TruthIsAll
02-26-2009, 06:53 PM
An Updated Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ
TruthIsAll
11/02/09
The original "Election Fraud Analytics/Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ" is here:
http://www.RichardCharnin.com/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm
This is an updated compact summary version. It includes my latest response to "False Recall" and "Swing vs. Red-shift". The original version has not yet been updated.
The original TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ was written in late 2006 by Mark Lindeman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Since 2004, Mark has frequented election reform sites, relentlessly attempting to rebut the polling analysis of researchers that indicate elections have been stolen since 2000. “On the Other Hand”, his Democratic Underground screen name, is apropos to his mission.
In January 2007, I wrote "Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ" along with a detailed statistical analysis: "2000-2006 Election Fraud Analytics". Now the 2008 election is history and similar anomalous results indicate that election fraud cut Obama’s landslide in half, just like the Democratic margin was in the 2006 midterms. Furthermore, 2008 confirms that the 2004 election was stolen and that in 2000 Gore won the popular vote by close to 3 million.
Most election researchers agree that the election was stolen in 2004. But statistical evidence also indicates that election fraud cut the 12% Democratic landslide margin to 6% in the 2006 midterms, costing them 10-20 House seats and that Obama’s True Vote mandate was reduced from approximately 20 million to 9.5 million.
That is what the evidence shows, regardless of whether or not it is ever discussed in the media. Statistical analysts and political scientists who have looked at the evidence are well aware of the fraud, but are still waiting for the Democratic politicians and the GOP controlled media to get the ball rolling. In the meantime, only a handful of bloggers and truth-seekers will even touch the subject. A number of books have been written which show that massive fraud in the form of voter disenfranchisement and vote miscounts occurred in 2000-2008, but not one that provides a statistical analysis to prove that Bush won in 2004.
In order to help the reader quickly become familiar with the main areas of focus, I have included a brief summary of the questions posed to Mark in the original FAQ – along with a short update summary of his response followed by mine. The original full text response follows the summary.
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A TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ
by Mark Lindeman
TruthIsAll (TIA) is the pseudonym of a former Democratic Underground (DU) regular who now posts elsewhere. Many of his writings are available at http://www.truthisall.net. TIA argues, among other things, that the 2004 U.S. presidential pre-election polls and the exit polls both indicate that John Kerry won the election.
Who is TruthIsAll (TIA) and why do you care what he says?
I don't know who he is. Apparently he has worked in quantitative analysis for many years; he has described himself as an "Excel expert." His allegations of election fraud -- in particular, his enumeration of (presumably far-fetched) things one must believe in order to believe that Bush won the 2004 election -- formed the template for the 2005 Project Censored story making the same case.
Many people believe that TIA's arguments irrefutably demonstrate that John Kerry won the popular vote and the election. Many more people believe that TIA's arguments have no merit whatsoever, and therefore don't bother to try to refute them. I do not like to see weak arguments go unchallenged. (But plenty of people have criticized TIA's arguments -- I make no claim to originality.)
I also think that these particular weak arguments lead to poor political judgments. If TruthIsAll is right, it follows that the 2004 election was obviously stolen. So, one might conclude, among other things, that (1) most voters preferred Kerry to Bush, (2) Democratic political leaders are effectively complicit in a cover-up, and (3) Democrats cannot win crucial elections until and unless the current voting systems are thrown out. I disagree with all of these conclusions.
(Now that the Democrats have won House and Senate majorities in the 2006 election, argument #3 must be modulated. Fraud-minded observers now often argue that the Republicans stole some votes and even some seats, but that either for some reason they could not -- or did not dare? -- steal enough votes, or that they had to decide how many votes to steal several weeks in advance, and were caught flat-footed by a late Democratic surge. As I address on the Miscellaneous page, I have seen no convincing evidence of widespread vote miscount.
OK, so what are TIA's arguments?
He has many posts, but many of them make these basic claims:
Pre-election polls (both state and national) gave Kerry better than a 99% chance of winning the election.
Well-established political generalizations, such as the "incumbent rule," buttress the conclusion that Kerry should have won.
The exit polls gave Kerry a lead in the popular vote well beyond the statistical margin of error, and diverged substantially from the official results in many states, generally overstating Kerry's vote total. (This claim is largely true, although not everything TIA says about it is.)
Fraud is the only good explanation of the exit poll discrepancies. In particular, there is no good reason to believe that Kerry voters participated in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters. Since Kerry did better than Bush among people who did not vote in 2000, Bush would have had to do much better among Gore 2000 voters than Kerry did among Bush 2000 voters -- and that can't have happened.
It is pretty easy to look around and determine that not many political scientists are expressing agreement with these views. But why not? It could be that political scientists have a status quo bias and/or are afraid to rock the boat by confronting unpleasant truths; perhaps some are even paid by Karl Rove. It could be that political scientists simply haven't looked at the evidence. It could be that political scientists see gaping holes in TIA's arguments. It could be some combination of those factors, and others besides. For what it's worth, I will explain at some length why I don't agree with TIA's views.
Please note that this is not a one-size-fits-all election integrity FAQ.
Do you think that electronic voting machines are almost ridiculously insecure and unreliable?
I do, although I certainly don't agree with every word of every critic. Do you think that John Kerry won or should have won Ohio? You may be right. I don't know. I doubt it, but I haven't set out to knock down each and every argument about fraud or vote suppression in the 2004 election -- in fact, I agree with several of them. But the arguments (by TIA and others) that Kerry won the popular vote are not at all likely to be true, in my opinion.I have rarely quoted TIA at length because (1) the FAQ is already very long and (2) TIA's writing is often hard to read. But if you think I have mischaracterized one of his arguments, or if you have other questions or comments about the FAQ, please feel free to contact me at [my last name]@bard.edu.
TIA:
These are just a few well-known researchers whose analyses confirm mine: Steve Freeman, Ron Baiman, Kathy Dopp, Greg Palast, RFK Jr., Mark C. Miller, Bob Fitrakis, Michael Keefer, John Conyers, Richard Hayes Phillips, Paul Lehto, etc. At least four have advanced degrees in applied mathematics or systems analysis. I have three degrees in applied mathematics.
It would be useful if you would mention the names of the political scientists or statisticians who disagree with my analysis and believe that Bush won the election fairly in 2004. How do they account for his 3 million “mandate”? How do they explain where Bush found 16 million new voters net of voter mortality and turnout? What are their confirming demographics? Do any of the analysts you refer to have degrees in mathematics or statistics? Did their 2004 projections match the exit polls? Or did they match the vote miscount? Have any of them ever written about or considered election fraud in their analysis? Have they analyzed the impact of uncounted votes on election results? What is their track record? Were their projections based on economic or political factors or did they use state and national polling? What was the time period between Election Day and their final projections?
FAQ Summary and Response
1. The Pre-Election Polls
1.1. What did the national pre-election polls indicate?
According to most observers, most pre-election polls put George W. Bush slightly ahead of John Kerry.
TIA: That is simply not true. Real Clear Politics is often cited as the data source but it is misleading since it only lists the final LV subset and does not include the full RV sample. The final five pre-election polls from CBS, FOX, Gallup, ABC, and Pew had the race essentially tied. Kerry led the five-poll RV average 47.2-46.0; Bush led the LV average 48.8-48.0. Gallup's RV sample had Kerry leading 48-46; the LV sub-sample had Bush leading by 49-47. Gallup has a policy of allocating 90% of the undecided vote (UVA) to the challenger, so the final LV prediction was 49-49.
The final five LV samples predicted an average 82.8% voter turnout, but it was actually 88.5% according to post-election Census data. A regression analysis indicated that Kerry had 48.9% given the 82.8% prediction (49.3%% assuming he had 75% UVA), but had 51.3% given the actual turnout (52.6% with a 75% UVA). Kerry did better in the full RV sample since a solid majority of newly registered voters were Democrats.
2008 Update: Pre-election RV polls had Obama leading by 52-39%; LV polls by 50-43%.
1.2. How does TIA come up with those 99+% probabilities of a Kerry victory?
Basically, those probabilities (for both state and national polls) assume that all his assumptions (for instance, about how "undecided" voters will vote) are right, and that the only source of uncertainty is random sampling error.
TIA: The Election Model does not assume one undecided voter allocation (UVA) percentage; it provides scenarios ranging from 60-87% (75% is the base case. The 5000 trial Monte Carlo Electoral Vote simulation gave Kerry a 98.0% win probability assuming 60% UVA and 99.8% assuming a 75% UVA.
2008: The Monte Carlo simulation produced a mean 365.8 EV; the theoretical expected EV based on the sum of the (state win probabilities* EV) produced a 365.3 EV. Obama won all 5000 scenarios – a 100% win probability. He had 365 EV. But his True Vote was better than that.
1.3. Doesn't the high turnout in the election mean that the registered-voter poll results are probably more accurate than the likely-voter results?
No, high turnout is not a reason to dismiss the likely-voter results. Most pollsters already expected high turnout.
