Exit polls analysis versus reported vote count

[Faun Otter]

Here is my analysis of exit polls Vs. supposed ballot counts.

Method
Grab one site which lists the exit polls before they were "corrected.” Correction is the procedure by which the exit polls are retrofitted to match the figures provided by the vote counting machines. It is easily done by changing the exit poll results, such as the 2.00 a.m. flip-flop of the Nevada exit poll scores which was done without any change to the sample size.

A slightly less obvious sleight of hand is to alter the weighting. Weighting is the name for a multiplier used to correct sample subgroups to match the proportions in the whole of a state population. Thus an exit poll can be ‘corrected’ by saying something to the effect,
“Oh well, the vote results show we must have under sampled Republicans and therefore we’ll multiply that subgroup of the exit poll sample by 1.5 to make our results fit the figures the ballot counting machines are spitting out.”

Here is one list as an example of raw exit poll data:
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=386

Then take a look at the results by state, such as on this chart:
http://news.yahoo.com/electionresults

There is a bit of math involved but don't worry, I taught market research at a University - a place where Republicans fear to tread, according to the media’s own polls! The Bush people argue that the exit polls are skewed by the methodology employed. It is odd that they don’t say what that error producing part of the methodology might be. A skew means a systematic error is introduced by the test protocol and causes a consistent shift in one direction.

IF this was true, then all the exit polls would show the same sort of shift from 'actual' results.

The GOP offer an alternative argument that the exit polls are not large enough samples and therefore the results are off by a large random error.

IF this was true, then the exit polls should scatter on either side of the actual result,, especially if the final result is close to 50/50.

What do we actually see when comparing exit polls with actual results?

There is skew - but ONLY in states which the Republicans had previously stated to be target states in play. The skew is in the same direction every time; that is to say in favor of Bush.

The exit poll results are not scattered about the mean as the alternative theory predicts. They are all on the Kerry side of the vote counts as issued by the states except for a hand full of states which hit amazingly close to the exit poll figures.

Here are the figures. They list the four contemporaneous and uncorrected exit polls. Kerry is listed first and Bush second in each pair of figures. Published = the figure presented as the vote count as of 10.00 a.m. EST on 11/3/04

AZ Poll one 45-55 Final 45-55 Published 44-55
CO Poll one 48-51 2nd 48-50 3rd 46-53 Published 46-53
LA Poll one 42-57 Final 43-56 Published 42-57
MI Poll one 51-48 Published 51-48 Published 51-48
IOWA Poll one 49-49 3rd 50-48 Final 49-49 Published 49-50
NM Poll one 50-48 2nd 50-48 3rd 50-48 Final 50-49 Published 49-50
ME 3rd 55-44 Published 53-45
NV: 3rd 48-49 Published 48-51
AR: 3rd 45-54 Published 45-54
MO Final 46-54 Published 46-53

These tracking polls were right where you would expect them to be and within the margin of error. However, if we look at some other states, the figures are beyond curious. either the exit polls were wrong or the vote count is wrong:

WI Poll one 52-48 3rd 51-46 Final 52-47 Published 50-49
PA Poll one 60-40 3rd 54-45 Final 53-46 Published 51-49
OH Poll one 52-48 2nd 50-49 3rd 50-49 Final 51-49 Published 49-51
FL Poll one 51-48 2nd 50-49 3rd 50-49 Final 51-49 Published 47-52
MINN Poll one 58-40 3rd 58-40 Final 54-44 Published 51-48
NH Poll one 57-41 3rd 58-41 Published 50-49
NC Poll one 3rd 49-51 Final 48-52 Published 43-56

Taking the figures and measuring the size and direction of the poll to supposed vote count discrepancy, we find:

WI Bush plus 4%
PA Bush plus 5%
OH Bush plus 4%
FL Bush plus 7%
MINN Bush plus 7%
NH Bush plus 15%
NC Bush plus 9%

Our election results appear to have been tampered with to give Bush some unearned electoral votes.

Again.

Faun

[molly]

1. How do you think it was done?

I think it must be a randomizing routine.

[Faun Otter]

3. Four methods

You can 'game' the election in four primary fashions:

1. Keep your opponents people from voting at all. This is done by intimidation and destruction of their registrations before they are added to the voter rolls. (Sproul and associates in NV, OR and the state DMV in SC for example)

2. Alter votes as they are cast. Diebold and the other vote skimming methods work at this level.

3. Miscount the votes. This is done by setting machines to reject your opponents votes or to alter the totals as they are summated. This is done through software such as the GEMS system or by altering data as it is transferred between machines, such as by swopping disks.

4. Ballot cramming. This is where you add extra votes at the ballot box, such as by having the voting machine memory preset with a few hundred votes for one side. This is explained in the Collier's book "Votescam" and may have been adapted in the present system. It can also be done by swopping memory cards as they are moved between machines.

Faun

[BlueEyedSon]

89. How about ballot "spoilage".... faulty vote mechanisms resulting in

undervotes (or overvotes). Particularly effective if the faulty machines are in precincts heavy in your opponent's voters. Similar to, but different from 1, 2 and 3 above.

Punchcard machines that produce "pregnant" or "hanging" chads are an example.

[TruthIsAll]

148. Fantastic work! I will link to the thread from another DU forum.

Thanks for the great analysis.

tia

[papau]

4. I agree - random recording of Bush vote with removal of Kerry vote

plus random recording of Kerry vote as a Bush vote.

It was reported in Florida as being caught happening - but then dropped by the media.

[SeanQ]

2. Grrrrr........

[althecat]

5. Thanks faun....

exactly what the dr ordered....

[Christiandem]

6. If this was fraud, it is the biggest fraud in election history

I don't know about that. It is hard to manufacture over 3 surplus million votes. Someone is bound to notice.

[tngledwebb]

8. Who is bound to notice?

Who stopped the fraud last time?

[Faun Otter]

12. Vote skimming

There weren't 3 million manufactured votes (thought that would have been the first manufacturing jobs Bush created in a while) There were votes trimmed from one side to another. You can set the plausible deniability count by using a race you know with reasonable confidence will have a certain result. You then reverse that result and apply it in other races. For example, look at the NC's Dem. Governor. and look at Bush's score in NC. If one is acceptable than so is the other. All that has to be done is set the system to match votes between races. The absentee and paper provisional ballots will give enough noise to cover your tracks.

[KoKo]

15. Yes....NC voting doesn't add up. It would have involved too much

"ticket splitting" to have a Democratic Governor..but a vote for Bush then other races like the Judges were split ticketed again.

Something happened in NC...I was on the ground and involved. And, it was the Opti-Scan machines.

[Faun Otter]

17. Opti-scan source

Do you know:

1. were precinct level pre-scans used in every precinct? In just some places? Not at all?

2. What manufacturer supplied the machines?

3. When the last patch was put on the software prior to "counting" the vote? we know that in WA state 2000, they applied illegal patches the night before and that seemed to be the source of the wayward results.

[tarheel_voter]

40. Not correct, straight ticket voting does not include vote for President

I voted in Raleigh, NC, Wake County at 4:00 pm.

Section 1
Selection for President. I chose Kerry / Edwards

Section 2
Choose whether or not to vote Straight ticket by party. I voted straight ticket Democratic.

Folks, splitting out the selection for president from the straight ticket voting is a damn good thing. On Tuesday, at the state level from Governor on down, ALL the Democrats won. Easley won reelection for Governor, and Bev Purdue won reelection for Lt. Governor.

There probably was no fraud there. Democrats own all the statewide offices, and of course the election machinery in this state is owned by us as well.

What makes me sad, is we can win all the statewide offices and not elect a dem president in NC.

