NEW ARTICLE - A Corrupted Election the exit polls were right

[helderheid]

Features > February 15, 2005
A Corrupted Election
Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/



By Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf

Recall the Election Day exit polls that suggested John Kerry had won a convincing victory? The media readily dismissed those polls and little has been heard about them since.

Many Americans, however, were suspicious. Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags.

The U.S. voting system is more vulnerable to manipulation than most Americans realize. Technologies such as electronic voting machines provide no confirmation that votes are counted as cast, and highly partisan election officials have the power to suppress votes and otherwise distort the count.

Exit polls are highly accurate. They remove most of the sources of potential polling error by identifying actual voters and asking them immediately afterward who they had voted for.

<snip>

Entire article here!!

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/

[helderheid]

1. place to add comments

2 say "sour grapes" so let's please set them straight with links to convince them otherwise. :)

[drm604]

11. For starters they need to look up the definition of the term

Sour Grapes.

It comes from one of Aesop`s Fables

One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. "Just the thing to quench my thirst," quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: "I am sure they are sour."

It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

It would only be "sour grapes" if we were saying something like "I didn't really want Kerry to win anyway".

[baron j]

27. I did hear and read a variation on "Sour Grapes," though:

some were saying, "well, if he did win, he'd have to work with a Republican Congress"

[Raster]

34. don't waste your time. mstrs. sourgrapes 1 and 2 don't give a shit...

...who really won. they don't care about statistics or evidence. they can only taunt with juvenile bravado. don't waste your time.

[berniew1]

2. There is documentation showing how this was accomplished

http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

[helderheid]

3. Would you go to the article and post a comment with that link?

Thanks!

[helderheid]

4. I've already added 2 comments - need more help

Please take a couple minutes to read this terrific article and COMMENT ON IT.

Thanks DU!

[dzika]

5. It's great that Freeman and Mitteldorf have continued

their efforts to get the truth out about exit polls and election fraud.

My dream is that this article would find its' way into the NY Times or Washington Post. But with no new data or analysis, I don't see how that could happen.

Even so, it's a great article and says the truth.

Corollary evidence

The exit polls themselves are a strong indicator of a corrupted election. Moreover, the exit poll discrepancy must be interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities during Election Day 2004. For many Americans, if not most, mass-scale fraud in a U.S. presidential election is an unthinkable possibility. But taken together, the allegations, the subsequently documented irregularities, systematic vulnerabilities, and implausible numbers suggest a coherent story of fraud and deceit.

What's more, the exit poll disparity doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't count those voters who were disenfranchised before they even got to the polls. The voting machine shortages in Democratic districts, the fraudulent felony purges of voter rolls, the barriers to registration, and the unmailed, lost, or cavalierly rejected absentee ballots all represent distortions to the vote count above and beyond what is measured by the exit poll disparity. The exit polls, by design, sample only those voters who have already overcome these hurdles.

The thesis of the Mitofsky/Edison exit poll report and the headlines that it generated are curiously detached from the numbers in the report itself. Statisticians who have studied the exit polls find substantial evidence to support the thesis that the vote counts—not the exit polls—were inaccurate.

Apparently, the pollsters at Mitofsky and Edison have found it more expedient to provide an explanation unsupported by theory, data or precedent than to impugn the machinery of American democracy. Unfortunately, their patrons in the media find it correspondingly preferable to latch onto a non-confrontational thesis, however implausible, than to even suggest the possibility of foul play.

A comprehensive analysis of the Edison/Mitofsky report has been posted http://www.uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf">here.

[helderheid]

6. I wonder if we'll ever break through to the corporate media

[natrat]

17. corporate media is complicit and know exactly what is going on

there is no persuading them

[intheflow]

25. The corporate media hired Mitofsky to do the exit polling.

To admit he might be wrong would be to admit their own complicity. I'd love to see it happen, but I doubt it ever will unless we the people organize some real resistance that they can't ignore. A general strike in the streets all over America would do it, but unlike the Ukrainians, our citizens seem to be too fearful (or maybe too lazy) to do that.

:(

[rdmccur]

41. Complacent

[bleever]

39. In this case, I think it will break through in the corporate media in a

big way after most people already know it's true.

This time, the truth is (pardon the mycological analogy) like a giant mycelium, a huge network of threads underground that, when the conditions are right, produces the fruiting bodies on top (the mushrooms) which are really a tiny part of the whole organism.

DU. Mycelial intelligence.

:thumbsup:

[Nothing Without Hope]

42. Bleever, don't tell me you worked on fungi too!

I did my graduate research using the fungus Neurospora crassa as the experimental organism, but I admit I did not hithertofore consider using a fungus as a metaphor in this connection. Actually, it does describe the situation rather well. One more aspect of Neurospora is the fact that in the wild, its spores only germinate after a forest fire. Hmmmmm....

