TruthIsAll
04-03-2009, 02:45 PM
Note the Peace Patriot/Febble exchange
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?
az=view_all&address=203x496897
Déjà vu: Obama to Clinton Exit Poll Shift
Updated: Feb. 6 at 2pm
TruthIsAll http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/SuperTuesdayShif...
Was it New Hampshire all over again? This time, Hillary Clinton – not Bush – was the beneficiary of an unlikely one-sided shift in the 16 state primary exit polls to the recorded vote.
At 7pm, Obama led the 16 state-weighted exit polls by 50.9% – 46.1%.
He was on track to win 11 states.
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3670
But in the Final exit polls ( Image ), 15 of the 16 states shifted in Clinton’s direction.
As usual, the finals were forced to match the recorded votes.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/date...
The margin of error was exceeded in 7 states in favor of Clinton.
The probability of this occurring due to chance is virtually zero.
The CNN Final 16-exit poll aggregate vote share flipped to Clinton: 49.6 – 45.4%.
Obama’s lead was reduced from 11 states to 7.
These states had the largest exit poll discrepancies:
Massachusetts: Obama led at 7pm by 3%; he lost by 15%.
New Jersey: Obama led by 5%; he lost by 10%.
Arizona: Obama led by 6%; he lost by 9%.
Clinton won the final recorded vote: 49.1–46.8%.
Fourteen states shifted to Clinton from the 7pm exit polls to the final recorded vote. Only two states, Arkansas and Oklahoma, shifted slightly to Obama. But the states were never in play: Clinton easily won both – by 42% and 24%, respectively. Obama won 7 of the 16 states and leads in New Mexico by 71 votes (98% reported).
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Febble (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-07-08 08:04 AM
Response to Original message
12. And your point is...? n/t
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-07-08 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. And the point of your "what is the point?" question is...?
It's data. It's early yet in analysis of Feb 5. It points to places to look at, and things to look for. It's interesting and provocative, given the egregiously non-transparent state of virtually our entire nation's election system. What are these fascist-connected e-voting corporations doing with this awesome "trade secret" power they have over our election results? Where and when are they using it? What are their goals? How can we penetrate this "iron curtain" of secrecy over our vote counts?
But you don't need bother about that, do you, Febble? You vote in Scotland.
Febble (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-07-08 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. That's unlike you, PP
to think that what happens in American doesn't affect someone in a different part of the planet. It does. Boy, it does.
And the "point" of my question is that I'd like to know what the OP is alleging - that there was election fraud in favour of one Democrat over another?
You said, in another post, PP, that it was possible to flip an election at "light speed". I know of no reason to think so, nor do I see any evidence of it.
I see plenty of evidence of electoral injustice, and it appalls me that such a broken system is responsible for choosing the leader of the world's most powerful and potentially most destructive nation.
Which is why it sickens me when people make stupid arguments about the kind of election theft that they think is possible, and the scale on which they think it occurred, and even worse, when they don't even make the argument, merely assert it in the face of clear contr-indications.
You have a broken and unjust election system. But at least partly because some people got it into their heads that nothing less than all-hand-counted-paper-ballots would solve the scale of the problem as they saw it, a good bill that would have materially advanced the cause of election integrity got sabotaged.
Discrepancies between exit polls and counted vote are NOT clear evidence of fraud, exit polls are NOT historically accurate, they are NOT used to monitor elections overseas, there is SOLID evidence that US exit polls tend to be prone to selection bias in the direction of over-stating the Democratic vote, and the evidence from 2004 strongly suggests that if there was fraud, the kind that would show up in an exit poll, it was NOT on the scale of millions, or anything like.
Gore should have been your president in 2000, and if he had been, he would probably be your president now. Kerry just might have won Ohio, had the playing field been fair. He did not win the popular vote, at least in terms of cast votes. I have seen no evidence that, great as the disenfranchisment of minorities was, it amounted to the denial of a Kerry win of the popular vote.