[FlaGranny]

72. I find it extremely hard to believe

that someone would pick doofus and then a straight Democratic ticket.

[KoKo]

87. Yes, that's what my question is... Doesn't make sense.. to split that

way. If you wanted Bush then you definitely wanted Easley out.

[PatsFan2004]

162. When I was down south, some folks there wouldn't vote for a "damn yankee"

so the split vote makes some sense.

[blm]

32. Exactly as I saw it, too, Faun. Would you go on record

with some interested news reporters?

[shance]

144. 2002 California Recall Election - significant evidence of "skimming"

of course it was easier because there were so many candidates running for Governor.

[stickdog]

29. To notice, you must look. We're looking. We've noticed.

The media is certainly not so they have not.

[The Flaming Red Head]

33. Unlike the documented fraud to go to war with the wrong country nt

[CAcyclist]

127. It's harder to get 8 million new voters

to vote *and* keep all the old ones.

[glitch]

164. Why not? From the same people who perpetrated the biggest fraud in S&L

history? Who do you think you're dealing with? Amateurs?

[Eloriel]

172. Well, someone IS noticing, wouldn't you say?

Besides, a little here, a little there... pretty soon it adds up to a national election theft. Easy when you've got the machines on your side, as well as all the vote suppression, etc.

[jbnow]

183. With 3 million surplus

People are less likely to look. It's a much better plan the eeking out a victory. Opposition looks more foolish if they delay conceding and it gives them what they call a mandate.

We've been warned for years rigging itself would not be difficult, local clerks wouldn't have to know. It can be the biggest fraud in history because computers make it so much simpler to go big without looking obvious.

[althecat]

7. Kick.... Kerry's campaign need to see this.... WE NEED A RECOUNT

At the very least we should wait till all Provisional and Absentee ballots are counted.

That is the least that those voters should be entitled too.... a bit of limbo will not do anybody any harm. And we can all watch Oxyrush have a nutjob meltdown over it.

[Flammable Materials]

25. We need healthcare and a safety net, too.

Doesn't mean we're going to get it.

DISCLAIMER: Author is drunk on Belgian ale. But many a truth is spoken in a state of inebriation.

[robbedvoter]

27. Kerry's campaign is over. Send it to Palast, Conason, Randi, Bart

[Carl Brennan]

9. Excellent topic. Suggestion

We need the exit poll data from "non battleground" states. My understanding is that these states have a much higher positive correlation between exit poll and actual or final count. What this shows is that the predictive validity of the exit poll is high. This means that the exit polling system is sound/reliable and that an "intervening variable(s)" occurred in the battleground states.

This election was rigged, IMHO.

[Faun Otter]

13. If you have a source

I managed to find some exit poll data but couldn't locate much on 'none battle ground' states. If anyone sees a link to such info, please hare it here.

Faun

[Carl Brennan]

18. Establishing predictive validity of the exit polls.

That is an essential step in this process and can be done with the info from non battleground states. So far I've been unable to get the raw data on the non battleground states without all the gender, race, etc info. I Need a simple tally of the exit polls from the non battleground states to create the same sort of tables you used in your original post.

[nodictators]

107. Both MSNBC and CNN have had exit poll data on their sites

The MSNBC data was there very early this morning for all the states and DC. I believe that Edison/Mitofsky did the exit polling for several networks. Do a Google on "exit polls" and you'll find the E/M site with the network logos. The site doesn't have much else.

The exit poll data doesn't give the candidate predictions. However, use the gender catagory (there are only two possibilities, male and female) and with a little bit of arithmetic the Kerry/Bush data can be produced.

[SarahB]

10. Exit polls will be gone in 2008.

Zogby will probably be somehow "taken care of". Democracy as we know seems to be gone.

They'd be happy to have us take our fucking Prozac, bury our heads in the sand, and watch American Idol. :dunce:

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Is there similar discrepancy tween reported votes and pre-election polls?

Is there a similar discrepancy between the reported votes and
pre-election polls, on a state by state basis that shows up as
anomolies for Ohio and Florida?

[althecat]

14. Unfortunately the pre-election polls were all over the place

And there were so many of them you can practically choose your result...

Someone needs to complete Faun Otter's analysis with all the rest of the states as the poster above suggested... Does anyone have the pre-corrected exit poll data?

[Pobeka]

45. I don't have the data, but want to help with the analysis.

If anyone has links for the exit poll raw data, or has summarized them in any form, please post a link here or pm me.

Faun, this is great work.

Pandora's graphics down below are awesome. I would like to add in the error bars for the raw poll data, and display it for all 50 states. Dunno exactly how to do that but the first thing is to get the data.

I will go surfing and check back here.

Thanks Al.

[althecat]

60. Can I suggest you write to Josh Marshall...

I think he must have access to the raw data.. he was talking about it on his blog.

[bhikkhu]

47. Pre-election polls part of the strategy

The volume of push-polling and various ridiculous weighting used by many pollsters created enough doubt in the "minds" of the media that a doctored result of the actual election would be accepted. An artificial range of error, room for Rove to play.

[MetaTrope]

48. But how is the neocon grip over the media

AND the state polling officials so complete and airtight? Wouldn't it take only one person opening their mouth to send the whole house of cards tumbling?

[Art_from_Ark]

73. Maybe you should ask Sybil Edmonds that question

Oh, wait, she's been gagged from telling what she knows about the intercepted pre-911 messages that she translated into English

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/31/1616221

Or maybe you could ask Jim Hatfield about his expose about bu$h

Oh, wait, he was found dead in an Arkansas hotel room.

Ok, then, maybe you should ask J. Clifford Baxter about what he was going to testify regsrding Enron

Oh, wait, he was found in his car, the victim of an "apparent suicide".
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/25/enron.suicide/

And there have been other whistleblowers who have been gagged, fired, or god-knows-what-else.

[pandorasox]

143. More a question of who's participating than who's investigating

:shrug:

[tngledwebb]

77. Proof'sin the pudding.

The major media outlets are often NeoCon at the 'business end' ie regarding international issues, economic policy.
And there have been thousands opening their mouths about these and other problems for years and nothing has happened.

[Eloriel]

173. Try this

I don't know about the polls, but the EXIT polls for some of the states are pretty damned suspect:

Exit polls vs. actual results - graphs

[Petrodollar Warfare]

16. IMO - Our Election and our Democracy has been hacked

This upset is not really surprising given the proliferation of un-auditable "Evoting" machines in the swing states.

Regarding Ohio, Florida and Nevada, its critical to analyze the large variance b/t exit poll data and actual reported vote totals in some of those states that use Diebold and ES&S voting machines. My state has the new Diebold machines - which in 2003 was publicly discredited by the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute and Rice University...to no avail. Here's the press release:

Electronic Voting Security Flaws:
Johns Hopkins Researchers Respond to Diebold Analysis
August 1, 2003
http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home03/aug03/e-vote.html

Anyhow, the exit poll MOE is typically 3% in the national elections (as well as the larger states) and has been for the past 30 years. So the exit polling methodology is mature, but the 4-5% variance reported yesterday b/t the 5pm exit polling data and final votes suggests either 1) the people were lying to the pollsters about who they just voted for -unlikely, 2) fewer Bush supporters were being exit polled- GOP answer, or 3) the voting machines are lying - my analysis of the anomalies.

Indeed, since the 2000 election, the exit polls have become curiously unreliable, with Georgia in 2002 being the serious example where Cleland was polling ahead - but lost by a strange 10% swing to Chambliss in the final vote totals. (Diebold DREs were first rolled out in that election)

Call me a 'tin-foiler', but I do have a Masters in Informatin Technology, with a concentration in Information Security (INFOSEC) and I am in good company with other INFOSEC experts as well as those like Bev Harris who understand the security flaws/hackability of the Diebold central vote tabulators (which count up to 2 million votes per server - thus gaining access to just one of these servers is enough to sway a state's vote). Examples of security flaws reported last year included things like the password default on the *central tabulator* was "1111" or "11111" - until exposed on the Internet, and modem access #s were also revealed for anyone curious...thus hacking in from the inside and changing the total would be easy - and very tempting for political operatives.

