TruthIsAll
03-16-2009, 11:49 AM
Why Pre-election and Exit Polls Matter
TruthIsAll
Feb. 9, 2009
One month after my banning on DU, anaxarchos asked: Is the exit poll debate a waste of time?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x393939#393944
A DUer suggested that the exit poll debate WAS a waste of time and that anax should focus on other issues.
This is anaxarchos' classic reply.
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anaxarchos (778 posts)
Thu Sep-22-05 12:52 AM
Response to Reply #81
102. Nah...
This isn’t personal... It's political (although you really have to stop calling me a "true believer").
And No... I didn't ask if the exit poll debate was a waste of time. You volunteered it. My question was obviously rhetorical.
And Yes, I am aware of your "zeal of the newly converted" which is precisely why we are having this friendly chat instead of triggering an instant polemic.
But, our chat is almost finished… It’s time for the naysay stalker chorus to show up and I don’t have the same patience for it as TIA did.
…So, let me say this plainly:
Your logic is all twisted up into a pretzel.
It does not follow that because I think Republicans steal elections through a dozen methods, legal, quasi-legal, and illegal which mainly have their impact before people can get to the polls, that I can not also care about fraud after they get there. That’s just some shit that you made up.
It also does not follow that because I think the exit polls indicate fraud I MUST think that the vote was corrupted at the "central tabulators" let alone that “the way to detect it is to do a PRECINCT CANVASS in which precinct tallies are added up and compared to "central tabulator" totals to see if they match”. That is just some more shit you made up.
Now, we still don’t have a problem. If you think this is a plausible thesis, go for it. If you prove it, you’re a hero. Where this whole thing gets funky is at the next step…
It does not follow that because YOU think all of the above, that this means that everyone else is “spinning in place” or doing the wrong thing or wasting their time or (gimme a break) “hindering”, “holding back”, “standing in the way”, “working against”, etc. “REAL REFORM”… now you are making up dangerous shit.
Politics is essentially simple: you are for some things and against other things. The people who are for the same things as you are your allies. The others… well, let me tell you a story.
Someone told me that there are a small group of people following Cindy Sheehan around who claim to support her “general objectives” but disagree with her call to immediately withdraw from Iraq. So they’ve convinced themselves that their task is to follow Sheehan around with signs critical of her message. Someone else told me the story was archetypical but, true or not, I’ve seen similar situations a hundred times before.
If you ask those people what they think they are doing, you will be amazed at how coherent, seemingly logical, and “left” their thinking is. But to everybody else in the world, they are just counter-demonstrators… “Hmm, they must be for the war.”
Just a final note.
Since you liked my “game”, let me explain it to you further.
I made up the game because I got tired of watching TIA “defend”. Oh, he was defending the goal just fine. But after the 2000th puck bounced off his face shield, the fundamental unfairness of it all came to me.
You see, logically and rhetorically, it is far easier to attack then to defend. And by the time he had done 14,000 posts, it was easy for anybody to point to a mistake he had made in post #1846, or to raise some completely tangential issue, or to get under his well known skin.
So I decided that it was time for someone else to defend… thus the “game”. But, I kept the real secret of the game to myself. And I am going to tell you that secret now, if you promise not to tell anyone else…
The game is rigged. It is as rigged as any game of 3-card Monty played on the street. And when we “played”, OTOH was the “patsy” (don’t feel bad for him… he volunteered).
Here is how the scam works. The exit polls were adjusted to the actual vote through a 43/37 split of 2000 Bush/Gore voters. That split is impossible. But it is also essential. There is no way to reconcile a different split. Now, theoretically, you can make up anything you want but there is no way to do it in a way that is remotely believable. The problem is not in the Exit Poll but in the 122 million people who voted. There is no Bush victory there just as there is no Jack (target card) in the 3 cards you have to choose from in Monty.
If you don’t believe that, I am here for you. The “game” lives! Step right up (although we’ll have to do it somewhere where TIA can play too).
If, on the other hand, you do believe that, then it is entirely possible to view your responsibility as a citizen or as a progressive, in making that knowledge as widely known as possible – in explaining and repeating that in a million different ways and thus spreading “the truth”.
TIA was unusually good at that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TIA:
As I was banned a few weeks before this thread, I will now respond with my 2 cents.
Exit polls (and pre-election polls) matter because they show that the...
. 2004 election was stolen
. Democratic Landslide was denied in 2006
. Obama landslide was denied in 2008
. the reluctant Bush responder (rBr) theory is refuted by exit pollster's own data
. transparent efforts of MSM and exit poll naysayers have one goal: to hide the truth about stolen elections from the public
. transparent efforts of exit pollsters to explain the discrepancies are just red-herrings
. political scientists who avoid a scientific analysis of polling and recorded vote anomalies help perpetuate the systemic fraud
. the Final National Exit Poll required an impossible number of Bush returning voters and implausible vote shares to match the vote.