If you want Obama to win the primaries, if you want him to win the presidency, I suggest that people NOW start to tackle the egregious disenfranchisement of black voters in the US, and stop being seduced by the phantom of electronic theft of (mostly white) votes, as they imagine is evidenced by exit polls for which there is clear evidence of selection bias.
Yes, I'm furious. I've been working for four years now, off and on, to try and persuade people where the real injustices of the US electoral system lie, where the system is really broken, and to try to demonstrate that this obsession with exit polls is based on a fantasy that Kerry was a good enough candidate to beat Bush's lies, plus truly bad statistical analysis.
If you want to know where I stand on this, read this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/15/9734/4841
But this obsession with exit polls and hi-tech hyperfraud is a diversion from the real problems so effective that I am sometimes tempted to think it was masterminded by Rove himself. But no, people want to think that there's an easy enemy and a quick fix. THEY pull a switch and swing the election. Bring back hand-counted paper ballots and we have our democracy back.
Well, the problem isn't that simple and thinking it is is actually getting in the WAY of the solution.
If Obama loses the primaries or the presidency because of electoral injustice, it will because black voters didn't even get as far as casting a ballot, or, when they did, because their vote wasn't counted, not because of some fancy light-speed magic hack, but because of the hundreds of little ways in which black (and other ethnic minority) votes still count for less than white votes in America.
That is the elephant in the room. Exit polls are a mere distraction.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 05:36 PM
Response to Reply #33
37. Actually, if you read my words properly you will see that I said:
If Obama loses the primaries or the presidency because of electoral injustice, it will because black voters didn't even get as far as casting a ballot, or, when they did, because their vote wasn't counted, not because of some fancy light-speed magic hack, but because of the hundreds of little ways in which black (and other ethnic minority) votes still count for less than white votes in America.
Those "hundreds of little ways" include "problems with our voting systems" and I emphasised them.
maryallen (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-09-08 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #37
43. Amazing how they come in to double team and interfere with ...
Edited on Sat Feb-09-08 01:09 PM by maryallen
any discussion of the machines or exit polls.
Like blocking backs on a football team ...
Like gatekeepers ...
You can talk about this and this, but OH, NO, DON'T GO THERE!
I don't know how about the rest of you guys, but when people gang up on me telling me not to do or say something, I become immediately suspicious.
OnTheOtherHand (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-09-08 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #43
44. I know just what you mean
I find it very suspicious that you are urging people not to think.
I've run into TIA's gatekeepers here time after time. Rarely does any of them even try to defend what TIA actually wrote. I often wonder whether they read it.
In this case, however, TIA mostly said that the exit polls were off on Tuesday, which is true. If anyone thinks that Clinton (and McCain) stole a bunch of votes in Massachusetts, I would certainly be interested in hearing more about that.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 07:15 AM
Response to Reply #18
25. And to clarify I did not say, and I do not thing, that DREs are a safe or secure way to vote. They aren't.But the idea that the exit polls indicate massive electronic theft is false and a distraction IMO.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 04:41 AM
Response to Reply #16
21. Did you actually read my post?
Where did I "dismiss report after report of problemsvoting in the last several election cycles"? I've been banging on about those for years.
My point is simply that the EXIT POLLS are NOT evidence of fraud, and, if anything, tend to support the conclusion that Kerry did not win the popular vote in 2004.
Did I say Bush won it fairly or that elections had no "problems"?
Try reading my post again, for meaning.
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 04:35 AM
Response to Reply #15
20. "I've been working for four years now, off and on...". You've worked for Edison-Mitovsky,
the exit pollsters who doctor U.S. exit polls to force them to fit the results of Diebold & co.'s 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. You are the one with the "obsession"--to point people away from this nasty confluence of secret power.
In other countries, exit polls are used to check for fraud, not to CONFIRM the fraudulent results of an egregiously fraudulent and untrustworthy election system. It is unprofessional and corrupt to do otherwise.