Well, I think Bush is going to prevail over Kerry by the end of this month. Furthermore, I am becoming convinced that security flaws in the DRE-paperless/auditless/'proprietary code' voting system is simply too tempting of a target to ignore for political operatives - especially when the 2 monopolies (Diebold and ES&S) are heavily-aligned/invested with the GOP. Their can be no "recounts" on these systems, it will simply produce the same #s.

IMO, the only way to spot systemic fraud would be a technical review of the server's internal audit logs and all modem/uplink activity of the central tabulators along with the source code in the harddrives of the voting machines themselves, plus the source code of the central storage servers...which would require a small army of network analysts and INFOSEC forensic experts - not lawyers. Well, that ain't gonna happen b/c Diebold has successfully argued these are "Trade Secrets" issues...so, we are firmly in the Orwellian world of black-box voting.

On that note, it's ironic that I received a paper receipt out my bank's Diebold ATM yesterday when I withdrew $20, but I did not receive anything when I voted yesterday on Maryland's shiny new Diebold touch-screen voting machine. I suppose a responsable Congress would mandate that Evotes be treated in the same way electronic financial transactions have been transmitted/protected for the last 20 years...but that would of course would require campaign finance reform to sever the corporate influence, and a Congress that actually wanted the People to have faith in their voting system. Sadly, that is too much to ask.

We live in interesting times...and I have little faith in yesterday's vote totals for both Florida and Ohio.

In fact, given the 2000 debacle in Florida, I think we are a supremely naive and foolish nation for allowing an electronic voting system to be implemented in numerous states that does not provide any sort of paper audit trail to verify the voting data.

(sorry for the rant, I know I'm preaching to the choir)

[Tellurian]

20. kick~

but of course, you are right. Kerry understands NOW...

What I don't understand is why the Dems didn't FIGHT harder for voting receipts!

[shelley806]

100. Are you from Telluride?

I agree with your post, and most of the comments on the thread. Your sig caught my attention. I have relatives that live there...I love Telluride.

[lefthandedskyhook]

19. ALERT! A way to fight...

I can't start threads for some reason... please somebody start a topic...

We must check for our names on the voter rolls. If you voted (particularly absentee) and your name is not on the voter roll, then your vote was thrown out. If we discover something big we might still have a chance.

[Carl Brennan]

21. Kick this baby. This election was stolen and everybody needs to know it!!

:kick:

[kristndem]

23. kick

:kick:

[batchdem04]

22. hmm...

if the fix was on in all of those states....don't you think someone, something would have come up? i doubt they could pull it off in all of those states. a few (likely, OH, PA) maybe, but not all.

also, is it possible that the exit polls were just favoring Kerry more for whatever reason?

[stickdog]

31. The analysis doesn't prove the fix was in ALL those states.

It just shows that the odds of the fix not being in in MOST of those states are astronomical.

also, is it possible that the exit polls were just favoring Kerry more for whatever reason?

Faun's original analysis tackled that question. Perhaps you should try rereading it carefully.

[robbedvoter]

66. It was NOT in all states. NY, Illinois were left alone (no Diebold yet

in NY for one). There W was rejected almost 80/20

[Faun Otter]

34. I'll try to simplify

If there was something in the exit poll test method that caused a 'slant' towards Kerry, it would show up in all the exit polls. It does not. It is present in an extreme level in a few states.

If the exit poll samples were too small, they would tend to scatter around the final results, landing some close and some further away on BOTH sides of the actual outcome. This is not what we see. the exit polls land all on the Bush side and all a marked distance from the supposed outcome.

Trivia quiz: What company was picked to run exit polls but the project was rejected by the TV companies as too extreme even for them?
Answer: Bechtel - a CIA sub-contractor who boasted on their website about being experts in rigging third world country's elections.

Funny old world, isn't it? They are based in.... Ohio.

Faun

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

153. Not if there were OTHER intevening variables present in only some states

<snip>
If there was something in the exit poll test method that caused a 'slant' towards Kerry, it would show up in all the exit polls. It does not. It is present in an extreme level in a few states."

I'm not certain that what you said just there is entirely correct. You are presuming that all voters are the same everywhere. This isn't necessarily true. There are different demographics in each state that could explain the differences as well. What if one state includes a voting group that in elections past was particularly strong for the democrats? I don't know about OH, but that clearly may have been the case in FL, where there were voters who typically vote democrat, but in this particular election may have bought into the pitch from the right, either over the issue of Israel, in the case of Jewish voters, or, for conservative Catholics, over other moral issues. Would these people want to admit to pollsters (or perhaps to family members or friends who had accompanied them to the polling place) that they had abandoned their life-long habit of voting democrat? So, they may have voted Bush, but told the pollster Kerry. That's one possible other explanation. There may be other possible explanations we haven't thought of yet.

I'm not claiming I know that is what happened. Only that there exist other possibilities that could explain your results. Have you checked the figures, if any, for abandonment of the dems by these usually reliable constituencies in these particular states and/or counties? That might be one way to begin to check out your hypothesis. Were there any other anomolies that appear?

I guess all I am saying is make sure to try to think of other possibilities, before you become convinced that your explanation is the only one that makes sense. In other words, do some hypothesis testing. Let me add that I would really like for you to be correct so that Kerry could win after all. I stayed up all hours on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning in just such a hope. But you've got to figure: Kerry really wanted to be president. He is a smart man. If this stuff was highly likely, don't you think that Kerry would have known himself?

[blurp]

51. One guy on slashdot was saying

that he witnessed a young man making an effort to poll many young women.

So, just who was doing the polling? Was it minimum-wage 20 somethings?

Do you thing they really would all honestly pick people at random to poll?

[tngledwebb]

70. The list of crimes this Govt

has pulled off is long and shocking.

[Name removed]

Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FlaGranny]

74. Yes, we certainly do want to consider

what may be the truth. Right-wing nutcases have taught us to look for truth in hidden places. Their lies have taught us the truth of the fact that you can never, ever believe anything they or their media lackeys say. That is the TRUTH.

I hope you aren't really a doctor, because doctors need to look for all possibilities when the diagnosis does not add up.

[shelley806]

102. Heh-Heh!! I am a Doctor, and I agree with you dignosis!! n/t

[smb]

94. Test Sample versus Control Sample

The key is the correlation between discrepancy between polls and results and the voting technology used -- if there's a significant discrepancy that systematically shows up only where there's no auditable paper trail, that's a smoking gun....

[shelley806]

103. Exactly.......n/t

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

124. But correlation is not the same as causation. It would be suggestive

but you would need more to actually prove anything.

[mitchum]

24. kick

[althecat]

26. Faun Otter: Vote Fraud - Exit Polls Vs Actuals

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00072.htm
Faun Otter: Vote Fraud - Exit Polls Vs Actuals
Thursday, 4 November 2004, 1:21 pm
Article: The Scoop Editor

SCOOP EDITOR'S INTRODUCTORY NOTE: Within parts of the U.S. progressive community there is already widespread concern that electronic voting fraud may provide an explanation for the astonishing 8 million vote gain made by George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential U.S. election.
Already there a variety of odd phenomena which have aroused suspicions about this possibility:

For example:

- In Florida Bush received a million extra votes, while Kerry received only 500,000 extra votes, in spite of a massive Democratic Get-Out-The-Vote(GOTV) and registration campaign in that state;

- In Florida's Broward County, a democratic stronghold and heavily black community, unauditable voting machines recorded a 33% (70,000+) vote gain on Bush's 2000 results and a much smaller gain to Kerry – again Broward was the scene of a massive GOTV campaign;

- In several places voters reported ( http://www/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/4154/ ) voting for Kerry but noticing the machine record their vote for Bush;

- Recollections, reported here at Scoop.co.nz in 2003, that there is evidence of vote fraud in Florida in 2000 involving security holes in voting systems;

- Observations that many of the security flaws reported in mid 2003 in vote counting systems remained in place for the 2004 count last night (see… http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ for details.)