Fungal analogies or not, I hope this article is widely read. I'll do my bit by spreading its "spores" by emailing my friends about it.

I'm glad they brought back the 2004 election Forum. There's a world of evidence still to be brought in and organized, then shown to the public. "Moving on" isn't acceptable.

[Melissa G]

43. There is plenty of new data to keep making news with

There are 50 states they can analyze and then there is the book deal Freeman has. This person may be the coauthor I think...

[dalloway]

7. Go Dr. Freeman !!! n/t

[SoCalDemGrrl]

8. a must read!!

kick

[Fly by night]

9. I posted a message on In These Times and I'm about to post another.

I thought their readers might want to see TIA's list of the other things you must believe if you believe Bush won. In These Times is a great journal, and Steven Freeman is a GREAT American.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Thanks for posting TIA there!

"...and Steven Freeman is a GREAT American." No kidding! Just when I was thinking there wasn't an honest academic left in the country (bad experience with forestry "experts"), WHO steps forward to redeem academia forever more? Dr. Steven Freeman, a true believer in FACTS. And following him, a long list of Ph.D.'s putting their reputations on the line in support of THE TRUTH.

Wow. I am impressed. Truly. Get this list of Ph.D.s--all experts in their fields, most are top statisticians, several heads of departments!

Exit poll and other analysis: astronomical odds against Bush win; all crying foul on the 2004 election; all calling for an investigation.

Dr. Steven Freeman: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
Dr. Ron Baiman: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997
Dr. Webb Mealy: http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm

and nine more Ph.D.'s, with the UScountvotes report:

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D. - Temple University Statistics Department
Steven F. Freeman, PhD - Center for Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania
Brian Joiner, PhD - Prof. of Statistics and Director of Statistical Consulting (ret), University of Wisconsin
Frank Stenger, PhD in mathematics - School of Computing, University of Utah
Richard G. Sheehan, PhD - Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame
Elizabeth Liddle, MA - (UK) PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham
Paul F. Velleman, Ph.D. - Department of Statistical Sciences, Cornell University
Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D. - Department of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve University
Campbell B. Read, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Statistical Science, Southern Methodist University
Kathy Dopp, MS in mathematics - USCountVotes, President
Also Peer Reviewed by USCountVotes’ core group of statisticians and independent reviewers.

plus

Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting:
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley statistics team: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu

plus

Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting (general): http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5

-----

And here are a few more things that should be posted for "In These Times" readers (items that freepers should be required to read before they post general accusations like 'sour grapes'):

Easy demo of the how insecure voting machines are:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

"Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections" (2nd edition): www.votersunite.org

Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info

Documentation of widespread machine fraud and dirty tricks in over 20 states: http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

Democratic Underground (ignatzmouse):
(North Carolina: absentee ballot vs. electronic, inexplicable 9% edge to Bush in electronic:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45003
(also at:) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/12/233831/06

---

I'll go check out the ITT site.

[L. Coyote]

32. A Steve freeman quote, "Some way to run a country." n/t kick

[mistertrickster]

12. What we need is one or more right-wingers who did this to come forward

and blow the whistle.

I find it hard to believe that fraud on such a massive scale could be carried out in total secrecy.

This would have involved scores if not hundreds of people. Not one of them value the truth and democracy more than their fuehrer?

[LibeMatt]

20. Let's hope...

...one of the *bots has a non-terminal attack of conscience, but remember, there are plenty of fairly brainwashed/programmed true believers who go through all sorts of contortions to rationalize what they have already decided to do and/or support, certainly enough of a pool to draw from.

Come to think of it, it's almost funny to hear a so-called conservative resort to 1980's-Derrida-Baudrillardesque-postmodern contortions to explain away hard and relatively indisputable facts and events which torpedo their positions. But we're the fuzzy-headed ones...

[Poppyseedman]

38. You do realize your post

is exactly the reason the majority of people aren't buying into the black box scandal and the whole voter fraud blogsphere.

Just how could literally hundreds, if not thousands of people be in on the secret conspiracy on a massive scale and not ONE peep from someone spilling the beans on how it was done ?

Surely some do value truth and democracy more than another bush administration? Will not one person come forward ?

Maybe Occam's theorem was correct after all

[satya]

44. With networked central tabulators counting the votes, one person could

flip the election. Check out TruthIsAll's many posts on the anomalies that occurred in areas using electronic voting.

[Selteri]

49. There have been peeps

lots of them, and they're been ignored.

what about the employees who offered to bear witness but got ignored?

[Peace Patriot]

13. I can't get ITT to accept my post--and it doesn't say why. (It's under...

...their character count with spaces requirement--of 5,000 chars.) Here's my frustrated post:

-----

There are two political puzzles that need to be solved with regard to the 2004 election:

1. Why Republicans--true conservatives who believe in American democracy and good government and fiscal responsibility--would put up with this radical gang of Bush Cartel thieves and lawbreakers and their stolen elections?