TIA: The average projected turnout of the final five likely voter sub-sample polls was 82.8% compared to the actual 88.5% turnout. A regression analysis of turnout vs. vote share showed that Kerry had 49% given for 82.8% turnout, but 52.6% given the 88.5% post-election Census. The full RV sample is more accurate then the LV subset by definition, since RVs include newly registered voters while LVs filter many of them out. Since a high turnout means a large number of new (mostly Democratic) voters, they would be missed by the LV subset and therefore understate the Democratic share. In 2004, there were approximately 27 million newly registered and other voters who did not vote in 2000. Depending on the NEP timeline, Kerry won this group by 57-62%. In the Final NEP, which was forced to match the recorded vote, the exit pollsters lowered Kerry’s share to 54% and widened the returning Bush/Gore voter mix to 43/37% (13660 respondents) from 41/39% (1222am, 13047 respondents).
2008: The RV polls after UVA matched the True Vote (57%) based on a feasible returning voter mix and the Final NEP vote shares.
1.4. How about the state polls?
There TIA's data hold up somewhat better, although his probabilities don't. While the national polls (prior to TIA's massaging) fit the official results rather closely, the state polls do not fit as well.
TIA: The professional pollsters must also be “massagers”, but they call it “allocating undecided voters”. The final RV polls, adjusted for 75% UVA to Kerry, did in fact confirm the unadjusted state exit poll aggreate: Kerry was a 52-47% winner.
2008: The aggregate state pre-election polls, adjusted for 75% UVA to Obama, gave Obama 53.8%. But the state polls were based on a 3-day average, not the final Election Day point on the trend line. Obama was picking up late support; his final pre-election aggregate share was better than 54%.
1.5. What about cell phones?
TIA and others have argued that the pre-election polls were biased against Kerry because they do not cover people who only use cell phones -- and these were disproportionately young voters who favored Kerry.
TIA: It makes sense intuitively. Young people (Democrats) are out and about with their cells; older voters are home with their landlines.
2008: There are many more cell-phone users than there were in 2004 – this could only help Obama.
The "Rules": Did They Favor Kerry?
2.1. Don't undecided voters break sharply for the challenger?
Undecided voters probably sometimes break sharply for the challenger. But I can find no evidence that this rule is useful in "allocating" reported undecided voters in presidential elections.
TIA: You find that the rule is not useful? Where is your data to back up that statement? Professional pollsters find “allocating” to be very useful. In fact, they believe it is necessary tp adjust their final poll data. Gallup has a policy of allocating up to 90% of undecided voters to the challenger. They did so for Kerry.
2008: Six pollsters allocated an average 67% of the undecided vote to Obama.
2.2. What about the rule that incumbents don't do better than their predicted shares in the final polls?
On average, it is true that incumbents don't do better -- or, rather, much better -- than their predicted shares in the final polls.
TIA: Since you agree that incumbents don’t do better than their final polling, then you in are also in agreement that undecided voters break for the challenger. If they broke for the incumbent, he would have a higher vote share as a result.
2008: Obama was the defacto challenger since McCain represented a continuation of Bush policies.
2.3. What about the rule that incumbents don't win when their final approval rating is below 50%?
TIA has stated that Bush's approval rating on November 1 was 48.5% based on the "average of 11 polls."
TIA: Yes it was. You can look them up in the 2004 Election Model.
2008: His rating was 22% this time which means an even bigger Obama blowout was in the making..
Describing the Exit Poll Discrepancies
3.1. How do the exit polls work?
Let me say first of all that the main point of the exit polls is not to project who will win the election -- although the exit poll interviews are combined with vote count data in order to make projections.
TIA: The unadjusted exit polls work just fine – until the category weights and/or vote shares are changed in the final exit poll to match the recorded vote. That makes no sense at all. For one thing, this standard practice assumes that the election is fraud-free. For another, forcing the Final National Exit Poll to match the recorded vote in 2004, 2006 and 2008 required an impossible returning voter weighting mix as well as implausible vote shares. We know should know by now that the 2004 election was not fraud-free. But most people are unaware that fraud was just as massive in 2006 and 2008; the Democratic and Obama landslides were denied.
2008: The Final 2008 NEP contains impossible returning voter weights. Unadjusted state exit polls and preliminary NEP results have not been released.
3.2. How accurate are exit polls?
It depends, of course. Most attempts to argue that exit polls are highly accurate strangely steer around U.S. national exit polls.
TIA: Unadjusted, pristine exit polls are quite accurate. People report who they have just voted for; there are no undecided voters. On the other hand, the Final National Exit Poll is grossly inaccurate, since it was forced to match a fraudulent recorded vote in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
2008: We don’t have the preliminary national exit poll timeline or the unadjusted state exit polls. Why not? Maybe because they will once again show that the Democrat did much better than the recorded vote indicates and the causes of the discrepancies will need to be explained.
3.3. Couldn't spoiled ballots and/or fraud account for these past discrepancies?
Probably not, although they certainly may contribute. Greg Palast offers an estimate of 3.6 million uncounted ballots in 2004 alone.
TIA: Definitely both contribute. The best evidence indicates that 70-80% of uncounted votes are Democratic. In 2004, the Census reported 3.45 million uncounted votes that were confirmed by government statistics (see Greg Palast). If they had been counted, the Bush margin would have been reduced from 3.0 to 1.3 million. Miscounted votes (switched, stuffed ballots) accounted for the bulk of the discrepancies. In 2000, the Census reported 5.4 million uncounted votes, which reduced Gore’s margin from approximately 3.0 million to 540,000.
2008: The Vote Census has not yet been released.
3.4. What about exit pollster Warren Mitofsky's reputation for accuracy?
Here is how Mitofsky International's website puts it: "[Mitofsky's] record for accuracy is well known”.
TIA: Mitofsky’s accuracy in the Final National Exit poll is perfect because it is always forced to match the recorded vote (Bush 50.7-48.3%) using an impossible returning voter mix- even if the recorded vote was fraudulent. And the E-M unadjusted state aggregate exit poll (Kerry 52-47%) was also very accurate since it closely matched the UVA-adjusted pre-election polls. Either way, the exit pollsters were quite accurate.
2008: The Final was once again forced to match the recorded vote by using an impossible returning voter mix.
3.5. Didn't the exit polls indicate that Kerry won by more than the polls' margin of error?
It depends on what one means by "the exit polls" and "won."
TIA: The question should be rephrased: In how many states did the unadjusted exit polls exceed the margin of error? The MoE was exceeded in 29 states – all in Bush’s favor. The probability of this occurrence is ZERO. Among the 29 were Ohio, Florida, NM, Iowa, Colorado. All flipped from Kerry to Bush. The question should be: how come none of the solid Bush states exceeded the margin of error? Two reasons: 1) they were in the bag for Bush and 2) they were not candidates for vote padding since (except for Texas) they had such relatively small voting population.
2008: Still waiting for the E-M 2008 report. It’s over a month late. Why?
3.6. Why are the pollsters' estimates of uncertainty larger than the ones calculated by TruthIsAll and others?
TruthIsAll sometimes has argued that the exit polls should be treated as simple random samples (like drawing marbles from a hat). In this instance, the margin of error for Ohio, with a reported sample size of 2040, would be about 4.5 points on the margin using the 95% standard.
TIA: Not true, the MoE for the Ohio sample is close to 2.2%. Mitofsky states that exit poll respondents are randomly selected and that the National Exit Poll MoE is 1.0%. It’s in the notes.
2008: The Final NEP had over 17,000 respondents; the theoretical MoE was lower than 1.0%
3.7. Doesn't E/M's own table show that the margin of error is plus-or-minus 1% for 8000 respondents or more?
That table (on page 2 of the national methods statement) applies to percentages in the tabulations, not to the vote projections.
TIA: The 1.0% MoE applies to the projected vote share for any given category sample cross tab in which at least 8000 have been polled. There were 13,047 polled in the Gender category, a 0.86% MoE assuming a 50/50 poll split. For a 30% cluster effect, the MoE was 1.12%. There were 3200 polled in the “Voted in 2000” category, a 1.73% MoE for the final total share. As the polling split diverges from an even 50/50 split, the MoE declines. For the 60/40 new voter group, it was 1.70%. For the 90/10 split of returning Bush or Kerry voters, it was 1.04%.
3.8. Doesn't everyone agree that the exit poll results were outside the margin of error?
Yes: overall, and in many states, the exit poll results differed from the official results by beyond the margin of error, overstating Kerry's performance.
TIA: That is true. The Edison-Mitofsky Evaluation of the 2004 Election System, reported than the MoE was exceeded in 29 states – all in favor of Bush.
2008: The report has not been made available. It looks like it never will be. The MSM does not want a repeat of 2004. Probably because it would confirm the National Exit Poll which, when adjusted for a feasible returning voter mix, showed that Obama won by at least double the official margin.
3.9. Aren't survey results far outside the margin of error prima facie evidence of fraud?
Margins of "error" refer to random sampling error. Most survey researchers would say that results outside the calculated margin of error most likely evince non-sampling error in the survey, such as non-response bias, sampling bias, or measurement error.
