of itself. Isn't it possible that the machines WERE rigged and that's why Kerry didn't take the county by an even larger margin?

Here are the 2000 FL results by county:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/cbc/flcbcnov7.htm

[glitch]

6. Exactly - thank you. If only the people in charge would avail themselves

of advice from real computer professionals. Or use their own damn logic.

[althecat]

15. Actually in the past he has done an extremely good job on BBV...

He even gets a credit in Bev's book.

That said he does seem to have rushed to judgement here....

[RememberTheCoup]

7. one more point:

"At the same time, the president gained in Orange County, Florida. In 2000, Gore beat Bush in Orange County, whose largest city is Orlando; this year, Kerry lost to Bush there. And Bush didn't need rigged machines to do it -- Orlando uses paper-based optical scan voting machines, which computer scientists consider more reliable than the touch screen systems."

But the votes still are counted by computer. I think this guy is confusing "reliable" with "verifiable". Any system that produces a paper trail is more VERIFIABLE because the papers can be counted. But it is not necessarily any more reliable. The votes can still be changed within the computer.

But it brings up another interesting point. Why did Orange County have a 40% increase in votes while Miami-Dade had less than a 14% increase? As one of the counties at the center of the 2000 controversy, you'd think turnout in Miami-Dade would be very high.

[rockydem]

10. got a link for that?

and yes - email you points to Salon - if true, they are valid points to raise...

[RememberTheCoup]

8. maybe we can all e-mail these arguments to Salon?

[rockydem]

9. props to DU and to SoCalDemocrat

[mistertrickster]

11. Well, I want to believe the voter fraud scenario, and I'm still open to it

But as a believer in Occam's Razor (the simplest answer is usually correct) I have to say that maybe we were just out-Jesus-ed and out-warmongered.

There're a lot of idiots who would never vote against their president during wartime (unless he's Clinton, of course). Then you have the people who seem to think THEY WILL HAVE TO MARRY A LESBIAN if we don't have Bush in the White House.

Between those two issues, the Republicans were able to mobilize a lot of people in a state like Florida or Ohio, where, let's face it, education isn't a top priority and people are anti-intellectual as an avocation.

[glitch]

16. When you code the voting machines and they aren't analyzed and certified

rigging them is pretty damn simple.

[Barrett808]

19. About Occam's Razor

principle of parsimony
Also called Ockham's Razor.

Principle that one should not multiply entities unnecessarily, or make further assumptions than are needed, and in general that one should pursue the simplest hypothesis.

Adoption of this principle, though seemingly obvious, leads to problems about the role of simplicity in science, especially when we are choosing between hypotheses that are not (or are not known to be) equivalent.

There are often different and clashing criteria for what is the simplest hypothesis, and it is not clear whether a simpler hypothesis is pro tanto more likely to be true; and if not, what justification other than laziness there is for adopting it.

Source:
Philosophy of Science (1961); journal containing symposium on simplicity

http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/parsimony-principle.html

[althecat]

12. This really pisses me off...

Firstly....

"But Bush did worse in these regions in 2004 than in 2000. In the 2000 race in Miami-Dade, Bush got about 47 percent of the two-party share of the vote, while Al Gore received 53 percent; this year, Bush only got 46 percent of the two-party vote there, while Kerry got 54 percent."

According to who? I don't know what stats Salon was looking at...clearly not these ones.

County........2000 2004 Increase

Broward
Gore/Kerry...386k 441k 14%
Bush...........177k 236k 33%

Dade
Gore/Kerry...328k 381k 17%
Bush...........289k 324k 12%

Palm Beach
Gore/Kerry...268k 275k 2.6%
Bush...........152k 174k 14.5%

From KelleyKramer's "Computer machines in Broward say Bush surged 33% in votes!" thread.

(admittedly I haven't checked em myself but some actual figures might have been helpful)

"What this means is that in the move from punch-card machines (which, as everyone remembers, Miami-Dade used in 2000) to paperless touch screens, Bush actually did worse, not better."

Again look at the stats again please people. Even if your stats are correct in substance what is odd here is the level of vote that Bush received over the entire state... not just in the touchscreen counties.

Secondly, it would be good if they had looked a but further to Faun Otter's more complete analysis of this. What happened in Nevada confirms rather than dismisses these observations... they have a paper trail... they did not have a exit poll/actual swing. This makes sense... if they had had one it might have been found out.

Finally, as has been pointed out ad nauseum... it is not only the touch screens that run a risk of vote fraud. The biggest risk of fraud comes at the vote counting stage. The best clear evidence of attempted vote fraud that we have occurred in in VOlusia County florida ( http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm ) an optical scanning county.