But by far the most wide source of public suspicion about the results came from the stark difference between the exit polls, which showed strong Kerry leads in many battleground states including Ohio and Florida, and the actual results in those same states. Bush achieved a 5% margin of victory in Florida and came very close to winning Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Add in the fact that the reported exit poll results were changed in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and there was a recipe for suspicion brewing in the online internet vote fraud community last night.

In order to attempt to get a firmer hold on the extent of vote fraud if it did occur Faun Otter (a veteran of the U.S. based vote fraud investigative community) conducted the following preliminary analysis comparing the initial exit poll results (note this link takes you to the revised results) vs actual results.

- Scoop Co-Editor, Alastair Thompson


**********

+ A VERY LIGHTLY EDITED VERSION OF FAUN'S POST..
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00072.htm

[ParanoidPat]

44. Thanks again Al!

It's nice to know that the 'free' press still exists somewhere. :hi:

[George_S]

112. Us the visual? It's much more effective.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=11874&mesg_id=17986&page=

[robbedvoter]

28. For everyone, Faun was the one who first identified Diebold fraud in 2002

This is important stuff - please spread (and credit)

[Faun Otter]

35. Just spread word

I don't give a rat's bum about credit - the story and Democracy are more important than my ego.

But thanks for the thought. I appreciate it.

Faun

[blm]

37. Faun, need to know....

would you go on record with your analysis for reporters?

[BeFree]

39. Question

In my little burg, the Absentee/Early votes showed an almost across the board 10% different total over the final 'unofficial count'.

I figured the Absentee/Early votes would be like a random sample that would closely match the final talley.

Is that an incorrect supposition?

[crazylikafox]

30. send this to the foreign press! American press won't touch

[bklyncowgirl]

36. What sort of voting machines were used in the states mentioned?

I'm not entirely sure that I buy this but if it's true, this is big.

[BQueen]

55. Ohio had ES&S

at least in my precinct and the ones I monitored.

[pandorasox]

38. A visual aid

[Bozos for Bush]

42. Excellent visual, pandora (n/t)

[ParanoidPat]

50. Thank you!

Very well done! :evilgrin: :toast:

[Generator]

53. Well holy fuck, keep up the work

[Carl Brennan]

57. SON-OF-A-BIIIIITCH!!!!!

The dirty,slimy fascist pricks rigged this election!!!

[Carl Brennan]

58. Thanks a million for this. This needs to be on every front page in the US!

[bklyncowgirl]

64. Wow! Nice work Pandora

I know it's alot but are you going to do any more states. I'd love to be able to hand it out to friends and my husband who think I've got my tinfoil hat on a little to tight.

[Tom Rinaldo]

78. Really Great Work

Are there more states you can display in this way? It might even be possible to break down the Florida vote by counties, not all Florida counties used the same types of voting machines etc. Visuals ARE most powerful.

[FlaGranny]

80. I wonder what this adds

up to in total votes.

[Marxdem]

93. What kind of voting is scantron considered?

[hedda_foil]

147. Scantron is optical scan but they can be rigged just as easily.

The rig is done through the central tabulator at the county election office. The same tabulating software (in the case of Diebold it's GEMS, but they all have their own tabulating software and it's all easily riggable) is used for both optical scan and touch screen systems. If the numbers aren't questioned, there will never be a recount, so there's not much risk involved. In some FL counties it looks like they concentrated primarily on the optical scan tallies BECAUSE there was so much heat over the DRE's leading up to the election.

[BlueEyedSon]

101. Hey Pandora, where did you get your raw data?

thx

[pandorasox]

132. I culled the data from the three DU threads on this topic

Which means it's all pretty scattered and I'm not certain how accurate it is. If somebody wants to compile the exit poll info for all states and the types of systems they use, I'd be happy to put more charts together.

[yardwork]

109. kick

[kimchi]

110. Thank you!

That is most helpful. This is something the media needs to see. Can we get it to a website so we can link it by any chance?

[chimpy the poopthrower]

115. That's really great, however...

Please tell me you are getting in touch with the media about this. Just posting it on DU won't accomplish much. Your visuals are much too helpful not to get national exposure. :toast:

[HappinessPie]

136. This is AWESOME - if we can get sources that match the data...

we can blast the media with this.

[intheflow]

138. Kick!

[Bozos for Bush]

41. Faun, please read and we'll go from there

Faun, my name is John Dean, Bozos for Bush. I chose the name Bozos for Bush, because only bozos could possibly believe that Bush deserved re-election. I was warning people early on yesterday, as county vote totals were coming in, that something was very wrong. Most replied "don't worry" but I knew then that the fix was in again.

Myself and a few other people here at DU have worked very hard over the last month, digging up every piece of dirt we can find on various pieces of the puzzle we now know to be the religious right/neo-con alliance to take over this country...and what I personally have called fascsim, for a long time now. I cannot speak for everyone, but I can speak for at least 2 key partners who are determnined, like me, to continue this fight.

Once archives are back up, at least one of us will start a new thread, to summarize what we have found out so far, and what we intend to do in the future. If things go the way I believe they will go, we will form an official group, park ourselves outside DU with a new site, dedicated to bringing this crap to an end. Different people have different skills, talent and knowledge, and you obviously have knowledge that would be extremely helpful in the area of voting machines and statistics.

I hope you can join us.

John

[bklyncowgirl]

65. Bozos For Bush are you the real John Dean?

This makes Watergate look like a frat prank.

I've gone through shock, disbelief and now I'm mad as hell. If this stuff is true then our Democracy is a sham.

[Digit]

43. Kick

[IdaBriggs]

46. Kick for the Truth. nt

[blurp]

49. Maybe someone was playing games with the stock market?

Don't ignore the possibility that the polling was manipulated to make money in the market.

[chelo1973]

52. Exit polling was correct....

But the Voting machines, especially electronic machines, were tampered with!!!!!!!

[BQueen]

54. I think I have the key for your brand-new rollerskates...

please let you be old enough to get that lame 70s reference...and thanks for posting this analysis. This is exactly the type of stuff we need to generate.

I posted a thread here addressing how investigation and proof of the fraud could actually be used -- needs more research, but plausible. Pisses me off that everybody seems ready to write this off, which is why my post is a paean to Bluto's line "What Is This Shith?!"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2590721
(snip)
Let's take this another step -- what if when the counts are completed, it shows Kerry won Ohio or Fla or both? Do those states then choose not to award those electoral votes even though the concession was based on early returns and the provisionals/absentees were lopsided for Kerry? Please!! The citizens of those states can seek to force the naming of the proper (Dem) electoral slate...Kerry can help by seeking to join as a third party plaintiff or by filing amicus briefs, but basically, it is not his ox being gored here (no pun intended when I decided to use that phrase, but it is fitting, no?). Shouldn't we want him enough to fight for him? He did for us, and I'm not convinced this isn't strategic, although I haven't had the benefit of viewing his concession speech.