TIA's analyses are a tool--one of the few we have--with which to divine how the illegitimate power of this unaudited 'TRADE SECRET' code vote counting is being used. Never in history have the powerful and the greedy and the murderous had a capability like this, and NOT used it. It was DESIGNED FOR FRAUD. There is no other reason to have such a system. Our job is to figure out how, where, and for what, is it being used, to expose it, and to fight like the devil to change it.
"TRADE SECRET" vote counting is part of a total picture of disenfranchisement and disempowerment of the American people--particularly of its most progressive voters--black voters and other minorities, Democratic voters, students, the poor, the workers, the vast majority--which includes many elements. The power of "organized money," as FDR put it, excludes huge swaths of the population from ever running for or holding public office, and from having any influence with political officeholders. It's a closed system in which huge amounts of money--billions of dollars--are poured into the pockets of rightwing billionaire "owners" of our public airwaves, for TV campaign ads--"owners" who simultaneously control all news and opinion in the country, and hire lackeys like Edison and Mitovsky to cover up for the other billionaires who rig the elections.
The citizens of this democracy cannot penetrate this system. We are excluded. And it's true enough that "TRADE SECRET" vote counting is as much a symptom of the corruption, as it is a cause, but to preach blindness to it ("dears, you have so many other problems, why worry about 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting with VIRTUALLY NO AUDIT/RECOUNT CONTROLS, in the hands by RIGHTWING BUSHITE corporations?"), and to try to lead people away from one of the few tools we have to understand it, can only be interpreted as encouraging stupidity. And that's how I interpret your constant message about exit poll analysis: you are encouraging stupidity.
Many kinds of disenfranchisement and disempowerment are at work, to produce a situation, for instance, in which 70% of the American people oppose the Iraq War and want it ended, and yet the war is ESCALATED, and billions and billions MORE of our tax dollars are poured into it. 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting is the 'coup de grace' of disenfranchisement and disempowerment. It is the final blow. It is the thing that makes our situation NOT SOLVABLE. It is the dam holding up all other reforms--for instance, the government's failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you have properly and genuinely elected office holders, disenfranchisement of black voters would be FORBIDDEN. It would be prosecuted!
Similarly, we can never achieve campaign finance reform in a system in which office holders do not owe their power to the voters, but owe it, rather, to the rightwing corporations who are 'counting' all our votes with secret code. That is the dam that must be broken. Neither is there anything we can do to break up the war profiteering corporate news monopolies who decide who gets news coverage, and who gets to be in debates, and what gets to be discussed (--and you will notice that "trade secret" vote counting, in the control of rightwing corporations, is NEVER discussed) until we can elect office holders, in open, transparent elections, who represent our interests.
You say, what about disenfranchisement of black voters? TO WHOM are you appealing? The Attorney General? Perhaps you think Bush's Department of Justice will do something about it. Or perhaps the Democrats who let it happen in Ohio in 2004, and then refused to support a challenge of those results by the House Black Caucus? One Democratic Senator stood up--Barbara Boxer. The others--the entire glitterati of our party--sat on their fatcat behinds and LET IT GO UNCHALLENGED.
Perhaps you are appealing to us--the powerless, the "trade secret" vote counting disenfranchised majority? What can WE do?
And that is my point. We can do nothing--we cannot get our laws enforced, on war, on torture, on injustice or anything else--until we have restored our right to vote with its inherent accompanying right to have our votes counted IN PUBLIC VIEW.
That is the blockade to change. It is the first thing that has to fall, before change can begin.
And we are lucky that that struggle is local--in state/county venues--where ordinary people still have some influence. Put the matter to Congress, and they amend the bill to their own purposes of war and endless looting of our treasury. They fucked us over to begin with--with the "Help America Vote for Bush Act": $3.9 billion to fast-track non-transparent electronic voting systems all over the country, at the same time--in the same month--as the Iraq War Resolution. The two things are RELATED. And failure to see this, and understand it, is blind stupidity.