. “false recall” was a last-ditch attempt of exit poll naysayers to explain the impossible 2004 NEP Bush/Gore 43/37 mix.
. "false recall" is totally debunked by the impossible 2008 Bush/Kerry 46/37 mix.
. unadjusted and adjusted data is the basis for statistical and probability analysis
. the media always assumes the prior election was fraud-free: it is the basis for covering up current election fraud (recursive feedback)
. analysis of exit polls to find fraud would be unnecessary if votes were verifiable
. Democratic late vote share (paper provisional, absentee ballots) is 7% higher than Election Day share
. voting methods are covert indicators of machine fraud – along with overt disenfranchisement
. paper ballot precincts had the lowest (2%) and lever machines the highest (11%) WPEs
. pre-election approval ratings are highly correlated with pre-election polls
. pre-election RV polls (which include new voters) are better predictors than the LV subsample
. National Exit Poll vote shares applied to a FEASIBLE number of returning voters show Kerry won by 53-46%
. Pre-election national polls (after undecided voters were allocated) indicated that Kerry would win by 51-48%
. the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate indicated that Kerry won by 52-47%
. Pre-election state polls (after undecideds were allocated) indicated that Kerry would win by 51-48%
. A Monte Carlo simulation based on the pre-election polls indicated that Kerry would win 337 EV.
. non-response was higher in Democratic strongholds.
. the exit poll margin of error was exceeded in 29 states – all in favor of Bush (zero probability)
. the Bush vote was padded (WPE over 6%) in strong Democratic states (i.e. NY, CA, PA)
. fraud was concentrated in strong Democratic and battleground states
. key battleground states flipped from Kerry to Bush (IA, FL, OH, NM, CO)
. strong Bush, low popular vote states (ND,SD,MT,KS,KY,OK) were essentially fraud-free (WPE under 2%)
. Kerry’s aggregate UNADJUSTED state exit poll 5% margin was reduced to 3% in the GEO update to 1% in the Composite update to –3% in the Final
. Kerry’s National Exit Poll margin was a constant +4% in the following updates: 4pm, 730pm and 12:22am The vote shares and weights were changed in order to force the Final NEP to match the 51-48% Bush recorded margin.
TruthIsAll
Feb. 9, 2009
One month after my banning on DU, anaxarchos asked: Is the exit poll debate a waste of time?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x393939#393944
A DUer suggested that the exit poll debate WAS a waste of time and that anax should focus on other issues.
This is anaxarchos' classic reply.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
anaxarchos (778 posts)
Thu Sep-22-05 12:52 AM
Response to Reply #81
102. Nah...
This isn’t personal... It's political (although you really have to stop calling me a "true believer").
And No... I didn't ask if the exit poll debate was a waste of time. You volunteered it. My question was obviously rhetorical.
And Yes, I am aware of your "zeal of the newly converted" which is precisely why we are having this friendly chat instead of triggering an instant polemic.
But, our chat is almost finished… It’s time for the naysay stalker chorus to show up and I don’t have the same patience for it as TIA did.
…So, let me say this plainly:
Your logic is all twisted up into a pretzel.
It does not follow that because I think Republicans steal elections through a dozen methods, legal, quasi-legal, and illegal which mainly have their impact before people can get to the polls, that I can not also care about fraud after they get there. That’s just some shit that you made up.
It also does not follow that because I think the exit polls indicate fraud I MUST think that the vote was corrupted at the "central tabulators" let alone that “the way to detect it is to do a PRECINCT CANVASS in which precinct tallies are added up and compared to "central tabulator" totals to see if they match”. That is just some more shit you made up.
Now, we still don’t have a problem. If you think this is a plausible thesis, go for it. If you prove it, you’re a hero. Where this whole thing gets funky is at the next step…
It does not follow that because YOU think all of the above, that this means that everyone else is “spinning in place” or doing the wrong thing or wasting their time or (gimme a break) “hindering”, “holding back”, “standing in the way”, “working against”, etc. “REAL REFORM”… now you are making up dangerous shit.
Politics is essentially simple: you are for some things and against other things. The people who are for the same things as you are your allies. The others… well, let me tell you a story.
Someone told me that there are a small group of people following Cindy Sheehan around who claim to support her “general objectives” but disagree with her call to immediately withdraw from Iraq. So they’ve convinced themselves that their task is to follow Sheehan around with signs critical of her message. Someone else told me the story was archetypical but, true or not, I’ve seen similar situations a hundred times before.