1. Why the Democratic Party leadership didn't cry foul about this fraudulent election system--with Bush partisans owning and controlling the vote count with SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, and no paper trail?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I think they require us to do some hard thinking about our political system.

My profound thanks to Dr. Freeman and to the other experts who have put their reputations on the line in support of the truth. We don't have enough leaders in this country with this kind of courage, intellect and integrity.

Here is the ones I've read. The odds against a Bush win are astronomical, on many different kinds of data--not just the exit polls. And the evidence strongly points to electronic fraud.

Exit poll and other analysis: all of these call for investigation of the 2004 election:

Dr. Steven Freeman (2 reports): http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm
Dr. Ron Baiman: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997
Dr. Webb Mealy: http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm
Jonathan Simon: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D. - Temple University Statistics Department
Kathy Dopp, MS in mathematics - USCountVotes, President
Steven F. Freeman, PhD - Center for Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania
Brian Joiner, PhD - Prof. of Statistics and Director of Statistical Consulting (ret), University of Wisconsin
Frank Stenger, PhD in mathematics - School of Computing, University of Utah
Richard G. Sheehan, PhD - Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame
Elizabeth Liddle, MA - (UK) PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham
Paul F. Velleman, Ph.D. - Department of Statistical Sciences, Cornell University
Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D. - Department of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve University
Campbell B. Read, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Statistical Science, Southern Methodist University
The UScountvotes Report, at:
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting (they also call for an investigation):
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley statistics team: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu

Other important reports:

Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5

Easy demo of the how insecure voting machines are:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm

"Myth Breakers: Facts About Electronic Elections" (2nd edition): www.votersunite.org

Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info

Documentation of widespread machine fraud and dirty tricks in over 20 states: http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

Democratic Underground (ignatzmouse):
(North Carolina: absentee ballot vs. electronic, inexplicable 9% edge to Bush in electronic:)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x45003
(also at:) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/12/233831/06

-----

In one of his analyses of this election, Dr. Freeman did a reasonable prediction of the Kerry vote, by adding up the repeat voters (the 2000 Gore voters), the huge advantage Kerry had in new Democratic voter registration (Dem 58% vs. Rep 41%!), and the big jump of Nader voters to Kerry, and found a discrepancy of 4 to 8 million votes--votes Kerry should have gotten, and didn't, in the official tally.

That huge advantage in Democratic voter registrations (the result of an incredible grass roots effort) indicates the TONE of the election in Democratic circles--very rebellious, very anti-Bush--and makes virtually impossible a big swing of Democratic voters to Bush.

How could anybody think that all these new Democratic voters were registering and voting for the first time--to re-select George Bush?! And how can anyone think that their families, co-workers, friends--all the long time voters who urged them to register and vote--did so out of enthusiasm for Bush? It's nonsensical.

And so, where did Bush's margin come from?

Now add to this Bush's dismal approval ratings leading up to the election, and continuing to be consistently bad--hovering around 50%--to this day, and falling BELOW 50% on his inauguration day!—an unprecedented "vote of no confidence" for a recently elected, second term president.

Nearly 60% of Americans oppose the Iraq War, now, today. 63% oppose torture under any circumstances. How are these views of the majority of Americans consistent with a 3.5 million vote margin for Bush in the election?

It just doesn't add up. And that is the truth of it.

[helderheid]

16. split it in half and post it

in 2 posts :)

[V Lee]

14. Write to you representatives.

Ask them to demand an investigation into voting irregularities. Keep the issue on the front burner.

[Stand and Fight]

15. Some idiot Jeff Hartley posted his 2 cents...

My reply to him:

Jeff Hartley— who are you to come on here and post such nonsense? As far as we can all tell you’ve not a leg to stand on when it comes to critiquing the work of others. In fact, it seems that you are nothing more than a debunker without a basis for your witless inane statements! “Hey Freeman, how about submitting your work for peer review”? Really? How about you grow the hell up and post your own work proving that the exit polls were indeed wrong and that Mitofsky and Edison were correct in their views of said exit polls? I don’t see you doing anything but blowing hot air and contributing absolutely nothing to getting to the facts of the matter.

[helderheid]

18. great response!

[EFerrari]

19. Somebody more savvy than me, figure this one.

I knew the election was stolen because my hormones told me so during the last moments of 11/2. So, I called around and found the local reporter that was assigned to the story.

I fed him information for about two weeks, including the video of the Columbus and Cleveland citizen testimony.

He'd email me back, "I'm watching it right now, this is amazing" and then, NADA. His articles ran like they all did, a few malcontent internetters were spoiling the unqualified Bu$h win.

Sorry if asking the same stupid question. But, the dissonance is so in my face.