Another step -- even if the counts don't go Kerry's way, suppose that due to efforts by various individuals and groups we demonstrate that there is something fishy, get investigations, etc., and can raise a colorable claim of election fraud. And don't start in on me with the nay-saying -- fraud takes time to investigate, you can't do a damned thing until it's going down, and the polls haven't even been closed for 24 hours yet. The corpse not only isn't cold yet -- it isn't even a fucking corpse! So quit your keening over the late-not-so-great Kerry campaign; no sale.

Okay, back to the fraud -- one major pillar of the law is that decisions (legal rulings, contracts, etc.) based on fraud are not binding. The Latin term is "void ab initio," which I always liked for some reason, meaning held void from the beginning, as if it never existed. Now, granted, I have no idea of the application of the concept to say, an inauguration, but I think it could certainly be applied to the certification of a slate of electors.

Without doing research on more of the specifics, I can't come up with a date (seem to recall mid-December from 2000...) and even if the certifications go thru then, proof of fraud could arguably require recert up to inauguration.

BOTTOM LINE: From what I can prod out of my brain right now, it is my belief that we have about a month and a half to get at least probable cause level evidence on the fraud in order to attempt a halt of the certification of the electors' slates.

(snip)

None of this will be easy by any stretch of the imagination. This will take the combined effort, resources and strength of will of everyone who realizes that this is our country that is on the line. We ARE fighting for our lives, here. But, realistically, what did we expect? We knew that anything but “Kerry in a Landslide” was a recipe for repug “problems” after the election. We knew that the fight would continue into December or longer, even if the counts were over. We just hoped that we would be in a position of perceived strength for the fight. But perceived strength can be overrated. The element of a surprise knockout punch from a seemingly toppled foe cannot be.

We are the underdog. We are Rocky. We are DanielSan. We are the BoSox down three games to the New York Yankees, the richest team in baseball. They may have the money, but we have the talent and the will to take them out. They know that. They believe they have vanquished us because they have taken our head. But, like the mythical Hydra, the creature that will pursue them in their waking nightmare has many heads, all of which will be striking at different points at different times.

We are united - we will not be deterred, and we will not be denied the electoral process due us. This is not the end of anything; it is simply a new stage of the fight, slightly less heady than expected. But infinitely more gratifying if it comes off.

C'mon -- it's actually OUR turn now -- we get our chance to kick the bully in the nads. How many threads have I seen here crying in frustration that Kerry-Edwards weren't going for the jugular? They couldn't -- we can. It's that part of the movie where the bullied have to stand up and realize that together they are strong.

So, again I ask "What is this shith?.... Over?! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? **** It's not over til WE say it's over!" Because, dammit -- WE ARE THE PEOPLE.

[Carl Brennan]

59. Funny thing about being "gun shy"

That's what happens sometimes when people repeatedly bring the damning facts to light and they are ignored, or ridiculed, or trivialized. (Note: Freepers are good at the third technique often combined with sarcasm and cynicism.) You bang on the wall long enough without any apparent effect and you may give up just before the last blow that crumbles it.

There are operatives at DU working for the fascists who are very, very good at destroying topics. If they are working on you extra hard it means you are probably up the right alley.

Good post.

[George_S]

113. Another good post.

And some of them are paid to sabotage.

[CAcyclist]

134. Good point!

If you are getting attacks, and you know you have done your homework, it means you are onto something and need to dig harder.

[chelo1973]

56. Evidence of Diebold Electronic machine tampering............

Go to blackboxvoting.org. It will explain everything. Why didn't we see this earlier!!!!!!!!!!

[Crispus Attucks]

75. I went and donated....send what you can..nm

[CHICKEN CAPITOL USA]

61. extremely KICK

Everybody bookmark this thread !!
it may come in useful soon.

[nomatrix]

62. Good work Faun, wired has a good article

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65579,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
on evote and on recounts looking into running the numbers again.

[nomatrix]

63. Good work Faun, wired has a good article

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65579,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
on evote and on recounts looking into running the numbers again.

[robbedvoter]

67. Please everyone, nominate this for first page - none more important!

[SHRED]

68. End e-voting NOW!

While I am totally in favor of a paper trail I am confused about what it would do.

So you get a receipt. So what?
Well, the vote goes in and it could still get digitally changed, in route.
For instance:
The results come in and our candidate loses by a slim margin.
Who is and how are you gonna contest it? So in every close race we hand count the paper trail?
If that is the case then why don't we hand count ALL OUR VOTES and take a week or so to do it? Equal teams from all parties would be involved.

I think this instant gratification--T.V. culture mentality--is killing our country.
Why not take our time and have 3 days to vote and 2 weeks to hand count. WTF is wrong with that?
I DO NOT trust this E-voting bu*&sh*t what-so-ever!!!
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

What is our hurry?

[ironrooster]

82. check out the activism thread

for projectevote

[vincent_vega_lives]

69. EXIT POLLING is only accurate

if the sample matches the electorate. Russert for one took a look at some of the exit poll samples and was alarmed that 57% of those polled were women.

poor poll samples = poor poll accuracy.

[robbedvoter]

71. Oh, yeah, if Russert sez it, it settles it. We take it back.

Riddle me this: where did W get the 7 million votes extra from 2000? They were aiming for 4 million fundies and somehow got lucky. Who are them people?

[FlaGranny]

76. Maybe that's because more women than men

are voting?

"The presidential election of 1980 signaled a turning point in women's political participation. Previously, a lower percentage of women than men had voted; in 1964, for example, 72 percent of men but only 67 percent of women voted. Beginning in 1980, however, women began to outnumber men at the ballot box, a trend that has endured, despite the overall drop in voter turnout. It is estimated that women in 2000 comprised 53 percent of the electorate, while men accounted for only 48 percent."

http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/02/02-02steinem-editorial.html

Not only that, but women DO outnumber men in the total population.

[Matilda]

81. Well, if 57% of the voters were women,

that would be a fair sample, wouldn't it?

[Pacifist Patriot]

130. I believe women constituted 54%of the vote. In that case...

I would say 57% sampled is within an acceptable margin of error. But I'm no statistician. This objection just doesn't ring any alarm bells with me. If over 60% of thosed polled had been women than I might start looking at the data differently.

[Carl Brennan]

99. Irrelevant to this topic. nt

[vincent_vega_lives]

111. Perhaps you should look up "Irrelevant" in the

dictionary. If the polls were flawed this topic is irrelevant.

[flygal]

79. kick

[Matilda]

83. Kicking this.

And I've nominated it for the front page as well.

[WheresWaldo]

85. this is some shit...

why am I just seeing this now?

Somebody needs to get this to "The Nation," "Salon" or the Christian Science Monitor, etc.

[Zan_of_Texas]

182. Cause you weren't paying attention, Waldo.

But, hey, now's a good time to start!

Check out the cover story of The Nation.

I would say this is the definitive article of the past several months, in the run-up to the election. By the guy who first sounded the alarm in 1988!

How They Could Steal the Election This Time

by RONNIE DUGGER
The Nation, Cover Story -- August 16, 2004 issue
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger

Ronnie Dugger wrote the definitive warning essay about the dangers of computerized vote-counting in The New Yorker of November 7, 1988. Research support was provided by The Nation Institute. Dugger wishes to acknowledge the special assistance of Frances Mendenhall, Pokey Anderson, Peter Neumann, Rebecca Mercuri, Roxanne Jekot and David Jefferson, and his debt to hundreds of other reporters whose work cannot be properly credited here.

On November 2 millions of Americans will cast their votes for President in computerized voting systems that can be rigged by corporate or local-election insiders. Some 98 million citizens, five out of every six of the roughly 115 million who will go to the polls, will consign their votes into computers that unidentified computer programmers, working in the main for four private corporations and the officials of 10,500 election jurisdictions, could program to invisibly falsify the outcomes.