OnTheOtherHand (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 06:11 AM
Response to Reply #20
22. wow, you are SO full of it
And you know it, or should know it, because it has been explained carefully and patiently. But you just can't let go of your master narrative in any respect.
Anyone with an iota of critical distance can see that if there is a plot to cover up the differences between exit poll results and vote counts, posting tabulations for each state the moment the polls close is not a great way to go about it.
Your unwillingness to think clearly about this issue disturbs me, and your propensity to take it out on Febble appalls me.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 07:07 AM
Response to Reply #20
24. Yes.
PP
You've worked for Edison-Mitovsky
Yes, I did. And, if you've ever read any further than my sig, you'll know why. I thought the exit polls in 2004 might be an indicator of massive vote theft. I tried to figure out whether or not this was the case. I figured out an analysis that might shed some light on it, using the raw (not "forced") data. I was contracted to do it. I concluded that the discrepancy between the exit poll and the official count was extremely unlikely to be due to mega-scale fraud.
I also investigated the impact of machine allocation strategy in Franklin County, Ohio on Kerry's vote, and concluded that Democratic (largely black) voters were significantly more likely to be disenfranchised by under-provision of voting machines than Republican voters. I also investigated the effect of push-button DREs on the Democratic, particularly the Hispanic, vote in NM, and I'm of the opinion that Kerry won NM.
But that's not very sexy, is it? Who cares about that retail-scale stuff. Who cares about the reality of election integrity in the US. Much more exciting to declare that Kerry won the popular vote, that votes were flipped at the speed of light. Much more comfortable to think the Democrats won.
Well to me, that attitude is as dangerous and anti-science as the attitude of creationists towards global warming. Reality matters more than a comfortable narrative.
If you want a decent government in America, you need to fix the system, and to fix the system you have to know what's wrong with it. That means engaging with facts, not fairy tales.
You could start here.
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #24
26. In 1965, I spent the summer (white girl from Calif) in Alabama, getting my
car chased by bigoted white sheriffs because I was volunteering in the black community as a member of Martin Luther King's voting rights project. They followed me down a dark road, stopped me, another white girl and a black boy, and took out their rifles. The previous summer three civil rights workers had been murdered and buried on a dark road like that, in the neighboring state of Mississippi. In fact that's the reason I was there--my primary motive--to widen the target, to join with many other white students from the north, and to say, "You've got to kill all of us!"
Luckily for me and the friends who were with me, they were just trying to scare us, or possibly, since another Alabama sheriff's car showed up on that dark road and parked next to the first one, a plan to harm us got foiled. We were taken to the county jail and placed in a jail cell the likes of which I hope I never see again--absolutely filthy with vomit and piss. We spent the night cleaning the cell. It was a way not to be scared.
S.C.L.C. got us out the next day. We had been charged with "causing a fray"--a ridiculous charge. (Two white girls and a black boy in a black restaurant, eating hamburgers, was the crime.) Bullying. Intimidation. Harassment. Threats.
I spent four months altogether living with the fear that black citizens lived with then, every day of their lives--and many of whom still live with now, in different ways--never knowing from which direction the white bigots might strike, nor by what method, nor on what trumped up excuse. All over the right to vote.
I have been a passionate activist for black citizens' rights all my life. The long lines of black voters in Ohio made cry. This can't be happening again! But it was, and is--from the caging lists of Florida to the paucity of voting machines in black precincts in Ohio. It is no small matter to me. And yet I say it is a distraction, possibly a deliberate one, from the larger, more hidden reality. Black voting rights are already protected by law. The issue is enforcement. How have our officials gotten away with not enforcing the explicit law that I helped get passed, in 1965, protecting black voters from just this kind of disenfranchising activity?