[raysr]

21. Maybe we're lucky

he didn't win, given his recent performance.

[stepnw1f]

24. Kerry or Bush? (nt)

[On Par]

22. It Makes Me ILL. But the Truth "Won't" Set Me Free!

[Fly by night]

23. No. But brains, balls, backbone and born-again patriotism will. n/t

[etherealtruth]

28. Touche

[Shredr]

26. This is so frustrating

So, what can we do about it?

[davidgmills]

29. Have you ever noticed how the freepers are both lame

at math and language?

[davidgmills]

30. I posted on the site as well

[Callboy]

31. Sorry but get used to it

They will let dems win when they want them too.

[Der Blaue Engel]

36. Get used to what, exactly, "Callboy"? n/t

[DU GrovelBot]

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[MHalblaub]

50. Sorry, no credit card, no paypall...

On a Microsoft-System I won't even donate something for my mother.

[lonestarnot]

52. I bet you wouldn't donate for your Mommie anyway! Grouchie this a.m.

[geniph]

54. There's a snail mail address you can send checks to

Hey, DU takes donations from whatever source!

[L. Coyote]

35. A Favorite Paragraph. I like this analysis best so far. Still reading...

"Second, in light of the charges that the 2000 election was not legitimate, the Bush/Cheney campaign would have wanted to prevail in the popular vote. If fraud was afoot, it would make sense that the president's men would steal votes in their strongholds, where the likelihood of detection is small. Lo and behold, the report provides data that strongly bolster this theory. In those precincts that went at least 80 percent for Bush, the average within-precinct-error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0—the numerical difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count. That means that in Bush strongholds, Kerry, on average, received only about two-thirds of the votes that exit polls predicted. In contrast, in Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly (an average WPE of 0.3)."

[lonestarnot]

37. Absofuckinglutely! and we're gona get screwed again 2006 if we don't

stop the cheating!

[rdmccur]

40. I sent this

to everyone I know plus Senators Boxer and Kerry.

[helderheid]

45. I'm claire BTW

[davidthegnome]

46. The neocons will never even consider

That the election may have been stolen. They will never consider that this war may have been unjust. They're a bunch of fucking idiots who can't pull their heads out of their asses long enough to take a look around them. They're biggoted, stupid, idiotic, fascist pieces of shit! Sorry about the angry rant, but I've been arguing with them for the past hour.

I guess that's what I get for posting this in a repuke forum and thinking they might read it and consider. Fuck Bush, fuck the whole administration, fuck the GOP. It's time for a new one party rule, it's about fucking time for OUR PARTY to take over. These people really are the worst sorts of idiots of the past.

They can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that codemning muslims, pagans, homosexuality - makes them just as fucking pathetic as the nazis. And these assholes have the nerve to claim to be followers of Christ. "The poor are the lazy and unproductive members of society" just a little snip from the shit I've been reading. "Feminazis demand SPECIAL TREATMENT" there's another one.

And this one was a real whopper, it was my first response.

<<Exit Polls?
No score for this post February 15 2005, 9:10 PM


That's your proof?



"Exit polls are highly accurate"

"The reliability of exit polls is so generally accepted"


Please. This is why Bush won, because you people are liars and idiots and sore losers. Everyone in America knows this. Instead of just doing what you always do and blame a super-secret right-wing conspiracy and instead get your political party back on track. There was a time when i used to at least RESPECT democrats and their opinions. >>



Next on the Conservative agenda: CANADA HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
And after that: LIBERALS PROVEN TO WORSHIP SATAN

Pah, fuck em all, I'm staying away from those idiots.

[count_alucard]

47. The only hard thing for me is to decide

who is more loathsome: Bush the criminal or Kerry the accomplice?

[slay]

48. It's the truth - We, the people, deserve a full investigation.

Tell everyone - Stolen election 2004!

[MHalblaub]

51. LOL! - You loss!

Why you loss?

You got 4 years to get your asses on the streets to demonstrate for fair polls. What did you do? Smart talks on the net?

You even start thinking on fair polls. For that you have to change the constitution. One man/woman one vote is not the electoral system for presidency. The US would LOL or shut "fraud" at every country in the world where the man with less votes is elected in spite the man with more votes. The electoral system was best at its time. Hello! We are sitting today in front of a computer system.

Why is it good to have the constitution on paper and iMac would do the same?
Are there any laws just on a CD?

[NationalEnquirer]

53. If only we could get this into the mainstream media... n/t

[berniew1]

55. Doc. of v.m. fraud, dirty tricks, & manipulation of ABs and PBs in 20 sta

Documentation of widespread touchscreen fraud, systematic dirty tricks, malfeasance, and manipulation of registrations, machines, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots in over 20 states- especially in minority precincts

http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html

[Karmadillo]

56. Has anyone been able to debunk this article?

n/t

[Melissa G]

57. Kick for Freeman n/t