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The election is over.
Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered
Group of University Professors Urges Investigation of 2004 Election
The report is available on-line:Officially, President Bush won November's election by 2.5%, yet exit polls showed Kerry winning by 3%<1> . According to a report to be released today by a group of university statisticians, the odds of a discrepancy this large between the national exit poll and election results happening by accident are close to 1 in a million.
In other words, by random chance alone, it could not have happened. But it did.
Two alternatives remain. Either something was wrong with the exit polling, or something was wrong with the vote count.
Exit polls have been used to verify the integrity of elections in the Ukraine, in Latin America, in Germany, and elsewhere. Yet in November 2004, the U.S. exit poll discrepancy was much more than normal exit poll error (and similar to that of the invalid Ukraine election.<2>
In a recent survey of US members of the world's oldest and largest computer society, The Association for Computing Machinery, 95% opposed software driven un-auditable voting machines<3> , of the type that now count at least 30% of U.S. votes. Today's electronic vote-counting machines are not required to include basic safeguards that would prevent and detect machine or human caused errors, be they innocent or deliberate.<4>
The consortium that conducted the presidential exit polls, Edison/Mitofsky, issued a report in January suggesting that the discrepancy between election results and exit polls occurred because Bush voters were more reticent than Kerry voters in response to pollsters.
The authors of this newly released scientific study "Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Poll Discrepancies" consider this "reluctant Bush responder" hypothesis to be highly implausible, based on extensive analysis of Edison/Mitofsky's exit poll data. They conclude, “The required pattern of exit poll participation by Kerry and Bush voters to satisfy the exit poll data defies empirical experience and common sense under any assumed scenario.”
A state-by-state analysis of the discrepancy between exit polls and official election results shows highly improbable skewing of the election results, overwhelmingly biased towards the President.
The report concludes, “We believe that the absence of any statistically-plausible explanation for the discrepancy between Edison/Mitofsky’s exit poll data and the official presidential vote tally is an unanswered question of vital national importance that needs thorough investigation.”
Ph.D. statisticians in America who have seen this group's preliminary exit poll study have not refuted it. This new study is a much more comprehensive an analysis of the exit poll discrepancies.
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_20...
An executive summary of the report by is available at:
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_su...
*Contributors and Supporters of the Report include:
*Josh Mitteldorf*, PhD - Temple University Statistics Department
*Steven F. Freeman*, PhD - Center for Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania
*Brian Joiner*, PhD - Prof. of Statistics (ret) University of Wisconsin
*Frank Stenger*, PhD - Professor, School of Computing, University of Utah
*Richard G. Sheehan*, PhD -Professor, Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame
*Paul F. Velleman*, PhD - Associate Prof., Department of Statistical Sciences, Cornell University
*Victoria Lovegren*, PhD - Department of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve University
*Campbell** B. Read*, PhD - Prof. Emeritus, Department of Statistical Science, Southern Methodist University
*Jonathan Simon*, J.D., National Ballot Integrity Project
*Ron Baiman, *PhD* *– Ins ute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago
*About US Count Votes*
US Count Votes is a Utah non-profit corporation. It is seeking financial support to complete its "National Election Data Archive" project. The goal of the project is to apply statistical and analytic methods to investigate the integrity of the 2004 elections and to provide for timely verification of the integrity of future elections..
For further information: contact Bruce O’Dell, Vice President, US Count Votes
Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected] >
612-309-1330
or visit www.electionarchive.org
<1> "Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004" prepared by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool (NEP) Jan. 19, 2005
<2> In the November 21 runoff, Ukraine's official vote count had Prime Minister Yanukovych the winner by 2.7%. Two exit polls showed him losing by 8% and 2%, respectively. Thus, the discrepancy was between 10.7% and 4.7%. In the US, the discrepancy was between 6.5% and 5.5%. See http://www.templetonthorp.com/ru/news808 and http://www.indybay.org/archives/archive_by_id.php?id=26... .
<3> http://www.acm.org/usacm/weblog/index.php?p=73
<4> http://uscountvotes.net/voting_machines/Best_Practices_...
******
SNAP
Link to online version of PR on Scoop.co.nz
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0504/S00001.htm
The election is over.
BUSH WON! who cares about statistics!
6 months later they still talk....
If BUsh wins the next election, then maybe I would listen to Dan's theories.
Bush won who cares about the statistics? If he only won because he altered the election, than I would say the stats truly matter.