The answer lay in the officials' smug assurance of impunity for their crimes against black and other minority voters. They are NOT beholden to the voters--to all of us. They are beholden to the election VENDORS, and to the extremely corrupt corporate/political establishment that put this egregiously non-transparent voting system in place everywhere in the country.
The larger reality is that we are ALL disenfranchised now. They might as well put a poll tax on all our heads. Billions of dollars for these machines that can flip an entire state's vote--one insider hacker, a few lines of code, leaving no trace, that's all it takes. It is designed not to be noticed. It is designed not to be non-transparent. These corporate profiteers lobbied relentlessly, and are still lobbying, for the most invisibility they can get: paperless touchscreens.
And election computers do operate at the speed of light. That's why it's called electronic voting! They dump your ballot into a box, to gather dust--99% to 100% of them never to be seen again--and turn your "vote" into electrons--that is, into practically nothing, and, in that highly malleable form, they tabulate the electrons with speed of light messages shooting around in the electronic aether, where, as physicists have shown, anything can happen. Particles appearing, disappearing, annihilating one another. Little bits of nothing twirling around commanded by "trade secret" code. And somehow we come out in a parallel universe where George Bush is still president.
Some Defense Department general was just testifying the other day about how vulnerable we are because of electronic networks! Yes, you can build some security into a system. But guess what? All of that has been neglected, and is rife with malfeasance, and outright lies and fraud, when it comes to our election system! It's porous to hacking, from inside and outside. ATM's, made by the same companies, have more security. Las Vegas slot machines have more security.
And why is that? Why so much malfeasance, lying and fraud--just for our election system security?
The new, reforming Sec of State in California just sued ES&S for $15 million for selling nearly a thousand uncertified (insecure, untested by the state) voting machines to five counties including San Francisco. How many times have they gotten away with this crap in states that don't have diligent secretaries of state (most of them)? Malfeasance and fraud are rampant, and have been from the beginning, when this system was rushed into place, all over the country, with no federal testing standards, and a federal commission that was told to "go slow" in creating them!
I am amazed at your apparent ignorance of the capability of this non-transparent electronic system. And it is not only non-transparent, the "trade secret" code is owned and controlled by corporations with very close ties to the Republican Party, the Bush/Cheney regime and/ far rightwing causes.
It is a set up for fraud. That is the reality. And that reality combines with the reality of what unelected officials can do to further cement their power, with caging lists, and Department of Justice political prosecutions, and massive domestic spying, and so on. To see reality, you must look at the whole picture, widen the lens, understand the inter-locking interests in stealing U.S. elections, and look at the FACTS of the system itself. What is it designed to do? Give us verifiable elections? Count the votes in public view? Invite maximum citizen participation and oversight? It is designed to do the opposite of these things--to hide the vote counting from public view, to avoid oversight, to put the public off, to pull everything behind closed doors.
Inter-locking interests. Take for example the initial funder and major investor in ES&S: rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals. Would he have an interest in twiddling the vote on a gay rights initiative? In having George Bush as President? In militarizing the country? ES&S is one of the Big Three--brethren to Diebold, the two corporations run by two brothers, and Diebold with a CEO who was a Bush/Cheney campaign manager and major fundraiser.
Gee, what would these guys do with the awesome power of "trade secret" vote counting?
Restrain themselves? Uh-huh. You are writing the "comfortable" narrative, Febble--the comfortable narrative that says all we have to do is restore black voting rights again and all will be well. We have a lot more to do than that, starting with the elimination of private corporations from our voting system, and that includes Edison-Mitovsky and their role of validating an inherently fraudulent vote counting system.
We have to insure that public officials are accountable to us, not to fascist corporations--including these fascist election theft corporations. Only then can black voting rights, and all voting rights, be secured--when we have officials who can prove that they were elected. There is hardly an office holder in the country right now who can do that. And the burden is on them. We don't have to prove fraud. They have to prove, up front, that they were elected. That is the democratic contract. Fraud must be presumed in this system, until proven otherwise by vote counting that everyone can see and understand.