TIA: They evince non-sampling error? But that assumes a pristine vote count. Could it be that they evince a fraudulent vote count? Or is that inconceivable?
3.10. Which states had the largest exit poll discrepancies? Wasn't it the battleground states?
No, the largest exit poll discrepancies were generally not in battleground states.
TIA: The largest exit poll discrepancies by vote count were in Democratic strongholds New York, California, Ohio and Florida. The NY discrepancy accounted for 750,000 of Bush’s total 3.0 million margin. Kerry won the unadjusted exit poll by 64-35%; his margin was reduced from 29% to 18% in the recorded vote (58.5-40%). Furthermore, some key battleground states (FL, OH, NM, IA, CO) flipped from Kerry to Bush.. Again, the exit poll discrepancies exceeded the margin of error in 29 states – and none were red states.
2008: Early exit polls are not available.
Explaining the Exit Poll Discrepancies
4.1. How did the exit pollsters explain the discrepancies in 2004?
In the Edison-Mitofsky Evaluation of the 2004 Election System, they stated Within Precinct Error was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters".
TIA: How do they know that? Where is the data that they base it on? How does E-M explain the mathematically impossible 43 / 37% returning Bush/Gore voter mix in the final National Exit Poll? They cannot have it both ways. No, most likely the discrepancies were due to vote miscounts. And the Final NEP was forced to match the miscounted recorded vote.
2008: New election, same anomaly. This time it’s 46/37%.
4.2. What is the "reluctant Bush responder" (rBr) hypothesis?
What the pollsters concluded in the evaluation report was simply that Kerry voters apparently participated at a higher rate.
TIA: That was a trial balloon floated by the exit pollsters to explain away the discrepancies; it had no basis in fact. They had no data to back it up. But no one in the media called them on it. In fact, the exit poll report data suggested otherwise. The rBr canard was debunked in the Final National Exit Poll, in which mathematically impossible returning voter weights were required to match the vote count. Unfortunately, few read the report.
2008: Expect the same tired canard: Democratic voters were more anxious to speak to the exit pollsters, blah, blah, blah…
4.3. Does the participation bias explanation assume that fraud is unthinkable?
I will present several lines of argument that participation bias accounts for much of the exit poll discrepancy, and that fraud does not.
TIA: Do the “lines of argument” include any facts from the E-M report that indicate Bush voters participated more readily?
If you are referring to the “swing vs. red-shift” argument, it was proven logically false by Kathy Dopp at USCV. The premise of “swing. vs. redshift” is that there was zero fraud in 2000. But there were over 5 million uncounted votes in 2000. Therefore, from the start, calculated “swing” from 2000 to 2004 is based on a fallacy. Besides, there are an infinite number of scenarios that refute the argument.
2008: Expect the “swing vs. red-shift: canard to be used again. But like it was calculated in 2000 to 2004, “swing” in 2008 swing will also assume a fraud-free base year (2004). In any case, the premise has been proven logically false, since it is easy to display scenarios that disprove it.
4.4. Don't the high completion rates in "Bush strongholds" disprove the rBr or bias hypothesis?
No, and I'm amazed how much mental effort has gone into elaborating this very weak argument.
TIA: Amazed that a regression analysis shows that the completion rate declined moving from Bush to Kerry states? The analysis is a “strong” argument and the regression graph clearly shows why.
2008: The E-M report has not yet been released. Why? It will surely show the same regression trend.
4.5. How can you explain the impossible changes in the national exit poll results after midnight?
As I explained above, the tabulations are periodically updated in line with the projections -- and, therefore, in line with the official returns.
TIA: But what if the official returns were corrupted by vote miscounts? Based on all that we have learned since the 2000 selection, matching to the vote count requires a major leap of faith in believing that there was zero fraud.
2008: The preliminary NEP has not been released. Why?
4.6. Why were the tabulations forced to match the official returns?
If the official returns are more accurate than the exit polls -- and bear in mind that exit polls have been (presumably) wrong in the past -- then weighting to the official returns should, generally, provide more accurate tabulations.
TIA: That’s a big IF. One cannot just assume that the exit polls were wrong in the past. For one thing, we know that at least some of the discrepancy can be explained by largely Democratic uncounted votes.
2008: The Final is once again using impossible returning Bush/Kerry/Other weights (46/37/4%)
4.7. Wasn't there an effort to cover up the exit poll discrepancies?
Not that I can see.
TIA: That’s because you refuse to consider preponderance of the evidence or aren’t looking hard enough. To say the least, pollsters and the mainstream media have not provided the raw, unadjusted precinct data for peer review. When they were pressured to show unadjusted Ohio exit poll data, they “blurred” the data by not divulging the precincts. Even so, a comprehensive analysis of the Ohio exit poll data by USCV indicated a solid Kerry victory of 6-8%. Of course, the mainstream media (including Keith and Rachel) has never discussed the analysis or other evidence of election fraud.
2008: There is obviously an ongoing, recurring effort to cover up the fraud. Just look at the NEP.
4.8. Is there any specific reason to think that the exit poll discrepancies don't point to fraud?
One of my favorites is based on TruthIsAll's observation: "Based on the pre-election polls: 41 out of 51 states (incl DC) deviated to Bush. Based on the exit polls: 43 out of 51 deviated to Bush."
TIA: Just calculate the probabilities. How can the margin of error be exceeded in 29 states, all in favor of Bush, not be an indicator of massive fraud? How can forcing the Final NEP to match the vote count using impossible weights not be an indicator of fraud? How can the pre-election state and national pre-election polls indicate a 51-48% Kerry victory, confirmed by the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate (52-47%) and the 1222am National Exit Poll (51-48%), not point to fraud? How can the four sets of pre-election and post-election polls, consisting of over 100,000 respondents, all be wrong and not point to fraud?
2008: The unadjusted state exits have not been released. They will surely show a similar, implausible shift to McCain from the exit polls.
4.9. Is there any specific reason to believe that participation bias does explain the discrepancies?
Yes, beyond the facts that participation bias is common, that past exit polls have overstated Democratic performance, and that the exit poll discrepancies don't correlate with pre-election poll discrepancies, "swing" from 2000, or electronic voting machine use, there is also some evidence indicating participation bias in 2004.
TIA: The swing vs. red-shift argument is predicated on recorded Bush vote swing from 2000 to 2004. But there were 3.4 million net uncounted votes in 2004 and 5.4 million in 2000. The flaw in the argument is immediately apparent; total votes cast is the appropriate baseline - not the recorded vote. And both Gore and Kerry won 70-80% of the uncounted votes. Thus, the swing vs. red-shift premise assumes that the recorded vote was fraud-free in order to show that the NEAR-ZERO correlation indicates the election was fraud-free. That is circular logic. In fact there is a STRONG negative correlation between True Vote swing (based on total votes CAST) and red-shift. The discrepancies are not due to participation bias, but they are due to biased vote counts. Democrats always do better in the exit polls because of uncounted, switched and stuffed ballots.
2008: The media is sure to use the same, pathetic bias argument: Democratic voters are more likely to be polled – among other things.
4.10. Aren't you offering a lot of unproven speculation?
You could call it that, or you could call it scientific reasoning on the basis of incomplete evidence.
TIA: But nothing would convince you. In fact, you have seen more than enough evidence – and have consistently refused to accept any of it.
2008: Even with more evidence of fraud in the impossible 2008 Final NEP, Mark still invokes rBR and “false recall”.
4.11. Are you saying that the exit polls disprove fraud?
No. As noted earlier, many forms of fraud may be compatible with the exit poll results. However, it seems hard to reconcile massive, widespread fraud – on the order of many millions of miscounted votes -- with the exit poll results unless one begins by discounting the details of the exit poll results.
TIA: What is “massive”? A 5-7% vote switch is very possible with unverifiable touch screens and invisible central tabulators. Uncounted votes alone accounted for over half of Bush’s 3 million “mandate”. There were 122 million recorded votes in 2004, of which approximately 95 million were returning 2000 election voters. Therefore there were 27 million new voters and 3 million returning Nader voters. How did they vote? Of the 30 million, based on the National Exit Poll. Kerry had approximately 18 million (60%) - a 6 million margin. Gore won the popular vote by 540,000. So how did Bush turn a 6.5 million deficit into a 3 million surplus? That’s a 9.5 million net vote switch. Are we to believe, as Mark maintains, that 9.5 million more Gore voters defected to Bush than Bush voters defected to Kerry? That is beyond implausible.
2008: And now we are expected to believe there were 12 million more returning Bush voters than Kerry voters?
4.12. Are you saying that you are sure Bush didn't steal the election?
No, depending on what one means by "steal." In particular, I think it is at least possible that some combination of vote suppression (purges, long lines, intimidation, etc.) and uncounted votes cost John Kerry a victory in Ohio, and therefore in the election. (Obviously "uncounted votes" can be regarded as a form of vote suppression.) I doubt it, but I am not arguing against it here.