[LisaL]

13. Well, I am sorry.

It's a lie. OH did use paperless touch screens. I voted on one in Franklin county-so, it's a freaking lie!

[althecat]

14. One of many mistakes in that story...

Tis a shame they did not do their research a bit more carefully before attempting to blow the theory out of the water.

[RememberTheCoup]

17. Please e-mail that point to Salon.

[blackowl]

18. Not so fast Salon

The Choice between War and More War:
Democracy Fails: Corporations Win
by Peter Phillips
26 October 2004
www.globalresearch.ca 29 October 2004
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PHI411A.html

The real winners November 2 are the military industrial complex, who will continue to feed at the 500 billion-dollar military trough and the corporate media, whose coffers were filled with billions of dollars for campaign ads.

And can we be sure we actually had a fair election among those who did vote? Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Diebold, and Sequoia are the companies primarily involved in implementing the new voting stations throughout the country. All three have strong ties to the Bush Administration. The largest investors in ES&S, Sequoia, and Diebold are government defense contractors Northrup-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Accenture. Diebold hired Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of San Diego to develop the software security in their voting machines. A majority of officials on SAIC's board are former members of either the Pentagon or the CIA including: - Army Gen. Wayne Downing, formerly on the National Security Council - Bobby Ray Inman; former CIA Director - Retired Adm. William Owens, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - Robert Gates, another former director of the CIA. So we have a CIA/military private firm that programmed the security in the voting machines for companies owned by some of the largest military contracts in the country.

No wonder the Co-founder of the Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, Susan Truitt said November 3: "Seven counties in Ohio have electronic voting machines and none of them have paper trails. That alone raises issues of accuracy and integrity as to how we can verify the count. A recount without a paper trail is meaningless; you just get a regurgitation of the data. Last year, Blackwell tried to get the entire state to buy new machines without a paper trail. The exit polls, virtually the only check we have against tampering with a vote without a paper trail, had shown Kerry with a lead. ... A poll worker told me this morning that there were no tapes of the results posted on some machines; on other machines the posted count was zero, which obviously shouldn't be the case."

Peter Phillips is an Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored. For a listing of current censored news stories see http://www.projectcensored.org/

[progressivebydesign]

20. Any computer scientist worth their weight would tell you...

.. that you can TELL a computer to PRINT anything.. DOESN'T mean it's tabulated that way on the inside. See my point? YOu can make the computer print out what you just voted, but tabulate something else. Duh.

[SoCalDemocrat]

22. A rebuttal of the Salon.com War Room assertions

"The most obvious example here is Nevada, the only state in the nation to use what many computer scientists consider to be the safest touch screen machines -- machines that print a paper ballot that is reviewed by the voter as each vote is cast, a so-called voter-verified paper trail. In Nevada, the last exit polls showed Kerry leading Bush by 49 to 48 percent, with 1 percent for Ralph Nader. The actual result was a win for Bush by 51 to 48 percent. "

That's correct, as of November 3rd, the exit polling in Nevada shows a discrepancy. I checked those results myself on the 3rd. What you've failed to realize, and point out, is that the exit polling data was changed sometime shortly after 1:30AM CST. Prior to that, the exit polls for Nevada were tracking accurately with the precinct reporting results. I've posted the screen shots of one of the changes that we had a before and after for, but none of the news agencies commenting on this story are bothering to mention that fact.

I suggest those who have access go back to before 10PM PST on Nov 2nd, before they were changed, and use the exit polling data at that time to do the comparison. What I heard was that CNN claimed they had "oversampled black voters" so they re-did their calculations.

The Edison company began conforming the exit polls to match the actual results after 1:30AM CST.





"And even in states that do use paperless touch-screen machines, it's not clear that Bush made his gains in touch-screen areas of the states, rather than regions that use other machines. For instance, in Florida, it's the state's large South Florida counties that use paperless touch screens. But Bush did worse in these regions in 2004 than in 2000. In the 2000 race in Miami-Dade, Bush got about 47 percent of the two-party share of the vote, while Al Gore received 53 percent; this year, Bush only got 46 percent of the two-party vote there, while Kerry got 54 percent. What this means is that in the move from punch-card machines (which, as everyone remembers, Miami-Dade used in 2000) to paperless touch screens, Bush actually did worse, not better. At the same time, the president gained in Orange County, Florida. In 2000, Gore beat Bush in Orange County, whose largest city is Orlando; this year, Kerry lost to Bush there. And Bush didn't need rigged machines to do it -- Orlando uses paper-based optical scan voting machines, which computer scientists consider more reliable than the touch screen systems. "

It's irrelevant whether Kerry won Orange County or not. A state's electoral votes are decided by the total number of votes for each candidate. Bush losing 1% vs. 2000 is readily explained by a much higher turnout in 2004 vs. 2000. Anyone who stood in line for hours in Florida to vote will attest to the turnout.

