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Ask C-Span to Cover the Freeman/Mitofsky Debate, so we can all watch this amazing event on TV!
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http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54651Contact: Dava Guerin, 215-914-2040, 215-262-0740 (cellular)
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Two experts face-off in lively
lectures and discussion about the utility of exit polls when compared to
official counts, the potential for election fraud and the role of
statistics in adjudicating critical issues of public importance. The
University of Pennsylvania's departments of Center for Organizational
Dynamics and Political Science and the Philadelphia Chapter of the
American Statistical Association (ASAP) will host the debate.
Like most politically savvy Americans, Steve Freeman Ph.D., was glued to
the television on election night, 2004. As he poured over exit polling
data on CNN's website, he was fairly confident John Kerry was in the
lead by a projected 5 million votes. But after all the votes were
tallied, especially in the battleground states such as Ohio, the final
tally swung well beyond the exit poll's margin of error to favor the
President.
But unlike most Americans, Freeman holds a Ph.D. in Organizational
Studies, and is a Visiting Scholar at Penn's Center for Organizational
Dynamics where he teaches research methods, including polling. His
natural curiosity and academic diligence led him to research the issue
in as much detail as possible, and the results appear in his forthcoming
book on the matter titled, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? to
be published next month by Seven Stories Press. His thesis is that the
official explanation for the difference between exit poll and official
results ("Within Precinct Error" or WPE) -- that across the country
Kerry voters participated at a higher rate -- is unsupported by the
data. Instead, the WPE is statistically significantly correlated with
election administration variables such as Republican gubernatorial
control, state electoral importance and voting technology. These
relationships are inconsistent with theses of polling bias, but
consistent with theses of electoral fraud.
In direct counterpoint, Warren J. Mitofsky, a fellow of the American
Statistical Association, and President of Mitofsky International, which
conducted the exit polling for the 2004 election on behalf of the
National Election Pool, believes Freeman's view regarding election fraud
is not statistically accurate. Mitofsky contends that such "conspiracy
theorists" after the election mistakenly claimed the exit polls
validated their claim. He believes there was no evidence in the exit
polls to substantiate these claims. Instead, he contends that on
election day the misinformation about the exit polls was spread by
inexperienced people trying to make sense of complex statistical data.
Mitofsky is currently writing a book on exit polling.
The two will square off in lectures and discussion on this very
important issue on Friday, October 14, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the
University of Pennsylvania Terrace Room, Logan Hall, 249 South 36th
Street in Philadelphia. They will be part of ASAP's fall meeting, which
includes a third talk on the use of two remarkably powerful statistical
methods to make the best use of clinical trial data.
Coverage of the debate is by invitation through Larry Starr, executive
director, Center for Organizational Dynamics, 215-898-6967. Interviews
with Dr. Freeman and Mr. Mitofsky may be requested in advance of the
debate. For more information, please visit
http://www.organizationaldynamics@upenn.edu/center (What's New) or
http://www.amstatphilly.org.
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