The result could be the failure of an American presidential election and its collapse into suspicions, accusations and a civic fury that will make Florida 2000 seem like a family spat in the kitchen. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary, has written, "Automated voting machines will be easily rigged, with no paper trails to document abuses." Senator John Kerry told Florida Democrats last March, "I don't think we ought to have any vote cast in America that cannot be traced and properly recounted." Pointing out in a recent speech at the NAACP convention that "a million African-Americans were disenfranchised in the last election," Kerry says his campaign is readying 2,000 lawyers to "challenge any place in America where you cannot trace the vote and count the votes" (see Greg Palast, "Vanishing Votes," May 17).

much more

[tuvor]

84. Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x19715

[WheresWaldo]

86. KICK

I'd rather punt it

[FlaGranny]

88. Kick

I sent this thread to Randi.

[Overseas]

90. I agree-- Kick on and on please

I believe the "huge poplular vote" itself is the best evidence of fraud. I believe the tampering was done in a scattered way so any single thread chased down will appear to be picayune squabbling and sour grapes. Use 50 techniques to steal--- electronic tampering of several kinds, "unnecessary to count" absentee ballots, "unfortunate" spoilage in select districts, small scattered "silly" disinformation campaigns, etc. etc. etc. Anyone who hunts one technique down can be told, "Aw, give it up. The country is just much more conservative than you think. The popular vote shows that !!" So thanks to the experts and persistent people who can hold together and compile a whole lot of evidence to present as a block.

[Petrodollar Warfare]

91. Technical Analysis of Diebold source code....from the experts

FYI: A technical analysis of the source code used in the most common paperless voting system, Diebold, was performed in 2003 by computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University. Below are exerts from the abstract submitted by these researchers (Analysis of Electronic Voting, February 27, 2004)

“We present a security analysis of the source code to one such machine used in a significant share of the market. Our analysis shows that this system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts.”…”we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. “

“…We conclude that this system is unsuitable for use in a general election. Any paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite any “certification” it could have otherwise received. We suggest that the best solutions are voting systems having a “voter-verifiable audit trail,” where a computerized voting system might print a paper ballot that can be read and verified by the voter.”

This paper appears in IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2004. IEEE Computer Society Press, May 2004. This paper also appeared as the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute Report TR-2003-19, July 23, 2003. Aviel Rubin, one the Johns Hopkins researchers has posted the technical analysis at this link: http://avirubin.com/vote.pdf

Computer Scientists/Researchers for this study included:

Tadayoshi Kohno, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California at San Diego (most of this work was performed while visiting the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute)

Adam Stubblefield, Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland

Aviel D. Rubin, Information Security Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland

Dan S. Wallach, Dept. of Computer Science, Rice University, Texas

[Carl Brennan]

95. Excellent post. We need this

kind of solid information from credible sources. Voter fraud is such a big confusing topic to many people but if we can nail down the exit poll vs actual count in battleground vs. non-battleground states, then do a comparative analysis of the voting technology vs the divergence of exit poll actual vote outcomes, then pinpoint how the technology in the divergent states is actually tampered with--there are many ways-- then we can start to close in on the companies and the people who run them and see who they are connected to.

With enough solid info this could turn into an Enron style scandal.

Remember the Diebold executives who died a couple of years ago?

[Catherine Vincent]

92. It looks like they almost stole Pennsylvania!

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

96. Are we asking the right question? What about support for Israel?

That conceivably could explain some of Bush strength in FL, as there are many Jewish retirees there. I am not certain, but I think many older Jewish people may be more likely to want to support Israel. And, if they did vote Bush, as life-long democrats, they may not have wanted to tell the pollsters that they did so.

I do not know this. I am not certain of it. It is not a criticism of anyone. It is only a speculation that also might explain some of the discrepancy between exit polls and final vote tallies, at least in FL. Someone would need to analyze the results and look at any swing toward Bush in traditionally liberal precincts (that can't be explained by demographic changes) to see if this speculation may be correct. I am concerned that this may have been one of the under-the-radar wedge issues.

[Carl Brennan]

98. Nothing like trying to sidetract this topic.

:eyes:

[Overseas]

104. I AGREE-- this topic is Engineering Vote Counts

Earnest explorations of how the vote count could have legitimately come out so strongly against the Democrats are being done in many other sections of DU. You've got lots of choices there.

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

114. Consideration of other possiblities is not sidetracking, imho.

I'm just suggesting alternate explanations that should be explored. Which, imho, should be seriously considered before we start trying to get press or otherwise travel too far with this story regarding the exit polls vs the results.

I would LOVE for the poster's observations to be found to be true, for it to come out in the press, for it to be investigated, for it to become public knowledge and then for GWB to finally get his comeuppance. However, the important thing is to make SURE it REALLY IS valid, before going public. So you ask yourself questions: Are there other ways to validate/test the data being presented? Do we have other independent sources that agree with these conclusions, when presented with the data? AND, the question I was asking, are there other explanations for the results the original poster found?

If we were to try to publicize this, only to find out later there was another explanation, that we failed to consider, it would just make all of this far worse and much more painful.

[Carl Brennan]

142. Irrelevant. nt

[Matilda]

156. Do you really believe that Rove/Cheney

were ever going to leave this election to chance? They have too
much to lose.

It was simply a matter of where and by how much they were going to
cheat, and whether it could ever be proved.

[DemFromMem]

158. Not the Jewish vote

Kerry did as well with Florida Jewish voters as Gore. Kerry took 80% of the Jewish vote, a number identical to a Miami Herald poll of South Florida Jewish voters taken a week before the election. How Bush increased his Broward totals by 33% is EXTREMELY strange.

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

166. I hope you are right. What about differences in the demographic in

Broward? Is the Jewish community there more conservative than elsewhere? Were there ads, or a particularly persuasive rabbi who were campaigning for Bush in ways that may have slipped past the dems? Are there organizations in that county that have particularly strong ties to Israel than in other areas?

I wish to reiterate. In my heart of hearts, I'd like to find out you are right, and thereby revive my hope in a Kerry Presidency. I'm just saying that its crucial to look at alternate possibilities before becoming married to the outcome you want. If you can do that, honestly, then you have something. Run your data by a neutral observer who understands statistics and political polling.

Also, just for your information, I very well could be way off regarding the Jewish vote in FL. I thought of that example primarily because I had heard something recently on tv and so that popped into my head. I offered my observations more in the sense of saying that there may be other possibilities to explain the discrepancy between exit polls and final results, rathere than anything specifically about the Jewish vote, per se.

[Carl Brennan]

97. To all the people whining about the US being a country of idiots

I say you are wrong and are detracting from the focus on how this election was stolen! You are, inadvertantly or otherwise, employing a classic CIA tactic of sowing confusion among the enemy.

Kerry won this election. This election was stolen from the the American public that did its job on Nov. 2nd by going to the polls.

WE are the majority!

[Straight Shooter]

177. We are now dealing with sleight of words instead of sleight of hand

Everybody keep your eye on the FRAWD ball.

Edit: I need some sleep :)

[Birthmark]

105. Are exit polls conducted for state offices?

If so are they conducted using the same methods?

And if so were the state-level exit polls from these states accurate?

[monroncrief]

106. NEWEST ANALYSIS

An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.

The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

An exit poll involves asking someone after they walk out of the election booth who they voted for. While not a guide for proving results, it can be a mechanism for ensuring voting accuracy and flagging potential fraud. Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.

Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.

In Florida, Bush led exit polling by CNN of more than 3 million voters by just 5355 votes. Yet he led by 326,000 in the end result. This morning, CNN changed their exit polling to favor Bush, saying that had overweighted African American voters.

In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.