TIA: There you go, refusing once again to even consider the real probability that votes were miscounted electronically. At this point in time, after all the anecdotal evidence of vote miscounts, you still only go as far as suggesting “vote suppression”, yet not consider the very real probability that votes were miscounted at the at the touch screens and central tabulators? To put it bluntly, why would those who were willing to utilize highly visible vote suppression methods, not also employ invisible, unverifiable machine vote miscounting?
2008: A new election and still the same unverifiable voting machines. It’s a repeat of the 2006 Democratic Tsunami. Landslide denied.
Comparing 2004 to 2000
5.1. Why has TruthIsAll called the "2000 presidential vote" question the clincher?
TIA emphasizes two aspects of this table. First, he notes, it is impossible that 43% of the 2004 electorate voted for Bush in 2000. That would be over 52 million Bush voters, whereas Bush only got about 50.5 million votes in 2000. (Some of those voters must have died, or not voted for other reasons.)
TIA: These are the numbers: The 43% statistical weighting implies 52.6 million returning Bush voters – 2.1 million more than his recorded 50.46 million in 2000. But let’s not stop there. Approximately 2.5 million died, therefore at most 48 million could have voted in 2004. Even if we assume that 46 million actually did vote (96% turnout), that means the Final NEP overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 6.6 million.
2008: It’s even worse this time around. The returning Bush/Kerry voter mix was 46/37%. Even if Bush won by 3 million votes and there was zero fraud in 2004, the mix implies that there were 12 million more returning Bush than Kerry voters.
5.2. What is wrong with the "impossible 43%" argument?
It assumes that exit poll respondents accurately report whom they voted for in the previous election. In reality, exit poll respondents seem to have overstated their support for the previous winner in every exit poll for which I could obtain data, ten in all, going back to 1976. Lots of other evidence indicates that people often report having voted for the previous winner although they didn't. Perhaps most telling is an (American) National Election Study (NES) "panel" in which people were interviewed soon after the 2000 election, and then re-interviewed in 2004.
TIA: Well, for one thing, Gore had 540,000 more official votes than Bush (actually 3 million were it not for uncounted votes). Why would returning Gore and Kerry voters misstate past votes but not returning Bush voters? The How Voted in 2004 question was only asked of 3,000 out of 13,000 exit poll respondents;it was not asked of 10000 respondents. The other categories had nothing to do with past votes, such as sex, race, income, party-id, location, when voted, military background, etc. The respondents were asked whom they just voted for five minutes ago. And they said they just voted for Kerry. No fog, no forgetting.
But there is another, more fundamental reason to reject false-recall: the premise was wrong. THE SURVEY RESPONDENTS DID NOT MISSTATE THEIR PAST VOTE. Once again, Mark uses the RECORDED VOTE as the BASELINE, not the TRUE VOTE (i.e. TOTAL VOTES CAST). From 1968 to 2008, VOTES CAST exceeded VOTES RECORDED by approximately 7 MILLION on average (10.6 million in 1988). We know that 70-80% of uncounted votes are Democratic in EVERY election. When these uncounted votes are included, the TRUE Democratic vote share goes up. In fact, the average Democratic True Vote margin was within ONE percent of the average SURVEY result.
2008: It’s hard to believe that the “false recall” canard is still being used, especially since Bush had 48% approval in 2004, 30% in 2006 and 22% in 2008. Are we expected to believe that the ridiculous 2008 Final NEP 46/37% Bush/Kerry returning voter mix is due to Kerry voters misstating their past vote to the exit pollsters? Or is it that returning Bush voters were reluctant to be interviewed? It’s a classic Hobson’s Choice.
5.3. What is wrong with the second argument, where new (and Nader) voters break the stalemate in favor of Kerry?
The second argument assumes that Kerry did about as well among Bush 2000 voters as Bush did among Gore 2000 voters. Superficially, the exit poll table supports this assumption.
TIA: The 12:22am National Exit Poll indicated that Kerry did better among returning Bush voters (10%) than Bush did among returning Gore voters (8%). But along with the returning voter mix, the vote shares were changed to 9% and 10%, respectively, in the Final. They had to be changed in order to match the recorded vote. In the Democratic Underground “game” thread, Mark had to increase the Bush share of returning Gore voters to 14.6% (as well as new voter shares) in order to match the Bush vote. He agreed that there could not have been more returning Bush voters than were still living. But he had to raise Bush's vote shares to implausible levels. Later, he reverted back to the “false recall” canard.
2008: We thought “false recall” was laid to rest in 2006, but Mark is still using it. He he concedes that Final National Exit Poll weights/shares are always adjusted to force a match to the “official” count. Contradictions abound. Mark has tried to have it both ways (rBr and “false recall”). But it’s a Hobson’s choice; one argument refutes the other. He is spinning like a top.
5.4. But... but... why would 14% of Gore voters vote for Bush??
If one thinks of "Gore voters" as people who strongly supported Gore and resented the Supreme Court ruling that halted the Florida recount, then the result makes no sense. For that matter, if one thinks of "Gore voters" in that way, it makes no sense that they would forget (or at any rate not report) having voted for Gore. Nevertheless, the NES panel evidence indicates that many did. (Of course, the figure may not be as high as 14% -- although it could conceivably be even higher).
TIA: In fact, Bush needed more than 14%, when one factors in uncounted votes. It’s not just returning Gore voters defecting to Bush that make no sense, neither do the other vote share changes Mark needed to make in the DU “game” Yes, the results make no sense whatsoever. In any case, as stated above, the recorded vote was used as the baseline. But that is false logic; it assumes the recorded vote was correct in order to prove it was correct. We know for a FACT that the recorded vote is NEVER correct - because millions of uncounted votes are heavily Democratic.
2008: To believe that 46% were returning Bush voters, there would have to be 12 million more returning Bush than Kerry voters. Even if we assume that the official 3 million Bush “mandate” was legitimate, one would expect a 3 million difference in Bush turnout. Therefore, to believe false recall, 4.5 million Kerry voters (7.6% of his recorded 59 million) misstated their past vote and said they voted for Bush. Why would they mistate, especially since Bush had a 22% approval rating on Election Day?
Furthermore, if Kerry won by 6 million votes (as the unadjusted exit polls indicate) then we would expect 6 million MORE returning Kerry voters than Bush voters. In this scenario, the Final NEP overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 18 MILLION!
TruthIsAll FAQ:
Miscellaneous
M.1. What about the reports of flipped votes on touch screens in 2004?
Many people reported difficulty voting on electronic voting machines (DREs), in particular, that attempts to vote for one candidate initially registered as votes for another. The Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS), connected to the "OUR-VOTE" telephone hotline, recorded close to 100 such incidents. TruthIsAll has asserted that 86 out of 88 reports of electronic vote-flipping favored Bush. He cites the odds of this imbalance as 1 in 79,010,724,999,066,700,000,000.
TIA: The probability calculation is correct. It is one in 79 sextillion that the vote-switching was a purely random occurrence. The EIS incidents came from widely diverse precincts and were just a drop in the bucket. Many know someone whose vote was switched right before their eyes. Mark still refuses to accept the fact that electronic vote-switching must have been the primary cause of the exit poll discrepancies. The vote-switching was not just on the DREs; central tabulators sum precinct votes by county and state. These vote flips could not be recorded to EIRS.
M.2. Did the 2006 exit polls manifest "red shift" compared with official returns?
Yes. For instance, the initial national House tabulation -- posted a bit after 7 PM Eastern time on election night -- indicates that Democratic candidates had a net margin of about 11.3 points over Republican candidates. The actual margin was probably about 7 points, depending on how uncontested races are handled.
TIA: “Probably about 7 points”. Mark is stating his opinion here based on a few polls in which he didn’t even bother to allocate undecided voters, so he has no basis for making that statement. On the other hand, virtually all of the 120 pre-election “generic” polls gave the Democrats a much bigger margin. What else is new? And the aggregate unadjusted exit poll indicated the Democrats had a 56.4% share.
M.3. Do pre-election "generic" House polls in 2006 match the initial exit poll returns?
Not really. A "generic" poll is one that asks respondents whether they would vote for (in Gallup's words) "the Democratic Party's candidate or the Republican Party's candidate," rather than naming specific candidates.
TIA: Yes, they did. The trend-line through the 120 pre-election Generic Polls (which were all won by the Democrats) projected a 56.4% Democratic share. This was an EXACT match to the AGGREGATE 56.4% SHARE IN THE UNADJUSTED EXIT POLL. Most final pre-election polls had the Democrats winning by more than 12%.
M.4. What about the massive undervotes in Sarasota County, Florida (C.D. 13)?
Without getting into the specifics, the short answer is: I think that if voters had been able to cast their votes as they intended, the Democratic candidate Christine Jennings would have won the House race in Florida's 13th Congressional District (FL-13) by thousands of votes, instead of losing by under 400. I have seen no evidence that the events in FL-13 shed light on outcomes in any other Congressional race.
TIA: Are we to believe that FL-13 was an isolated case of missing and/or switched votes and there is no evidence of vote miscounting in the other 434 districts? A number of post-election studies indicate otherwise.