And meanwhile we are forced to read the entrails--the little bits of information that we are permitted to see, what's left of our democratic system--to try to figure out what the hell they've done, how, where, and to what ends? TIA has been brilliant in pulling those little bits together, to try to divine how the system is working. We can't really "prove" anything, because a third of the ballots don't exist (by design) and 99% to 100% of the ballots that do exist are never counted (by design), and the code that tells us who won is a
Why rag on him? What interests are you serving to constantly show up in TIA threads, and try to dam up the rising tide of suspicion of electronic voting?
The numbers he's shown are interesting, in some cases compelling. They add to other evidence of inexplicable Republican, Bushite and pro-war, pro-corporate "wins." And I guarantee you that everyone who is interested in this evidence is also committed to black voting rights, and to fixing everything that is wrong with our election system and our country. Why are you trying to divide us? We who think that Kerry won are not fantasists. It's based on the best evidence we can obtain in a non-transparent system--and there is far more evidence than the exit poll analysis. It is not an "obsession." It is a conviction, based on evidence and also, and importantly, on wide focus analysis. (Would these corporations, having achieved the power to steal elections, do so? Or, how are they shoving an unjust war down the throats of the American people, 70% of whom oppose it?)
You want to narrow it down to a dry little discussion of statistics, where you are comfortable. I think us 2004-ers have a much wider view. Torture, unjust war, a huge and growing deficit, tax cuts for the rich--how did they keep all that going? It's not a matter of statistical methods or "proof," in a non-transparent system. It's a matter of why the system was made to be non-transparent. A people question. And those who have varying degrees of certitude from Kerry won by a landslide, to it's possible that Kerry won (given the system), understand and ask those wide lens people and system questions that are crucial to reform. Another one has to do with election officials' corruption--their stake in maintaining a non-transparent system, which may or may not be related to their participation in actual election fraud. Another: With the clear capability of untraceably stealing elections, why is it that these corporations permit some leftists get to elected? Is it because the voters can out-vote the machines? Or is it strategic smarts on the part of the fascists who run these corporations (--stealing just enough to get the job done, not being too obvious)?
The designed, lobbied-for non-transparency is FACT NO. 1. You have got to start with it. It cannot be shoved aside because you don't like TIA's methods, or disagree with his conclusions. His evidence exists in a context in which powerful and rich fascists have achieved the capability to easily steal elections, and have much motive to do so. You're coming from a very narrow "can you prove it?" point of view that excludes all the things that, say, Diebold, or Karl Rove, or Terry McAuliffe, or Chris Dodd, would wish to have excluded. All the things that point to means, motive and opportunity.
Elections are guilty until proven innocent. That's the democratic contract. They must prove transparently that they hold legitimate power, given to them by peoples' VOTES, not by the highly manipulable, riggable "electrons" in a "trade secret" code system.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 05:31 PM
Response to Reply #26
36. OK, thanks for the detailed response. Here's mine:
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 05:55 PM by Febble
I am not ignorant of this capability, although I consider your description hyperbolic. Not because I don't think people would do it if they could, but because I think you overestimate the wholescale nature of the kind of hack that could be done and not noticed. The checks and balances may not be enough (they certainly are not enough) but - dare I say it - a hack of that kind on that scale would show up in the exit poll data. And it doesn't. As I've explained in detail on many occasions. It's specifically what I went looking for in the RAW data, because I wondered whether the evidence was there. And it wasn't. What WAS there was strong evidence of selection bias.