In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.

In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.

Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.

Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.

Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.

Two states with paper trails for voting were within 0.5 percent margin of error.

New Hampshire, which has electronic voting but provides verified receipts, exit polling is within 0.1 percent of the actual vote. Kerry led by 3 percent in exit polling, and 2.9 percent in the actual vote.

Maine, the final state for which analysis of exit polling was conducted before the AP “resampled” their data, was in the Kerry column by 7.5 percent; the end result put Kerry up 8 percent, a variance of 0.5 percent. Maine has no electronic voting.

Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found.

Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush.

Allegations of voter fraud is not new to President Bush. On November 12, 2000, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting anomalies in the hotly constested state of Florida.

"Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official of Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and found that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000 votes. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 … all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."

Early returns from Florida showed the Green Party candidate leading President Bush and Sen. Kerry in two Ohio counties. They later appeared corrected, but raised eyebrows among liberal bloggers.

Developing…

[shelley806]

108. Thank you so much for this excellent thread...

I too have nominated it for front page. I strongly believed this to be the case, but to see it in black and white is something else. We need more graphic analysis of the data as it comes in, to update the excellent post by Pandora. This graphic illustration is so convincing that there is no way the media will spin it.

Someone mentioned a timeline/deadline of about a month and one half. Someone else mentioned kicking this to the foreign press. Has this been done?

[5by5]

116. Rovian GOTV counter-ops

Hit the exit polls with Repugs falsely saying they voted for Kerry. Kerry GOTV people, seeing that Kerry is winning easily, back off their efforts.

Repugs know the data favoring Kerry is false and keep their GOTV effort at full force for the whole day and their numbers exceed the gamed exit poll data. The observed data is explainable with simple exit poll gamesmenship and GOTV efforts.

The nice thing about this is that it's virtually impossible to get caught since nothing illegal ever occurred.

Did you notice how Bush referred to Rove as the "Architect" in the victory speech?

[kimchi]

119. BS!

Why, what a contrived explanation for a simple subject.

[5by5]

122. Occam's razor

Perhaps, but it's a simpler explanation than massive computer vote fraud.

No point in arguing though. Does the exit poll vs "actual" vote delta correlate to where the Diebolds are used?

[kimchi]

123. It seems to correlate, therefore--this thread.

Actually, computer vote fraud can easily be centralized, or more likely, written into the proprietary code that gets updated, or "patched" before the election. Your scenario contains more players on the field; fallible humans-- who might have a conscience. And we can't have that.

[5by5]

133. True, but...

My scenario doesn't require any illegal acts. It's just part of the game. As for more players, true--if this has occurred we'll probably hear about it eventually. On the otherhand, my scenario doesn't require perfect compliance as long a few voters lie about who they actually voted for, it would work.

When I say correlate, I don't mean do the skewed battleground states have Diebolds? Because most states have some. I mean instead in states where there was a significant split between the exit polls and the "actual" data, do all the precinct exhibit the same effect or just those with Diebolds or E-voting? If the latter, then the machines could have been hacked.

But if all precincts, even those with paper ballots or optical scan, show the same split, then some other force is likely at work (or the Repubs are equally adept at working those systems too).

The raw exit poll data and the detailed precinct actuals should show what's happened.

[TruthIsAll]

159. Occam's razor is a simple explanation for those who are too lazy to think.

tia

[Branjor]

141. Ridiculous....

Kerry GOTV people kept up their efforts even when the exit data favoring Kerry came out - Kerry people can do that as well as repugs, you know.

[CJCRANE]

180. Surely

gaming e-voting machines is a lot easier. Thousands of votes just take up a few atoms on a computer disc somewhere and can be moved around easily.

Co-ordinating thousands of people in an exit-poll conspiracy would be a lot harder.

[pschoeb]

117. Here's my contribution, on one of the exit poll questions that seem

impossibly scewed after they re-weighted or corrected. The question had to do with voter income, and this was for national totals. The percentage of the total vote by income seems impossible in an election with very high voter turnout.

Re-weighted or corrected exit polls for 2004 are impossible

2000 election exit poll question on income, national
turnout 51.3% 104 million

Income(in $1000)    % of total voters
Under 15                 7
15-30                    16
30-50                    24
50-75                    25
75-100                   13
100+                     15


2004 election exit poll question on income, national
turnout 60%+ 120 million

Income(in $1000)     % of total voters
under 15	          8
15-30		          15
30-50		          22
50-75		          23
75-100	                  14
100+		          18

People who make 75,000 or more vote at over 75% or higher turnout normally, with large voter turnout, like 2004, their percentage total of the vote should actually drop, or at best stay the same. People who make over 75,000 are less than 20% of the voting age population, if they had even a 10% increase in turnout over 2000, with the 2004 election the total turnout increase is almost 10% over 2000, their percentage would stay the same. So to get the percentage of the vote they got in 2004 they would have to increase turnout by 25%, which is impossible as they are already at 75% turnout in 2000. In actual numbers this would mean 38.4 million voters of 75,000 or above voted, but there are only 38 million people of voting age who have that level of family income, and only 84% of them are registered to vote.

With an almost 10% gain in total 2004 turnout over 2000, there is no way they can increase their percent of the total voter number, let alone by 4%. But the re-weighted exit polls show them increasing by a huge 4% over 2000, while voters in all but the lowest income dropped in percentages, and the lowest income only gained 1%. This is statistically impossible. People with higher than 75,000 incomes broke heavily for Bush, so it's obvious that when they re-weighed their exit polls to account for Bush's supposed vote, it made everything else in the poll make no sense in reality. The only conclusion is that original exit polls were correct, and something really fishy is going on. We would have to believe 100%+ of 75,000 and up persons registered to vote and actually voted, where as people between 75,000-15,000 had largely the same turnout rate and number as 2000. This would defy any model of large voter turnout.

[CAcyclist]

137. Excellent!

[ROH]

150. Interesting point. (n/t)

[robbedvoter]

118. Funny: I read on DU that Bill Kristol was commenting how W

got 4-5% more than the exit polls predicted. Damn liberal math - always skewing for the other guy!

[Dedalas]

120. Its over

Its over guys, face it. However we try to recount or total the votes, it will only make us look bad.

We have to move on and find more mainstream candidates.

[kimchi]

121. Really? When the votes haven't even been counted yet?

It ain't over until the electors vote. We've got a month, and we'd appreciate it if doubters would find another thread. Thanks.

[jeffhoo]

126. Actually in NC The GOP did win some Council of State Offices

the auditor is my former employer. i was shocked and dismayed. it seems nc voters split tickets like crazy and for no logical reason. kept bush. but goes dem for governor, lt. governor, insurance commissioner and possibly agriculture commissioner (tally too close, waiting for provisional votes). yet goes gop for state auditor & commissioner of labor. it's hard for me to believe the people of this state (who routinely kept sending jesse helms to the senate) are so sophisticated on the issues to split like this on council of state races.

see link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/elections/ncraces/story/1796040p-8095305c.html

"N.C. GOP may grab 4 key jobs

By JAY PRICE AND KRISTIN COLLINS, Staff Writers

Republicans were poised Wednesday to make historic gains among the 10 seats on the Council of State -- heavy emphasis on "poised."

A day after the election, results in three of the races for offices overseeing state agencies remained unclear. Two contests -- for agriculture commissioner and superintendent of public instruction -- featured knife-edge margins. In a third, GOP challenger Les Merritt held a lead of less than 2 percent of the vote and declined to declare victory over incumbent State Auditor Ralph Campbell.

Almost 75,000 provisional ballots remained to be counted, so recounts were possible. Candidates can seek a recount when the margin of victory is less than half of 1 percent of the votes cast or fewer than 10,000 votes.