If we want to speculate, and at this point it is speculation, as to the cause, it could of been machine results in a Republican county that were in error or changed.

What needs to happen is an investigation into the exit polls and why they were off in a number of states vs. the actual results that were announced.


Here are the results for FLORIDA and OHIO using the exit poll data BEFORE it was modified to match the actual voting results:

FLORIDA

Male: 52/47 Kerry 46%
Female: 52/48 Kerry 54%

(0.46 * 52) + (0.54 * 47) = 49.3% Kerry
(0.46 * 52) + (0.54 * 48) = 49.8% Bush

Exit polls using the breakdown you provided shows a dead heat.

The actual reported results have Bush winning Florida by 5%.

OHIO

Male: 51/49 Kerry 47%
Female: 53/47 Kerry 53%

(0.47 * 51) + (0.53 * 49) = 49.94% Kerry
(0.47 * 53) + (0.53 * 47) = 49.82% Bush

Exit polls show a dead heat.

The actual reported results have Bush winning Ohio by 3% and 1% to Nader.

Here is Nevada, as the poster said, with a disparity as of Nov 3rd.
This disparity was not present on the evening of the 2nd.

NEVADA (from MSNBC this morning)

Kerry 44 54 with 48% Men
Bush 52 47 with 52% Women

(0.48 * 54) + (0.52 * 44) = 48.8% Kerry
(0.48 * 52) + (0.52 * 47) = 49.4% Bush

Exit polls, Bush ahead by 0.6%. Actual results Bush won by 3%

[SoCalDemocrat]

31. I mailed the above to Salon

I hope they print the rebuttal, or at least address the issues I and others have raised here. Their analysis of my position was flawed on all faces.

[spooky3]

42. Thanks so much for your hard work!

[CHIMO]

23. BS On The Paper Bit

That is where the shit happened.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x21493

[SoCalDemocrat]

24. Here is a synopsis of the data I recorded Tues night

I've rounded off to the nearest percent. The time is when I crunched the raw CNN Exit Poll data and produced the second value, which is a +/- value difference between what exit polls showed for Kerry vs. what was actually being reported by the precincts. For example, in Ohio Bush was +3% higher in actual precinct reporting than the exit poll data indicated.

In every case listed below, there is a discrepancy in favor of Bush between the exit polls and actual results. WIth the exception of Illinios, I'd call them outside of expected values.

Time Bush Bias State

08:34PM +3 Ohio
08:34PM +5 Florida
09:29PM +5 Michigan
09:30PM +2 Illinois
09:32PM +6 New Mexico
10:01PM +7 Wisconsin
10:07PM +5 Minnesota

The next three states had exit poll results that were virtually identical to the precinct reported results. This would indicate the exit polls were predicting results very accurately for these three states.

09:39PM +0.1 Nevada
10:36PM +0.1 New Hampshire
11:03PM +0.5 Maine

Nevada and New Hampshire have paper audit trials mandated by state law. Maine does not use any electronic voting machines. It's possible this is a coincidence, or perhaps the EVoting sytems have something to do with the problem. There is no way to be certain because the software running in those machines has not been inspected. The DNC attempted to do so in Florida, but were blocked by Republicans who said the software was "proprietary" and the DNC had no legal right to inspect it.

According to the compact signed by the six news agencies who performed the exit polling, automated systems should of been triggered on election night when these variances began between exit polls and actual results. They were then obligated to investigate the variances for potential problems.

It appears that rather than investigate and notify the public of a potential problem, they instead chose to modify their exit polling data in the wee hours of the morning so they would conform to the expected election results, which showed a Bush victory.

It is essential that we have faith in our voting process. I for one cannot accept these election results until an investigation has been performed,a full disclosure has been made of what went wrong and why, and it can be proven that our votes were properly registered and counted.

[CHIMO]

26. Mixing Faith

And statistics doesn't work. Just crunch the numbers and the chips will fall where they may.
Doing any analysis requires rules that are unbiased, otherwise there is no leg to stand on.

[SoCalDemocrat]

28. Where does faith enter into the picture?

I've crunched the numbers, based on which there is clearly variance between exit polls and reported results that should be investigated.

[CHIMO]

32. OK

Just took it from your post.

"It is essential that we have faith in our voting process."

Unfortunately I can only sit and throw in what I am seeing.