TruthIsAll
11/02/09
The original "Election Fraud Analytics/Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ" is here:
http://www.RichardCharnin.com/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm
This is an updated compact summary version. It includes my latest response to "False Recall" and "Swing vs. Red-shift". The original version has not yet been updated.
The original TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ was written in late 2006 by Mark Lindeman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science. Since 2004, Mark has frequented election reform sites, relentlessly attempting to rebut the polling analysis of researchers that indicate elections have been stolen since 2000. “On the Other Hand”, his Democratic Underground screen name, is apropos to his mission.
In January 2007, I wrote "Response to the TruthIsAll FAQ" along with a detailed statistical analysis: "2000-2006 Election Fraud Analytics". Now the 2008 election is history and similar anomalous results indicate that election fraud cut Obama’s landslide in half, just like the Democratic margin was in the 2006 midterms. Furthermore, 2008 confirms that the 2004 election was stolen and that in 2000 Gore won the popular vote by close to 3 million.
Most election researchers agree that the election was stolen in 2004. But statistical evidence also indicates that election fraud cut the 12% Democratic landslide margin to 6% in the 2006 midterms, costing them 10-20 House seats and that Obama’s True Vote mandate was reduced from approximately 20 million to 9.5 million.
That is what the evidence shows, regardless of whether or not it is ever discussed in the media. Statistical analysts and political scientists who have looked at the evidence are well aware of the fraud, but are still waiting for the Democratic politicians and the GOP controlled media to get the ball rolling. In the meantime, only a handful of bloggers and truth-seekers will even touch the subject. A number of books have been written which show that massive fraud in the form of voter disenfranchisement and vote miscounts occurred in 2000-2008, but not one that provides a statistical analysis to prove that Bush won in 2004.
In order to help the reader quickly become familiar with the main areas of focus, I have included a brief summary of the questions posed to Mark in the original FAQ – along with a short update summary of his response followed by mine. The original full text response follows the summary.
____________________________________________________________________________________
A TruthIsAll (TIA) FAQ
by Mark Lindeman
TruthIsAll (TIA) is the pseudonym of a former Democratic Underground (DU) regular who now posts elsewhere. Many of his writings are available at http://www.truthisall.net. TIA argues, among other things, that the 2004 U.S. presidential pre-election polls and the exit polls both indicate that John Kerry won the election.
Who is TruthIsAll (TIA) and why do you care what he says?
I don't know who he is. Apparently he has worked in quantitative analysis for many years; he has described himself as an "Excel expert." His allegations of election fraud -- in particular, his enumeration of (presumably far-fetched) things one must believe in order to believe that Bush won the 2004 election -- formed the template for the 2005 Project Censored story making the same case.
Many people believe that TIA's arguments irrefutably demonstrate that John Kerry won the popular vote and the election. Many more people believe that TIA's arguments have no merit whatsoever, and therefore don't bother to try to refute them. I do not like to see weak arguments go unchallenged. (But plenty of people have criticized TIA's arguments -- I make no claim to originality.)
I also think that these particular weak arguments lead to poor political judgments. If TruthIsAll is right, it follows that the 2004 election was obviously stolen. So, one might conclude, among other things, that (1) most voters preferred Kerry to Bush, (2) Democratic political leaders are effectively complicit in a cover-up, and (3) Democrats cannot win crucial elections until and unless the current voting systems are thrown out. I disagree with all of these conclusions.
(Now that the Democrats have won House and Senate majorities in the 2006 election, argument #3 must be modulated. Fraud-minded observers now often argue that the Republicans stole some votes and even some seats, but that either for some reason they could not -- or did not dare? -- steal enough votes, or that they had to decide how many votes to steal several weeks in advance, and were caught flat-footed by a late Democratic surge. As I address on the Miscellaneous page, I have seen no convincing evidence of widespread vote miscount.
OK, so what are TIA's arguments?
He has many posts, but many of them make these basic claims:
Pre-election polls (both state and national) gave Kerry better than a 99% chance of winning the election.
Well-established political generalizations, such as the "incumbent rule," buttress the conclusion that Kerry should have won.
The exit polls gave Kerry a lead in the popular vote well beyond the statistical margin of error, and diverged substantially from the official results in many states, generally overstating Kerry's vote total. (This claim is largely true, although not everything TIA says about it is.)
Fraud is the only good explanation of the exit poll discrepancies. In particular, there is no good reason to believe that Kerry voters participated in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters. Since Kerry did better than Bush among people who did not vote in 2000, Bush would have had to do much better among Gore 2000 voters than Kerry did among Bush 2000 voters -- and that can't have happened.
It is pretty easy to look around and determine that not many political scientists are expressing agreement with these views. But why not? It could be that political scientists have a status quo bias and/or are afraid to rock the boat by confronting unpleasant truths; perhaps some are even paid by Karl Rove. It could be that political scientists simply haven't looked at the evidence. It could be that political scientists see gaping holes in TIA's arguments. It could be some combination of those factors, and others besides. For what it's worth, I will explain at some length why I don't agree with TIA's views.
Please note that this is not a one-size-fits-all election integrity FAQ.
Do you think that electronic voting machines are almost ridiculously insecure and unreliable?
I do, although I certainly don't agree with every word of every critic. Do you think that John Kerry won or should have won Ohio? You may be right. I don't know. I doubt it, but I haven't set out to knock down each and every argument about fraud or vote suppression in the 2004 election -- in fact, I agree with several of them. But the arguments (by TIA and others) that Kerry won the popular vote are not at all likely to be true, in my opinion.I have rarely quoted TIA at length because (1) the FAQ is already very long and (2) TIA's writing is often hard to read. But if you think I have mischaracterized one of his arguments, or if you have other questions or comments about the FAQ, please feel free to contact me at [my last name]@bard.edu.
TIA:
These are just a few well-known researchers whose analyses confirm mine: Steve Freeman, Ron Baiman, Kathy Dopp, Greg Palast, RFK Jr., Mark C. Miller, Bob Fitrakis, Michael Keefer, John Conyers, Richard Hayes Phillips, Paul Lehto, etc. At least four have advanced degrees in applied mathematics or systems analysis. I have three degrees in applied mathematics.
It would be useful if you would mention the names of the political scientists or statisticians who disagree with my analysis and believe that Bush won the election fairly in 2004. How do they account for his 3 million “mandate”? How do they explain where Bush found 16 million new voters net of voter mortality and turnout? What are their confirming demographics? Do any of the analysts you refer to have degrees in mathematics or statistics? Did their 2004 projections match the exit polls? Or did they match the vote miscount? Have any of them ever written about or considered election fraud in their analysis? Have they analyzed the impact of uncounted votes on election results? What is their track record? Were their projections based on economic or political factors or did they use state and national polling? What was the time period between Election Day and their final projections?
FAQ Summary and Response
1. The Pre-Election Polls
1.1. What did the national pre-election polls indicate?
According to most observers, most pre-election polls put George W. Bush slightly ahead of John Kerry.
TIA: That is simply not true. Real Clear Politics is often cited as the data source but it is misleading since it only lists the final LV subset and does not include the full RV sample. The final five pre-election polls from CBS, FOX, Gallup, ABC, and Pew had the race essentially tied. Kerry led the five-poll RV average 47.2-46.0; Bush led the LV average 48.8-48.0. Gallup's RV sample had Kerry leading 48-46; the LV sub-sample had Bush leading by 49-47. Gallup has a policy of allocating 90% of the undecided vote (UVA) to the challenger, so the final LV prediction was 49-49.
The final five LV samples predicted an average 82.8% voter turnout, but it was actually 88.5% according to post-election Census data. A regression analysis indicated that Kerry had 48.9% given the 82.8% prediction (49.3%% assuming he had 75% UVA), but had 51.3% given the actual turnout (52.6% with a 75% UVA). Kerry did better in the full RV sample since a solid majority of newly registered voters were Democrats.
2008 Update: Pre-election RV polls had Obama leading by 52-39%; LV polls by 50-43%.
1.2. How does TIA come up with those 99+% probabilities of a Kerry victory?
Basically, those probabilities (for both state and national polls) assume that all his assumptions (for instance, about how "undecided" voters will vote) are right, and that the only source of uncertainty is random sampling error.
TIA: The Election Model does not assume one undecided voter allocation (UVA) percentage; it provides scenarios ranging from 60-87% (75% is the base case. The 5000 trial Monte Carlo Electoral Vote simulation gave Kerry a 98.0% win probability assuming 60% UVA and 99.8% assuming a 75% UVA.
2008: The Monte Carlo simulation produced a mean 365.8 EV; the theoretical expected EV based on the sum of the (state win probabilities* EV) produced a 365.3 EV. Obama won all 5000 scenarios – a 100% win probability. He had 365 EV. But his True Vote was better than that.
1.3. Doesn't the high turnout in the election mean that the registered-voter poll results are probably more accurate than the likely-voter results?
No, high turnout is not a reason to dismiss the likely-voter results. Most pollsters already expected high turnout.