The votes were counted and he got more! He won the electoral vote and popular vote. What part of that don't you understand?
yeah we should blindly trust electronic voting
It was recounterd by hand too. The electronic voting was backed up by paper ballots. If the official way yeilds an official vote count, and the vote was done according to official guidelines, then it's official. Period.
then why have electronic voting user?
the info backed up on paper comes from ELECTRONIC results
i accept the results
but the technology now adays has fatal flaws and it's used for a reason
Last edited by mookie2001; 04-03-2005 at 12:07 AM. Reason: spelling
If the process is approved by both parties before the election then who's fault is it when they aren't happy about the out come or think it was rigged? After the election it's too late to complain about the process. Change for the next election. You have 4 years you know?
you didnt answer my question
nbadans thread was pointing out something intresting that makes people wonder how that would happen, not ing about the results
i would change electronic ballots, however i'm not a lawmaker
i'm saying that we're putting our trust in machines and programs, puts the trust in the makers of the machines and writers of the programs, it may not be such a good idea, and seeing the statistics, makes people wonder
i'll give you your response
something about, you liberals cant accept the fact that bush won, yall hate america, etc, etc...he's a great leader
Well, if Kerry had won, and Bush supporters said the same thing, you would think they were stupid, right?
JW
no not if the same statistics were true in the other way
dont assume that because i dont like bush that i like kerry
like scoffing him is gonna make me feel bad
Yeah, and we all know a sample statistical polling with a margin of error should trump actual votes counted
Last night with about ten seconds to go, a poll of people watching SA-LA would have said that LA was going to win. That poll should obviously trump the final result [/liberal math]
If Kerry's win had beyond the MOE of statistical probability no matter the cir stances, I would hope we would all be concerned. This isn't a partisan issue.Well, if Kerry had won, and Bush supporters said the same thing, you would think they were stupid, right?
JW
Here is the first mistake that you made in your reply. I'm not to be labeled as conservative. The second mistake was to try and come up with a clever answer for what I supposedly would say.
Are paper ballots so accurate and trust worthy? Remember 2000 and the hanging chad problems? Now that there were more machine ballots used, machines are the problem? Do Republicans make up what method of vote tabulation is going to be used? No. So if you don't like the outcome of a particluar vote counting proceedure, then change it BEFORE the election. You can't change it after.
There is no way to be 100% sure fraud will not happen. Using machines over paper makes it easier to check the totals. I'm for the use of machines, simply because it is more efficient than paper alone.
And statistically it is possible for Bush to have won the election. Why? Because he just did!
LOL Yeah, right.
More lunatic ravings from somebody whose ideology is now politically irrelevant in the United States of America.
As if Kerry really won Pennsylvania by 19. Yeah, that poll was believable. Apparently, nobody outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia voted.
We can believe:
A) Pollsters who said the poll methodology was fatally flawed
B) Left-wing conspiracy-theory lunatics who cannot accept that only like 0.5% of the population shares their ideology
Oh, back in 1936, the most comprehensive presidential poll ever taken predicted Landon was going to destroy FDR.
I don't have any problem with objecting to election methods. I think it's ludicrous that states would even allow the possibility of fraud (or presumed fraud) by using varieties of polling booths in different areas.
But electoral accuracy can never be 100% verified or debunked by an exit poll... which is why the article never uses the term "impossibility". The best an exit poll can do is find "improbability."
For those interested in finding out about voter fraud and intimidation in Ohio, go to www.ac4vr.com. There is a 31-page report detailing the instances of voter fraud and intimidation committed by members of so-called third party groups such as MoveOn.org and ACT. Quite interesting! This report was submitted to the US House of Representatives.
ehhh.....sorry but
you didnt answer my question
nbadans thread was pointing out something intresting that makes people wonder how that would happen, not ing about the results
i would change electronic ballots, however i'm not a lawmaker
i'm saying that we're putting our trust in machines and programs, puts the trust in the makers of the machines and writers of the programs, it may not be such a good idea, and seeing the statistics, makes people wonder
i'll give you your response
something about, you liberals cant accept the fact that bush won, yall hate america, etc, etc...he's a great leader
how would you vote? ty paper ballots that cost weeks to count and recount? and then they had to decide if they were to be counted or not? whatever.. everything in the u.s. is connected to computers now.. it is a shame that we can't even vote simply... one of the banks said we process millions of transaction each day with a ZERO % error rate... why can't the voting process be that accurate?
Uh, I don't see a question anywhere in your post. Please restate what you are asking me.
I don't think it is wise to return to paper balloting. Machines(electronic) voting is the future. They can be made highly accurate regardless of who makes the machines or writes their software. The most important thing is not how the voting is processed, but that it is done fairly and accurately for all voters.
the original question was
as if you say theyre all backed up on paper
then why use electronic voting?
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