[SoCalDemocrat]

33. The american public needs to trust the system works

The public must be able to trust that our system of voting works. We must be able to have faith in our system.

The way we do that is by hard analysis and proving that it works, or finding the problems and fixing them.

Right now, many of us have little faith that the system is working correctly.

[CHIMO]

34. OK

But stats will be kicked out when one starts making conclusions based on faith.
Won't comment further as we want to keep to the facts.

[SoCalDemocrat]

37. I have faith that you understood my last response

[CHIMO]

40. Yes I Do

And I, as well as many others, hope for your success.

[SoCalDemocrat]

27. Greg Palast says spoilage may be to blame - lost votes

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

[Robert Oak]

25. salon should look at

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

but it would be better if they would sponsor a full statistical analysis.

We must have at minimum, the Nevada system as it is and at least
this would bring this to the forefront.

I would prefer all went to the Oregon system...the fairest
because there is no line, there is not time crunch.

You can take two weeks to fill out your ballot and mail it in.

Another thing this election brought out is voter suppression.

How many working people could stand in line for 7-13 hours?

I suspect not many due to having to go to work, get their kids and so on.

[SoCalDemocrat]

29. I agree, our system is flawed

Forcing everyone to vote on Tuesday by 8PM is rediculous.

#1 If you are a U.S. citizen, you should be made eligible to vote by obtaining a drivers license in your state. No additional registration required.

#2 You should always be able to vote provisionally, and all provisional votes should be counted if they cannot be proven invalid.

#3 You should be able to vote anytime within 2 weeks of the electon date. All

#4 All election results should be kept confidential until all the polls in every part of the country have closed.

#5 No voting systems shall be used that does not have a certifiable audit trail to guarantee the vote was properly registered and counted.

[SoCalDemocrat]

35. For those who say people lie to exit polls

In several states they apparently always tell the truth.

at 10:36PM in NewHampshire, everyone was telling the truth because the exit polls matched the results within 0.1%

at 9:39PM in Nevada, everyone was still telling the truth. The exit polls matched the results within 0.1%

at 11:03pm in Maine, people were still telling the truth and exit polls matched the results within 0.5%


In Ohio, a Diebold machine subtracted 25,000 votes from John Kerry. The same thing happened in a Florida precinct in 2000.

At 1:36am CST the organization that publishes the exit polling data modified the data to coincide with the results of the election in a number of states. Here is a screen shot from just one of those states, showing what they did. The resulting data was aligned with the Bush victory.

BEFORE


AFTER


Some of you are good at math. Run the numbers. You'll see Kerry actually lost votes and all of the 57 new votes added apparently went to Bush. Look at the increase in both Men and Women voting for Bush after they adulterated the data.

I'm not suggesting it was a conspiracy. The AP took massive heat in 2000 over exit polling. They may well of modified it just to cover their ass and get the results back in line with what was being reported. I spoke with a reporter, who had spoken to CNN. According to the reporter, CNN said they had "oversampled blacks" and that was why they made the adjustment. The adjustment as it were, was made across numerous states, all at the same time in the late hours of the night.

I findi it improbable, especially in states like Maine where there are virtually no black voters to begin with.

[bloom]

41. Thanks for this

I don't know if you have seen this - I think it's funny....



"Exit polls are almost never wrong. They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state. "<much more>

http://www.thehill.com/morris/110404.aspx

Dick Morris insists in this instance that the exit polls must have been sabotaged because he doesn't want to believe the results.


I would like to know - does anyone say the revised exit polls (at 1:00 am) were revised due to any data - or did CNN just want the exit poll data to match the voting data in an Orwellian sort of way.

[DavidFL]

36. I still have questions about my county's numbers

I'm in Pasco County, FL, which is considered Republican. Republicans control almost every county office from the Board of Commissioners, to the Sheriff's Office, to the Supervisor of Elections. We use the ES&S touchscreen machines with no paper trail.

In 2000, using certified recount totals from CNN, Gore got 69,576 votes (50.35%) to Bush's 68,607 (49.65%). Admittedly, those percentages only use Gore's and Bush's numbers and don't include votes for third-party candidates. In any case, voter registration numbers from around that time -- October 23, 2000 to be exact -- indicated there were 90,201 Republicans (40.68%), 88,876 Democrats (40.08%) and 42,680 Other (third parties and non-affiliated voters) (19.24%). Source: http://www.pascovotes.com/pasnote5.htm

In 2004, Kerry received 84,729 votes (44.39%) to Bush's 103,195 (54.07%); these numbers are also from CNN and the calculated percentages account for votes for third-party and write-in candidates. As of the day of the election, there were 107,005 Republicans registered (40.07%), 99,621 Democrats (37.30%) and 60,438 Others (22.63%). Source: http://www.pascovotes.com/