TIA: The average projected turnout of the final five likely voter sub-sample polls was 82.8% compared to the actual 88.5% turnout. A regression analysis of turnout vs. vote share showed that Kerry had 49% given for 82.8% turnout, but 52.6% given the 88.5% post-election Census. The full RV sample is more accurate then the LV subset by definition, since RVs include newly registered voters while LVs filter many of them out. Since a high turnout means a large number of new (mostly Democratic) voters, they would be missed by the LV subset and therefore understate the Democratic share. In 2004, there were approximately 27 million newly registered and other voters who did not vote in 2000. Depending on the NEP timeline, Kerry won this group by 57-62%. In the Final NEP, which was forced to match the recorded vote, the exit pollsters lowered Kerry’s share to 54% and widened the returning Bush/Gore voter mix to 43/37% (13660 respondents) from 41/39% (1222am, 13047 respondents).
2008: The RV polls after UVA matched the True Vote (57%) based on a feasible returning voter mix and the Final NEP vote shares.
1.4. How about the state polls?
There TIA's data hold up somewhat better, although his probabilities don't. While the national polls (prior to TIA's massaging) fit the official results rather closely, the state polls do not fit as well.
TIA: The professional pollsters must also be “massagers”, but they call it “allocating undecided voters”. The final RV polls, adjusted for 75% UVA to Kerry, did in fact confirm the unadjusted state exit poll aggreate: Kerry was a 52-47% winner.
2008: The aggregate state pre-election polls, adjusted for 75% UVA to Obama, gave Obama 53.8%. But the state polls were based on a 3-day average, not the final Election Day point on the trend line. Obama was picking up late support; his final pre-election aggregate share was better than 54%.
1.5. What about cell phones?
TIA and others have argued that the pre-election polls were biased against Kerry because they do not cover people who only use cell phones -- and these were disproportionately young voters who favored Kerry.
TIA: It makes sense intuitively. Young people (Democrats) are out and about with their cells; older voters are home with their landlines.
2008: There are many more cell-phone users than there were in 2004 – this could only help Obama.
The "Rules": Did They Favor Kerry?
2.1. Don't undecided voters break sharply for the challenger?
Undecided voters probably sometimes break sharply for the challenger. But I can find no evidence that this rule is useful in "allocating" reported undecided voters in presidential elections.
TIA: You find that the rule is not useful? Where is your data to back up that statement? Professional pollsters find “allocating” to be very useful. In fact, they believe it is necessary tp adjust their final poll data. Gallup has a policy of allocating up to 90% of undecided voters to the challenger. They did so for Kerry.
2008: Six pollsters allocated an average 67% of the undecided vote to Obama.
2.2. What about the rule that incumbents don't do better than their predicted shares in the final polls?
On average, it is true that incumbents don't do better -- or, rather, much better -- than their predicted shares in the final polls.
TIA: Since you agree that incumbents don’t do better than their final polling, then you in are also in agreement that undecided voters break for the challenger. If they broke for the incumbent, he would have a higher vote share as a result.
2008: Obama was the defacto challenger since McCain represented a continuation of Bush policies.
2.3. What about the rule that incumbents don't win when their final approval rating is below 50%?
TIA has stated that Bush's approval rating on November 1 was 48.5% based on the "average of 11 polls."
TIA: Yes it was. You can look them up in the 2004 Election Model.
2008: His rating was 22% this time which means an even bigger Obama blowout was in the making..
Describing the Exit Poll Discrepancies
3.1. How do the exit polls work?
Let me say first of all that the main point of the exit polls is not to project who will win the election -- although the exit poll interviews are combined with vote count data in order to make projections.
TIA: The unadjusted exit polls work just fine – until the category weights and/or vote shares are changed in the final exit poll to match the recorded vote. That makes no sense at all. For one thing, this standard practice assumes that the election is fraud-free. For another, forcing the Final National Exit Poll to match the recorded vote in 2004, 2006 and 2008 required an impossible returning voter weighting mix as well as implausible vote shares. We know should know by now that the 2004 election was not fraud-free. But most people are unaware that fraud was just as massive in 2006 and 2008; the Democratic and Obama landslides were denied.
2008: The Final 2008 NEP contains impossible returning voter weights. Unadjusted state exit polls and preliminary NEP results have not been released.
3.2. How accurate are exit polls?
It depends, of course. Most attempts to argue that exit polls are highly accurate strangely steer around U.S. national exit polls.
TIA: Unadjusted, pristine exit polls are quite accurate. People report who they have just voted for; there are no undecided voters. On the other hand, the Final National Exit Poll is grossly inaccurate, since it was forced to match a fraudulent recorded vote in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
2008: We don’t have the preliminary national exit poll timeline or the unadjusted state exit polls. Why not? Maybe because they will once again show that the Democrat did much better than the recorded vote indicates and the causes of the discrepancies will need to be explained.
3.3. Couldn't spoiled ballots and/or fraud account for these past discrepancies?
Probably not, although they certainly may contribute. Greg Palast offers an estimate of 3.6 million uncounted ballots in 2004 alone.
TIA: Definitely both contribute. The best evidence indicates that 70-80% of uncounted votes are Democratic. In 2004, the Census reported 3.45 million uncounted votes that were confirmed by government statistics (see Greg Palast). If they had been counted, the Bush margin would have been reduced from 3.0 to 1.3 million. Miscounted votes (switched, stuffed ballots) accounted for the bulk of the discrepancies. In 2000, the Census reported 5.4 million uncounted votes, which reduced Gore’s margin from approximately 3.0 million to 540,000.
2008: The Vote Census has not yet been released.
3.4. What about exit pollster Warren Mitofsky's reputation for accuracy?
Here is how Mitofsky International's website puts it: "[Mitofsky's] record for accuracy is well known”.
TIA: Mitofsky’s accuracy in the Final National Exit poll is perfect because it is always forced to match the recorded vote (Bush 50.7-48.3%) using an impossible returning voter mix- even if the recorded vote was fraudulent. And the E-M unadjusted state aggregate exit poll (Kerry 52-47%) was also very accurate since it closely matched the UVA-adjusted pre-election polls. Either way, the exit pollsters were quite accurate.
2008: The Final was once again forced to match the recorded vote by using an impossible returning voter mix.
3.5. Didn't the exit polls indicate that Kerry won by more than the polls' margin of error?
It depends on what one means by "the exit polls" and "won."
TIA: The question should be rephrased: In how many states did the unadjusted exit polls exceed the margin of error? The MoE was exceeded in 29 states – all in Bush’s favor. The probability of this occurrence is ZERO. Among the 29 were Ohio, Florida, NM, Iowa, Colorado. All flipped from Kerry to Bush. The question should be: how come none of the solid Bush states exceeded the margin of error? Two reasons: 1) they were in the bag for Bush and 2) they were not candidates for vote padding since (except for Texas) they had such relatively small voting population.
2008: Still waiting for the E-M 2008 report. It’s over a month late. Why?
3.6. Why are the pollsters' estimates of uncertainty larger than the ones calculated by TruthIsAll and others?
TruthIsAll sometimes has argued that the exit polls should be treated as simple random samples (like drawing marbles from a hat). In this instance, the margin of error for Ohio, with a reported sample size of 2040, would be about 4.5 points on the margin using the 95% standard.
TIA: Not true, the MoE for the Ohio sample is close to 2.2%. Mitofsky states that exit poll respondents are randomly selected and that the National Exit Poll MoE is 1.0%. It’s in the notes.
2008: The Final NEP had over 17,000 respondents; the theoretical MoE was lower than 1.0%
3.7. Doesn't E/M's own table show that the margin of error is plus-or-minus 1% for 8000 respondents or more?
That table (on page 2 of the national methods statement) applies to percentages in the tabulations, not to the vote projections.
TIA: The 1.0% MoE applies to the projected vote share for any given category sample cross tab in which at least 8000 have been polled. There were 13,047 polled in the Gender category, a 0.86% MoE assuming a 50/50 poll split. For a 30% cluster effect, the MoE was 1.12%. There were 3200 polled in the “Voted in 2000” category, a 1.73% MoE for the final total share. As the polling split diverges from an even 50/50 split, the MoE declines. For the 60/40 new voter group, it was 1.70%. For the 90/10 split of returning Bush or Kerry voters, it was 1.04%.
3.8. Doesn't everyone agree that the exit poll results were outside the margin of error?
Yes: overall, and in many states, the exit poll results differed from the official results by beyond the margin of error, overstating Kerry's performance.
TIA: That is true. The Edison-Mitofsky Evaluation of the 2004 Election System, reported than the MoE was exceeded in 29 states – all in favor of Bush.
2008: The report has not been made available. It looks like it never will be. The MSM does not want a repeat of 2004. Probably because it would confirm the National Exit Poll which, when adjusted for a feasible returning voter mix, showed that Obama won by at least double the official margin.
3.9. Aren't survey results far outside the margin of error prima facie evidence of fraud?
Margins of "error" refer to random sampling error. Most survey researchers would say that results outside the calculated margin of error most likely evince non-sampling error in the survey, such as non-response bias, sampling bias, or measurement error.