The offices have low profiles but touch residents' lives in a host of ways. They shape what children learn in school, help find new markets for crops, audit government offices to make sure taxpayers' money is spent properly.

Once, few jobs in Raleigh were more secure than that of a Democrat on the Council of State. When Cherie Berry was elected labor commissioner in 2000, she was the first Republican in more than a century to win a Council of State race, other than governor or lieutenant governor.

Now, if provisional ballots and recounts fall their way, the GOP could take four of the 10 seats."

[Pacifist Patriot]

128. Why should ensuring every vote is counted properly

something that will make us look bad? If it's handled properly it could be a powerful tool for remobilizing the democratic base. The problem is that the democrats need to use positive assumptive language and they habitually suck at that.

[ParanoidPat]

154. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

:evilgrin:

[rawstory]

125. kick

[progressivebydesign]

129. Everyone is so focused on DIEBOLD.. how about Unisys and SCANDAL???

They also were one of the 3 providing voting touch screen machines. Did you all know that? Unisys, Diebold, and something called UniLect are the government approved vendors. And.. Unisys machines were used. Found a GREAT and wierd article from Panama, of all places about Unisys and the elections...

http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_09/issue_01/business_01.html


Wierd stuff. Read the whole thing...

[MetaTrope]

160. Wow, amazing that some governments still have the balls to ensure

fair elections.

[nomatrix]

131. Tremendous research here

http://vote2004.eriposte.com/

I have only begun to get through some of the links.

[eumesmo]

135. Are you saying Kerry really won NH by 17%?

And won MN by 10%?

Isn't it obvious that the exit polls were incorrect?

Kerry did well in the battleground states, except for Florida. Given the 2000 results, and given that Bush was 3% ahead in PV, here's what one would expect vs. actual (in terms of Kerry) vs. diff:
1) FL -3, -5, -2
2) OH -7, -2, +5
3) OR -3, +4, +7
4) NV -7, -2, +5
5) NM -3, -1, +2
6) IA -3, -1, +2
7) WI -3, +1, +4
8) MN -5, -2, +3
9) NH -3, +2, +5

In case this isn't clear, the first column is the 2000 results less 3% (representing the PV difference), the second column is the 2004 actual result, and the third column the difference. The third column shows that Kerry overperformed in every battleground state, except for Florida. In Ohio he did 5% better than the expected column.

The exit polling was showing Kerry doing even better than this, which is hard to believe, unless the PV was wrong. That is, Kerry according to the published votes, did extremely well in the battleground states given the PV. It's difficult to believe that he actually did better than this (unless the PV was wrong).

[CAcyclist]

140. There was a tremendous GOTV effort for Kerry, pissed off minority voters

and kids afraid of being drafted - Kerry's -what?4.5 million gain over 2000 is to be expected given the intensity of effort and the motivation of these groups. So, one would expect to see an improvement over 2000. Also, the groups that he is pulling new voters from have large pools of potential voters, so these people actually plausibly exist.

It's the huge number - 7 million - of new republican voters that makes no sense. They historically vote in high numbers already, they are mainly white, a majority men - a shrinking percentage of the population.


My gut instinct that there is massive fraud is from history in California. In California, after the republicans tried to pass props 187 and 209, the latino voters got pissed and voted in huge numbers ever since and that is what made California solidly democratic ever since. I would expect the same for Florida among black voters.

[intheflow]

139. Kick - check out graphs on response 38

[Karmadillo]

145. Are you in touch with Greg Palast?

He might have access to the resources to determine what really happened.

[Lil]

146. I posted your data on a TableTalk-Salon thread doing research

http://tabletalk.salon.com/webx?14@@.773a529d/122

If that's not ok, I will delete it. DU still seems to be unavailable to non subscribers so they can't get here to read it

Thanks,
Lil

[andym]

149. The question is which is incorrect, the exit polls or the machines

In one of your cases, chances favor the exit polls being out of whack.

NH has very low-tech electronic voting: fill in the ovals, etc with a very defined paper trail. No BBV. So at least there the big disparity is more likely due to bad exit polling. it does not rule out a very clever systematic plot to subvert the system, but it makes it less likely.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/01/28/national1609EST0710.DTL

[PatsFan2004]

163. We have the same low tech system in MA with paper ballots

that are electronically read. Since the ballots can be read and re-read for verification, cheating is harder. You have to sneak in hundreds of pre-marked ballots past the poll watchers and workers and destroy hundreds of real ballots to commit fraud secretly. Other schemes require more people cooperating as in one party precincts with no poll watchers.

Punch cards as previously used in FLA are one of the easiest electronic systems to fool. A long thin rod can be used to quickly and quietly create dozens of overvotes for your opponent by punching through your candidate's punch slot. The only evidence is a more chads on the floor.

A paper ballot must be manually marked to create overvotes, a time consuming process.

[phish420]

151. kick

[RhodaGrits]

152. kick

[genius]

155. WE KNEW IT WAS COMING. What are we going to do about it?

[Matilda]

157. All of us in other countries can do our bit to help get this out.

I've written a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald quoting some of
the figures I've got from this thread, and I'm emailing all my
friends the same info and asking them to forward it on to everyone
they can think of.

This affects all of us - the endless wars, the environment, even the
economy - we're all tied in with whatever happens in the U.S., so
it's not just a local problem. We need to get this out there, and
discredit this second term before it even starts.

[Carl Brennan]

165. Thanks for the effort!

That is greatly appreciated.

:kick:

[Q3JR4]

161. No question they rigged it. What are we going to do about it? EOM.

[mhr]

167. Kick

eom

[symphony]

168. did you guys see this ... now we have proof

that the election results are not to be trusted. i hope it's all over the news and spurs recounts:


http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/voting.problems.ap/index.html

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result
The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.
The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday's elections.
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.
In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.
Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.
The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.
Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round.
When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn't get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said.
"All the information is there," Arntz said. "It's just not arriving the way it was supposed to."
A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem

[robbedvoter]

169. Randi discussed the graph at # 38. Then, unfortunately, helped Nader

contest...a Kerry state. Expect "both parties steal" coming from him.
hey, Ralph - what about Florida, buddy? You are on the ballot there too.

[robbedvoter]

170. Now Malloy is buying the Nader's BS

[Cookie wookie]

175. Andy Stephenson of BBV/Bev Harris's group

phoned in and asked that Randi ask her listeners to fax Ralph asking him to petition for a recount in New Hampshire. I heard it live on Air America this afternoon in Atlanta at around 5 or so p.m. (stuck in traffic).

I have no respect for Ralph whatsoever anymore, he's lower than dirt, however:

1) Stephenson said they had proof of fraud there
2) Any fraud we can prove anywhere helps us everywhere
3) John Kerry won, as far as I'm concerned, and the election was stolen by evoting, the code counting the optiscan ballots, and other vote fraud. We have nothing to fear from a recount and everything to gain

That being said, I wish their evidence was from Florida and they were asking Nader to file there. It seemed wierd to me that they would go after New Hampshire before Florida, after all, we're hearing all kinds of suspicious results coming from Florida and the vote divide, without even counting absentee ballots, is close enough that this could set in motion a chain of events to change the whole outcome of this election. After all, the states haven't even certified their results yet.

[MassLiberal]

171. kick n/t

[crossroads]

174. Kick

:kick:

[pinballer]

176. here's what we'll do......

""WE KNEW IT WAS COMING. What are we going to do about it?""______genius

My prediction is that we --the progressive people in this country-- will, collectively, bend over and take it up the ass......AGAIN.

[robbedvoter]

178. Send this stuff to the Mirror

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x26164

[mzmolly]

179. Thank you for this information.

:hi:

[robbedvoter]

181. Kick!