If you ask those people what they think they are doing, you will be amazed at how coherent, seemingly logical, and “left” their thinking is. But to everybody else in the world, they are just counter-demonstrators… “Hmm, they must be for the war.”
Just a final note.
Since you liked my “game”, let me explain it to you further.
I made up the game because I got tired of watching TIA “defend”. Oh, he was defending the goal just fine. But after the 2000th puck bounced off his face shield, the fundamental unfairness of it all came to me.
You see, logically and rhetorically, it is far easier to attack then to defend. And by the time he had done 14,000 posts, it was easy for anybody to point to a mistake he had made in post #1846, or to raise some completely tangential issue, or to get under his well known skin.
So I decided that it was time for someone else to defend… thus the “game”. But, I kept the real secret of the game to myself. And I am going to tell you that secret now, if you promise not to tell anyone else…
The game is rigged. It is as rigged as any game of 3-card Monty played on the street. And when we “played”, OTOH was the “patsy” (don’t feel bad for him… he volunteered).
Here is how the scam works. The exit polls were adjusted to the actual vote through a 43/37 split of 2000 Bush/Gore voters. That split is impossible. But it is also essential. There is no way to reconcile a different split. Now, theoretically, you can make up anything you want but there is no way to do it in a way that is remotely believable. The problem is not in the Exit Poll but in the 122 million people who voted. There is no Bush victory there just as there is no Jack (target card) in the 3 cards you have to choose from in Monty.
If you don’t believe that, I am here for you. The “game” lives! Step right up (although we’ll have to do it somewhere where TIA can play too).
If, on the other hand, you do believe that, then it is entirely possible to view your responsibility as a citizen or as a progressive, in making that knowledge as widely known as possible – in explaining and repeating that in a million different ways and thus spreading “the truth”.
TIA was unusually good at that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TIA:
As I was banned a few weeks before this thread, I will now respond with my 2 cents.
Exit polls (and pre-election polls) matter because they show that the...
. 2004 election was stolen
. Democratic Landslide was denied in 2006
. Obama landslide was denied in 2008
. the reluctant Bush responder (rBr) theory is refuted by exit pollster's own data
. transparent efforts of MSM and exit poll naysayers have one goal: to hide the truth about stolen elections from the public
. transparent efforts of exit pollsters to explain the discrepancies are just red-herrings
. political scientists who avoid a scientific analysis of polling and recorded vote anomalies help perpetuate the systemic fraud
. the Final National Exit Poll required an impossible number of Bush returning voters and implausible vote shares to match the vote.
. “false recall” was a last-ditch attempt of exit poll naysayers to explain the impossible 2004 NEP Bush/Gore 43/37 mix.
. "false recall" is totally debunked by the impossible 2008 Bush/Kerry 46/37 mix.
. unadjusted and adjusted data is the basis for statistical and probability analysis
. the media always assumes the prior election was fraud-free: it is the basis for covering up current election fraud (recursive feedback)
. analysis of exit polls to find fraud would be unnecessary if votes were verifiable
. Democratic late vote share (paper provisional, absentee ballots) is 7% higher than Election Day share
. voting methods are covert indicators of machine fraud – along with overt disenfranchisement
. paper ballot precincts had the lowest (2%) and lever machines the highest (11%) WPEs
. pre-election approval ratings are highly correlated with pre-election polls
. pre-election RV polls (which include new voters) are better predictors than the LV subsample
. National Exit Poll vote shares applied to a FEASIBLE number of returning voters show Kerry won by 53-46%
. Pre-election national polls (after undecided voters were allocated) indicated that Kerry would win by 51-48%
. the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate indicated that Kerry won by 52-47%
. Pre-election state polls (after undecideds were allocated) indicated that Kerry would win by 51-48%
. A Monte Carlo simulation based on the pre-election polls indicated that Kerry would win 337 EV.
. non-response was higher in Democratic strongholds.
. the exit poll margin of error was exceeded in 29 states – all in favor of Bush (zero probability)
. the Bush vote was padded (WPE over 6%) in strong Democratic states (i.e. NY, CA, PA)
. fraud was concentrated in strong Democratic and battleground states
. key battleground states flipped from Kerry to Bush (IA, FL, OH, NM, CO)
. strong Bush, low popular vote states (ND,SD,MT,KS,KY,OK) were essentially fraud-free (WPE under 2%)
. Kerry’s aggregate UNADJUSTED state exit poll 5% margin was reduced to 3% in the GEO update to 1% in the Composite update to –3% in the Final
. Kerry’s National Exit Poll margin was a constant +4% in the following updates: 4pm, 730pm and 12:22am The vote shares and weights were changed in order to force the Final NEP to match the 51-48% Bush recorded margin.