Votingisanillusion
Senior member
US Count Votes has come out with a remarkable paper authored by a committee of twelve, most of them highly-qualified mathematicians and statisticians from major universities. This study highlights the serious ramifications of the exit poll discrepancy while demolishing the "chatty Dem" theory (more properly known as the "reluctant responder" theory), which remains the official explanation for that incongruity. The only possibility left is vote alteration.
Full analysis (pdf):
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf
Summary (pdf):
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_summary.pdf
Article:
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5667
And if you?d like an ultra-brief summary of the summary:
The exit poll discrepancy in the 2004 American presidential election was the largest in the poll?s history -- about five-and-a-half percent. The odds against the polls being so wrong are roughly one in a million. The "chatty Dem" theory is nonsense: Responses to the pollsters were higher in Republican strongholds -- where the exit poll discrepancies were widest.
On November 2, 2004, pollsters did not restrict inquiries to the votes cast on that date. They also asked voters about the 2000 election. 43% of the respondents said they had chosen Bush on that previous occasion, while 37% reported having cast a ballot for Al Gore.
But Gore WON the popular vote. This simple fact -- which even math illiterates should be able to comprehend easily -- proves that the exit pollsters favored Republicans, not Democrats.
You may be interested by this (pages 8-11):
The "Reluctant Bush Responder (rBr) hypothesis
The Edison/Mitofsky report, however, explains the "within precinct error (WPE)" (Randomly select and interview voters from those precincts for polling as they leave the polling place) with the following statement (p. 31): While we cannot measure the response rate by Kerry and Bush voters, hypothetical response rates of 56% among Kerry voters and 50% among Bush voters overall would account for the entire Within Precinct Error that we observed in 2004. This, apparently, is the basis for their statement in the Executive Summary (p. 4), It is difficult to pinpoint precisely the reasons that, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters. No data in the E/M report supports the hypothesis that Kerry voters were more likely than Bush voters to cooperate with pollsters and, in fact, the data provided by E/M suggests that the opposite may have been true.
Table 1 follows, which is provided in the Edison/Mitofsky report.
The reluctant Bush responder hypothesis would lead one to expect a higher non-response rate where there are many more Bush voters, yet Edison/Mitofsky s data shows that, in fact, the response rate is slightly higher in precincts where Bush drew "80% of the vote (High Rep) than in those where Kerry drew "80% of the vote (High Dem).
Reluctant Bush Responder in Mixed Political Company (rBrmpc) hypothesis
Yet it is not conclusive proof that the E/M hypothesis is wrong, because some have hypothesized that Bush supporters were more diffident about expressing their views in mixed political company than Kerry supporters. It has been suggested that the Bush supporters participated at high rates in precincts where they were surrounded by other Bush supporters, while Bush supporters in predominantly- Democratic precincts were more reticent than their counterpart Kerry supporters voting in predominantly Bush precincts. This reluctant Bush exit poll participant in predominantly Democratic precincts" hypothesis is also inconsistent with the E/M data. If the polls were faulty because Bush voters were shy in the presence of Kerry voters and less likely to cooperate with pollsters, then the polls should be most accurate in those precincts where Bush voters were in the overwhelming majority and where exit poll participation was also at its maximum.
Alternate hypothesis: Bush Strongholds have more Vote-Count Corruption (Bsvcc)
An alternative hypothesis that is more consistent with the data is that corruption of the official vote count occurred most freely in districts that were overwhelmingly Bush strongholds. If Edison/Mitofsky would release the detailed results of their poll to the public then much more could be said about this hypothesis, and the suspicious precincts could be identified. If E/M does not release its list of sampled precincts, US Count Votes believes it will still be possible to rigorously test the hypothesis that the vote counts were corrupted by assembling and analyzing a precinct-level nationwide database containing detailed election results, voting equipment information and demographic data. Higher exit poll response rates and higher exit poll discrepancies occurred in Bush strongholds. E/M s own data contradict both the rBr and the rBrmpc hypotheses and support the Bsvcc hypothesis.
Full analysis (pdf):
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Edison-Mitofsky.pdf
Summary (pdf):
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_summary.pdf
Article:
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5667
And if you?d like an ultra-brief summary of the summary:
The exit poll discrepancy in the 2004 American presidential election was the largest in the poll?s history -- about five-and-a-half percent. The odds against the polls being so wrong are roughly one in a million. The "chatty Dem" theory is nonsense: Responses to the pollsters were higher in Republican strongholds -- where the exit poll discrepancies were widest.
On November 2, 2004, pollsters did not restrict inquiries to the votes cast on that date. They also asked voters about the 2000 election. 43% of the respondents said they had chosen Bush on that previous occasion, while 37% reported having cast a ballot for Al Gore.
But Gore WON the popular vote. This simple fact -- which even math illiterates should be able to comprehend easily -- proves that the exit pollsters favored Republicans, not Democrats.
You may be interested by this (pages 8-11):
The "Reluctant Bush Responder (rBr) hypothesis
The Edison/Mitofsky report, however, explains the "within precinct error (WPE)" (Randomly select and interview voters from those precincts for polling as they leave the polling place) with the following statement (p. 31): While we cannot measure the response rate by Kerry and Bush voters, hypothetical response rates of 56% among Kerry voters and 50% among Bush voters overall would account for the entire Within Precinct Error that we observed in 2004. This, apparently, is the basis for their statement in the Executive Summary (p. 4), It is difficult to pinpoint precisely the reasons that, in general, Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the exit polls than Bush voters. No data in the E/M report supports the hypothesis that Kerry voters were more likely than Bush voters to cooperate with pollsters and, in fact, the data provided by E/M suggests that the opposite may have been true.
Table 1 follows, which is provided in the Edison/Mitofsky report.
The reluctant Bush responder hypothesis would lead one to expect a higher non-response rate where there are many more Bush voters, yet Edison/Mitofsky s data shows that, in fact, the response rate is slightly higher in precincts where Bush drew "80% of the vote (High Rep) than in those where Kerry drew "80% of the vote (High Dem).
Reluctant Bush Responder in Mixed Political Company (rBrmpc) hypothesis
Yet it is not conclusive proof that the E/M hypothesis is wrong, because some have hypothesized that Bush supporters were more diffident about expressing their views in mixed political company than Kerry supporters. It has been suggested that the Bush supporters participated at high rates in precincts where they were surrounded by other Bush supporters, while Bush supporters in predominantly- Democratic precincts were more reticent than their counterpart Kerry supporters voting in predominantly Bush precincts. This reluctant Bush exit poll participant in predominantly Democratic precincts" hypothesis is also inconsistent with the E/M data. If the polls were faulty because Bush voters were shy in the presence of Kerry voters and less likely to cooperate with pollsters, then the polls should be most accurate in those precincts where Bush voters were in the overwhelming majority and where exit poll participation was also at its maximum.
Alternate hypothesis: Bush Strongholds have more Vote-Count Corruption (Bsvcc)
An alternative hypothesis that is more consistent with the data is that corruption of the official vote count occurred most freely in districts that were overwhelmingly Bush strongholds. If Edison/Mitofsky would release the detailed results of their poll to the public then much more could be said about this hypothesis, and the suspicious precincts could be identified. If E/M does not release its list of sampled precincts, US Count Votes believes it will still be possible to rigorously test the hypothesis that the vote counts were corrupted by assembling and analyzing a precinct-level nationwide database containing detailed election results, voting equipment information and demographic data. Higher exit poll response rates and higher exit poll discrepancies occurred in Bush strongholds. E/M s own data contradict both the rBr and the rBrmpc hypotheses and support the Bsvcc hypothesis.