TIA: They evince non-sampling error? But that assumes a pristine vote count. Could it be that they evince a fraudulent vote count? Or is that inconceivable?
3.10. Which states had the largest exit poll discrepancies? Wasn't it the battleground states?
No, the largest exit poll discrepancies were generally not in battleground states.
TIA: The largest exit poll discrepancies by vote count were in Democratic strongholds New York, California, Ohio and Florida. The NY discrepancy accounted for 750,000 of Bush’s total 3.0 million margin. Kerry won the unadjusted exit poll by 64-35%; his margin was reduced from 29% to 18% in the recorded vote (58.5-40%). Furthermore, some key battleground states (FL, OH, NM, IA, CO) flipped from Kerry to Bush.. Again, the exit poll discrepancies exceeded the margin of error in 29 states – and none were red states.
2008: Early exit polls are not available.
Explaining the Exit Poll Discrepancies
4.1. How did the exit pollsters explain the discrepancies in 2004?
In the Edison-Mitofsky Evaluation of the 2004 Election System, they stated Within Precinct Error was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters".
TIA: How do they know that? Where is the data that they base it on? How does E-M explain the mathematically impossible 43 / 37% returning Bush/Gore voter mix in the final National Exit Poll? They cannot have it both ways. No, most likely the discrepancies were due to vote miscounts. And the Final NEP was forced to match the miscounted recorded vote.
2008: New election, same anomaly. This time it’s 46/37%.
4.2. What is the "reluctant Bush responder" (rBr) hypothesis?
What the pollsters concluded in the evaluation report was simply that Kerry voters apparently participated at a higher rate.
TIA: That was a trial balloon floated by the exit pollsters to explain away the discrepancies; it had no basis in fact. They had no data to back it up. But no one in the media called them on it. In fact, the exit poll report data suggested otherwise. The rBr canard was debunked in the Final National Exit Poll, in which mathematically impossible returning voter weights were required to match the vote count. Unfortunately, few read the report.
2008: Expect the same tired canard: Democratic voters were more anxious to speak to the exit pollsters, blah, blah, blah…
4.3. Does the participation bias explanation assume that fraud is unthinkable?
I will present several lines of argument that participation bias accounts for much of the exit poll discrepancy, and that fraud does not.
TIA: Do the “lines of argument” include any facts from the E-M report that indicate Bush voters participated more readily?
If you are referring to the “swing vs. red-shift” argument, it was proven logically false by Kathy Dopp at USCV. The premise of “swing. vs. redshift” is that there was zero fraud in 2000. But there were over 5 million uncounted votes in 2000. Therefore, from the start, calculated “swing” from 2000 to 2004 is based on a fallacy. Besides, there are an infinite number of scenarios that refute the argument.
2008: Expect the “swing vs. red-shift: canard to be used again. But like it was calculated in 2000 to 2004, “swing” in 2008 swing will also assume a fraud-free base year (2004). In any case, the premise has been proven logically false, since it is easy to display scenarios that disprove it.
4.4. Don't the high completion rates in "Bush strongholds" disprove the rBr or bias hypothesis?
No, and I'm amazed how much mental effort has gone into elaborating this very weak argument.
TIA: Amazed that a regression analysis shows that the completion rate declined moving from Bush to Kerry states? The analysis is a “strong” argument and the regression graph clearly shows why.
2008: The E-M report has not yet been released. Why? It will surely show the same regression trend.
4.5. How can you explain the impossible changes in the national exit poll results after midnight?
As I explained above, the tabulations are periodically updated in line with the projections -- and, therefore, in line with the official returns.
TIA: But what if the official returns were corrupted by vote miscounts? Based on all that we have learned since the 2000 selection, matching to the vote count requires a major leap of faith in believing that there was zero fraud.
2008: The preliminary NEP has not been released. Why?
4.6. Why were the tabulations forced to match the official returns?
If the official returns are more accurate than the exit polls -- and bear in mind that exit polls have been (presumably) wrong in the past -- then weighting to the official returns should, generally, provide more accurate tabulations.
TIA: That’s a big IF. One cannot just assume that the exit polls were wrong in the past. For one thing, we know that at least some of the discrepancy can be explained by largely Democratic uncounted votes.
2008: The Final is once again using impossible returning Bush/Kerry/Other weights (46/37/4%)
4.7. Wasn't there an effort to cover up the exit poll discrepancies?
Not that I can see.
TIA: That’s because you refuse to consider preponderance of the evidence or aren’t looking hard enough. To say the least, pollsters and the mainstream media have not provided the raw, unadjusted precinct data for peer review. When they were pressured to show unadjusted Ohio exit poll data, they “blurred” the data by not divulging the precincts. Even so, a comprehensive analysis of the Ohio exit poll data by USCV indicated a solid Kerry victory of 6-8%. Of course, the mainstream media (including Keith and Rachel) has never discussed the analysis or other evidence of election fraud.
2008: There is obviously an ongoing, recurring effort to cover up the fraud. Just look at the NEP.
4.8. Is there any specific reason to think that the exit poll discrepancies don't point to fraud?
One of my favorites is based on TruthIsAll's observation: "Based on the pre-election polls: 41 out of 51 states (incl DC) deviated to Bush. Based on the exit polls: 43 out of 51 deviated to Bush."
TIA: Just calculate the probabilities. How can the margin of error be exceeded in 29 states, all in favor of Bush, not be an indicator of massive fraud? How can forcing the Final NEP to match the vote count using impossible weights not be an indicator of fraud? How can the pre-election state and national pre-election polls indicate a 51-48% Kerry victory, confirmed by the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate (52-47%) and the 1222am National Exit Poll (51-48%), not point to fraud? How can the four sets of pre-election and post-election polls, consisting of over 100,000 respondents, all be wrong and not point to fraud?
2008: The unadjusted state exits have not been released. They will surely show a similar, implausible shift to McCain from the exit polls.
4.9. Is there any specific reason to believe that participation bias does explain the discrepancies?
Yes, beyond the facts that participation bias is common, that past exit polls have overstated Democratic performance, and that the exit poll discrepancies don't correlate with pre-election poll discrepancies, "swing" from 2000, or electronic voting machine use, there is also some evidence indicating participation bias in 2004.
TIA: The swing vs. red-shift argument is predicated on recorded Bush vote swing from 2000 to 2004. But there were 3.4 million net uncounted votes in 2004 and 5.4 million in 2000. The flaw in the argument is immediately apparent; total votes cast is the appropriate baseline - not the recorded vote. And both Gore and Kerry won 70-80% of the uncounted votes. Thus, the swing vs. red-shift premise assumes that the recorded vote was fraud-free in order to show that the NEAR-ZERO correlation indicates the election was fraud-free. That is circular logic. In fact there is a STRONG negative correlation between True Vote swing (based on total votes CAST) and red-shift. The discrepancies are not due to participation bias, but they are due to biased vote counts. Democrats always do better in the exit polls because of uncounted, switched and stuffed ballots.
2008: The media is sure to use the same, pathetic bias argument: Democratic voters are more likely to be polled – among other things.
4.10. Aren't you offering a lot of unproven speculation?
You could call it that, or you could call it scientific reasoning on the basis of incomplete evidence.
TIA: But nothing would convince you. In fact, you have seen more than enough evidence – and have consistently refused to accept any of it.
2008: Even with more evidence of fraud in the impossible 2008 Final NEP, Mark still invokes rBR and “false recall”.
4.11. Are you saying that the exit polls disprove fraud?
No. As noted earlier, many forms of fraud may be compatible with the exit poll results. However, it seems hard to reconcile massive, widespread fraud – on the order of many millions of miscounted votes -- with the exit poll results unless one begins by discounting the details of the exit poll results.
TIA: What is “massive”? A 5-7% vote switch is very possible with unverifiable touch screens and invisible central tabulators. Uncounted votes alone accounted for over half of Bush’s 3 million “mandate”. There were 122 million recorded votes in 2004, of which approximately 95 million were returning 2000 election voters. Therefore there were 27 million new voters and 3 million returning Nader voters. How did they vote? Of the 30 million, based on the National Exit Poll. Kerry had approximately 18 million (60%) - a 6 million margin. Gore won the popular vote by 540,000. So how did Bush turn a 6.5 million deficit into a 3 million surplus? That’s a 9.5 million net vote switch. Are we to believe, as Mark maintains, that 9.5 million more Gore voters defected to Bush than Bush voters defected to Kerry? That is beyond implausible.
2008: And now we are expected to believe there were 12 million more returning Bush voters than Kerry voters?
4.12. Are you saying that you are sure Bush didn't steal the election?
No, depending on what one means by "steal." In particular, I think it is at least possible that some combination of vote suppression (purges, long lines, intimidation, etc.) and uncounted votes cost John Kerry a victory in Ohio, and therefore in the election. (Obviously "uncounted votes" can be regarded as a form of vote suppression.) I doubt it, but I am not arguing against it here.