The most recent census data I could find for my county was for 2003. There were an estimated 388,906 residents in 2003 vs. 344,765 in 2000. By racial makeup, in 2003, 342,106 (87.97%) were White (non-Hispanic) vs. 312,989 (90.78%) in 2000. White (Hispanic origin): 25,912 (6.66%) vs. 19,048 (5.52%). Black: 10,704 (2.75%) vs. 7,531 (2.18%). The remaining 10,184 residents in 2003 (2.62%) are classified as Asian, Pacific Islander, Hawaiian Native, Native American, Alaskan Native and multiracial vs. 5,197 (1.52%) in 2000. I calculated the percentages for this category using the overall number of residents as the divisor and the same goes for the age category below.

By age, there were 92,926 residents (23.89%) aged 65 and older in 2003 vs. 92,235 (26.75%) in 2000. 60-64: 21,140 (5.44%) vs. 18,925 (5.49%). 55-59: 22,270 (5.73%) vs. 18,985 (5.51%). 50-54: 22,884 (5.88%) vs. 20,897 (6.06%). 45-49: 24,973 (6.42%) vs. 21,111 (6.12%). 40-44: 27,489 (7.07%) vs. 23,365 (6.78%). 35-39: 25,130 (6.46%) vs. 23,753 (6.89%). 30-34: 22,546 (5.80%) vs. 19,723 (5.72%). 25-29: 18,831 (4.84%) vs. 15,791 (4.58%). 20-24: 21,120 (5.43%) vs. 13,593 (3.94%). 15-19: 22,305 (5.74%) vs. 18,298 (5.31%). Source: http://fl.rand.org/stats/popdemo/popraceage.html

The most recent income data I could find was from 2002 from the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. That data showed 13% of households made less than $15k; 17% made between $15,000-$24,999; 36% made $25,000-$49,999; 19% made $50,000-$74,999; 8% made $75,000-$99,999; 6% made $100k+. The median household income in 2002 was $37,641. The most recent year before that I could find was 1999 and the median income then was $38,819; couldn't find a breakdown by income bracket though. Sources: http://www.tampachamber.com/pdfs/2004tampahllsbrgh-mrktgd.pdf and http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/12/12101.html

I'm not a statistician, a mathematician, nor do I work in anything that involves using a lot of numbers because I suck at math. But my question is, in light of the demographics of the county remaining relatively constant from 2000-2003, a slight decrease in percentage terms of Republican registrations from 2004 to 2000 and a less than 3% decrease in Democratic registrations for the same period, and only about 7,400 more registered Republicans than Democrats in 2004 vs. 1,325 more Republicans than Democrats in 2000, how did my county go from a slight majority for Gore in 2000 to an almost 10 point difference between Kerry and Bush this year? There were 16,804 more registered Republicans in 2004 than in 2000, and 10,745 more Democrats this year than four years ago, but Bush received 34,588 more votes this year than he did in 2000 vs. Kerry receiving 15,153 more than Gore. In other words, Bush got 2.28 more votes this year for every one vote Kerry received above Gore's total in 2000. Given the above stats, how did more than two-thirds of these new votes find their way to Bush?

If there's nothing to this, someone please tell me, but I do not trust these paperless machines. I was constantly thinking a week before the election that no matter which method I used to vote (i.e., absentee ballot vs. early voting vs. voting on Election Day) I have no assurance my vote would be counted and kept wondering if all I would be doing Tuesday was go through the motions.

On edit: Forgot gender stats. In 2003 there were 201,446 females (51.80%) vs. 180,554 (52.37%) in 2000. Males: 187,460 (48.20%) vs. 166,803 (47.63%). Source: http://fl.rand.org/stats/popdemo/popraceage.html

[SoCalDemocrat]

39. It looks a bit off

Kerry's numbers look a bit low for your precinct. If you take the national average turnout percentage, or even the Florida state turnout percentage, you can calcualate what the expected voter turnout would of been among registed voters.

If 70% turnout was reached in your precinct, it's possible Bush could of gotten those numbers or better. However under that scenario, Kerry would have alot more votes.

Given the national trend of independents going for Kerry, I'm a bit surprised at how this precinct turned out. I'd be interested in looking at the exit polling for this precinct, and comparing it to 2000 to see how well it matched up there.

We can also take the voting averages by race and age and check them against what happened in your precinct to see if that looks anomalous.

Without some exit polls, or audit trails for the actual votes, I think all we can do is speculate.