TIA: There you go, refusing once again to even consider the real probability that votes were miscounted electronically. At this point in time, after all the anecdotal evidence of vote miscounts, you still only go as far as suggesting “vote suppression”, yet not consider the very real probability that votes were miscounted at the at the touch screens and central tabulators? To put it bluntly, why would those who were willing to utilize highly visible vote suppression methods, not also employ invisible, unverifiable machine vote miscounting?
2008: A new election and still the same unverifiable voting machines. It’s a repeat of the 2006 Democratic Tsunami. Landslide denied.
Comparing 2004 to 2000
5.1. Why has TruthIsAll called the "2000 presidential vote" question the clincher?
TIA emphasizes two aspects of this table. First, he notes, it is impossible that 43% of the 2004 electorate voted for Bush in 2000. That would be over 52 million Bush voters, whereas Bush only got about 50.5 million votes in 2000. (Some of those voters must have died, or not voted for other reasons.)
TIA: These are the numbers: The 43% statistical weighting implies 52.6 million returning Bush voters – 2.1 million more than his recorded 50.46 million in 2000. But let’s not stop there. Approximately 2.5 million died, therefore at most 48 million could have voted in 2004. Even if we assume that 46 million actually did vote (96% turnout), that means the Final NEP overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 6.6 million.
2008: It’s even worse this time around. The returning Bush/Kerry voter mix was 46/37%. Even if Bush won by 3 million votes and there was zero fraud in 2004, the mix implies that there were 12 million more returning Bush than Kerry voters.
5.2. What is wrong with the "impossible 43%" argument?
It assumes that exit poll respondents accurately report whom they voted for in the previous election. In reality, exit poll respondents seem to have overstated their support for the previous winner in every exit poll for which I could obtain data, ten in all, going back to 1976. Lots of other evidence indicates that people often report having voted for the previous winner although they didn't. Perhaps most telling is an (American) National Election Study (NES) "panel" in which people were interviewed soon after the 2000 election, and then re-interviewed in 2004.
TIA: Well, for one thing, Gore had 540,000 more official votes than Bush (actually 3 million were it not for uncounted votes). Why would returning Gore and Kerry voters misstate past votes but not returning Bush voters? The How Voted in 2004 question was only asked of 3,000 out of 13,000 exit poll respondents;it was not asked of 10000 respondents. The other categories had nothing to do with past votes, such as sex, race, income, party-id, location, when voted, military background, etc. The respondents were asked whom they just voted for five minutes ago. And they said they just voted for Kerry. No fog, no forgetting.
But there is another, more fundamental reason to reject false-recall: the premise was wrong. THE SURVEY RESPONDENTS DID NOT MISSTATE THEIR PAST VOTE. Once again, Mark uses the RECORDED VOTE as the BASELINE, not the TRUE VOTE (i.e. TOTAL VOTES CAST). From 1968 to 2008, VOTES CAST exceeded VOTES RECORDED by approximately 7 MILLION on average (10.6 million in 1988). We know that 70-80% of uncounted votes are Democratic in EVERY election. When these uncounted votes are included, the TRUE Democratic vote share goes up. In fact, the average Democratic True Vote margin was within ONE percent of the average SURVEY result.
2008: It’s hard to believe that the “false recall” canard is still being used, especially since Bush had 48% approval in 2004, 30% in 2006 and 22% in 2008. Are we expected to believe that the ridiculous 2008 Final NEP 46/37% Bush/Kerry returning voter mix is due to Kerry voters misstating their past vote to the exit pollsters? Or is it that returning Bush voters were reluctant to be interviewed? It’s a classic Hobson’s Choice.
5.3. What is wrong with the second argument, where new (and Nader) voters break the stalemate in favor of Kerry?
The second argument assumes that Kerry did about as well among Bush 2000 voters as Bush did among Gore 2000 voters. Superficially, the exit poll table supports this assumption.
TIA: The 12:22am National Exit Poll indicated that Kerry did better among returning Bush voters (10%) than Bush did among returning Gore voters (8%). But along with the returning voter mix, the vote shares were changed to 9% and 10%, respectively, in the Final. They had to be changed in order to match the recorded vote. In the Democratic Underground “game” thread, Mark had to increase the Bush share of returning Gore voters to 14.6% (as well as new voter shares) in order to match the Bush vote. He agreed that there could not have been more returning Bush voters than were still living. But he had to raise Bush's vote shares to implausible levels. Later, he reverted back to the “false recall” canard.
2008: We thought “false recall” was laid to rest in 2006, but Mark is still using it. He he concedes that Final National Exit Poll weights/shares are always adjusted to force a match to the “official” count. Contradictions abound. Mark has tried to have it both ways (rBr and “false recall”). But it’s a Hobson’s choice; one argument refutes the other. He is spinning like a top.
5.4. But... but... why would 14% of Gore voters vote for Bush??
If one thinks of "Gore voters" as people who strongly supported Gore and resented the Supreme Court ruling that halted the Florida recount, then the result makes no sense. For that matter, if one thinks of "Gore voters" in that way, it makes no sense that they would forget (or at any rate not report) having voted for Gore. Nevertheless, the NES panel evidence indicates that many did. (Of course, the figure may not be as high as 14% -- although it could conceivably be even higher).
TIA: In fact, Bush needed more than 14%, when one factors in uncounted votes. It’s not just returning Gore voters defecting to Bush that make no sense, neither do the other vote share changes Mark needed to make in the DU “game” Yes, the results make no sense whatsoever. In any case, as stated above, the recorded vote was used as the baseline. But that is false logic; it assumes the recorded vote was correct in order to prove it was correct. We know for a FACT that the recorded vote is NEVER correct - because millions of uncounted votes are heavily Democratic.
2008: To believe that 46% were returning Bush voters, there would have to be 12 million more returning Bush than Kerry voters. Even if we assume that the official 3 million Bush “mandate” was legitimate, one would expect a 3 million difference in Bush turnout. Therefore, to believe false recall, 4.5 million Kerry voters (7.6% of his recorded 59 million) misstated their past vote and said they voted for Bush. Why would they mistate, especially since Bush had a 22% approval rating on Election Day?
Furthermore, if Kerry won by 6 million votes (as the unadjusted exit polls indicate) then we would expect 6 million MORE returning Kerry voters than Bush voters. In this scenario, the Final NEP overstated the number of returning Bush voters by 18 MILLION!
TruthIsAll FAQ:
Miscellaneous
M.1. What about the reports of flipped votes on touch screens in 2004?
Many people reported difficulty voting on electronic voting machines (DREs), in particular, that attempts to vote for one candidate initially registered as votes for another. The Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS), connected to the "OUR-VOTE" telephone hotline, recorded close to 100 such incidents. TruthIsAll has asserted that 86 out of 88 reports of electronic vote-flipping favored Bush. He cites the odds of this imbalance as 1 in 79,010,724,999,066,700,000,000.
TIA: The probability calculation is correct. It is one in 79 sextillion that the vote-switching was a purely random occurrence. The EIS incidents came from widely diverse precincts and were just a drop in the bucket. Many know someone whose vote was switched right before their eyes. Mark still refuses to accept the fact that electronic vote-switching must have been the primary cause of the exit poll discrepancies. The vote-switching was not just on the DREs; central tabulators sum precinct votes by county and state. These vote flips could not be recorded to EIRS.
M.2. Did the 2006 exit polls manifest "red shift" compared with official returns?
Yes. For instance, the initial national House tabulation -- posted a bit after 7 PM Eastern time on election night -- indicates that Democratic candidates had a net margin of about 11.3 points over Republican candidates. The actual margin was probably about 7 points, depending on how uncontested races are handled.
TIA: “Probably about 7 points”. Mark is stating his opinion here based on a few polls in which he didn’t even bother to allocate undecided voters, so he has no basis for making that statement. On the other hand, virtually all of the 120 pre-election “generic” polls gave the Democrats a much bigger margin. What else is new? And the aggregate unadjusted exit poll indicated the Democrats had a 56.4% share.
M.3. Do pre-election "generic" House polls in 2006 match the initial exit poll returns?
Not really. A "generic" poll is one that asks respondents whether they would vote for (in Gallup's words) "the Democratic Party's candidate or the Republican Party's candidate," rather than naming specific candidates.
TIA: Yes, they did. The trend-line through the 120 pre-election Generic Polls (which were all won by the Democrats) projected a 56.4% Democratic share. This was an EXACT match to the AGGREGATE 56.4% SHARE IN THE UNADJUSTED EXIT POLL. Most final pre-election polls had the Democrats winning by more than 12%.
M.4. What about the massive undervotes in Sarasota County, Florida (C.D. 13)?
Without getting into the specifics, the short answer is: I think that if voters had been able to cast their votes as they intended, the Democratic candidate Christine Jennings would have won the House race in Florida's 13th Congressional District (FL-13) by thousands of votes, instead of losing by under 400. I have seen no evidence that the events in FL-13 shed light on outcomes in any other Congressional race.
TIA: Are we to believe that FL-13 was an isolated case of missing and/or switched votes and there is no evidence of vote miscounting in the other 434 districts? A number of post-election studies indicate otherwise.