So the thing is, PP, that it's not that I don't think that evil people would exploit the capability if they could, or even that I don't think that they might try to foist wholescale hackable technology on election officials if they could (although I have my doubts). It's that I think they couldn't and didn't. I think it is possible - even probable - that there was the odd deliberate hack. I think it is probable - to near certainty - that the machines are buggy and capable of systematically flipping votes. But I don't think it is remotely probably that several million Kerry votes were flipped to Bush in 2004 because if they had been, they would have shown up in the exit polls as a pattern by which precincts with electronic voting machines had a larger discrepancy in Bush's favor than precincts with non-electronic technology. And in fact the reverse was the case. And not only that, it would have shown up as tendency for Bush to do apparently better relative to 2000 in precincts in which the exit poll was greatest. And there was no such tendency. There is simply nothing in the RAW exit poll data to indicate massive vote theft - merely evidence of systematic selection bias of a kind for which there is also good independent evidence.
That's why I think that exit polls are a huge distraction from the many elephants in the room, which include the disenfranchisement of voters, especially black voters, the vulnerability of voting systems to tampering, and the lack of independent audits of voter-verifiable voting records.
PP
Gee, what would these guys do with the awesome power of "trade secret" vote counting?
Febble
Possibly steal an election. Possibly not. But only if they could, without it being apparent.
PP
Restrain themselves? Uh-huh. You are writing the "comfortable" narrative, Febble--the comfortable narrative that says all we have to do is restore black voting rights again and all will be well. We have a lot more to do than that, starting with the elimination of private corporations from our voting system, and that includes Edison-Mitovsky and their role of validating an inherently fraudulent vote counting system.
Febble
No. It's not what I said, and not what I meant. I don't trust anyone not to tamper with the vote, whether it is electronic or hand-counted. That's why I think you MUST at the very least have mandatory independent random manual audits of all ballots, with secure custody of the ballots at all times, and under public scrutiny.
PP
Fraud must always be presumed possible - that's why audits are so vital.
And meanwhile we are forced to read the entrails--the little bits of information that we are permitted to see, what's left of our democratic system--to try to figure out what the hell they've done, how, where, and to what ends? TIA has been brilliant in pulling those little bits together, to try to divine how the system is working. We can't really "prove" anything, because a third of the ballots don't exist (by design) and 99% to 100% of the ballots that do exist are never counted (by design), and the code that tells us who won is a
Why rag on him? What interests are you serving to constantly show up in TIA threads, and try to dam up the rising tide of suspicion of electronic voting?
Febble
Why rag on him? Because he is practising statistical voodoo, and making inferences that are simply invalid. And I do not believe any end, however noble, is best served by bad arguments, especially when they point away from the direction in which we should be looking.
PP
The numbers he's shown are interesting, in some cases compelling.
Febble
Not in my view. I have yet to see a compelling argument from TIA, and, interestingly, I have yet to see anyone actually MAKE TIA's argument for him. All I see is cheer-leading for his conclusions.
PP
They add to other evidence of inexplicable Republican, Bushite and pro-war, pro-corporate "wins." And I guarantee you that everyone who is interested in this evidence is also committed to black voting rights, and to fixing everything that is wrong with our election system and our country.
Febble
You may be right, but I am not convinced. You had a slam-dunk case for voter suppression in 2004, and I saw it squandered on the phantom of a stolen Kerry popular vote win. You had a slam-dunk case for mandatory independent manual random audits, and I saw it squandered by people who were convinced that electronic scale was so large-scale that random audits would be worse than useless. That argument was largely fueled by hyperfraud narratives deriving from the exit poll story.
PP
Why are you trying to divide us?
Febble
Actually, I'm trying to unite you. I'm trying to get you to join forces with the reality-based election integrity activists (including Greg Palast - did you read OTOH's quotation from Armed Madhouse?) in putting forward a coherent argument for election reform, instead of one that is undermined by bad statistical arguments for hyperfraud.
PP
We who think that Kerry won are not fantasists. It's based on the best evidence we can obtain in a non-transparent system--and there is far more evidence than the exit poll analysis.
Febble
Well, I haven't seen it. Not for vote-flipping. I might buy Greg Palast's argument that there was a Kerry majority's worth of voters who never got as far as the precinct if I could see the provenance of his numbers, but the evidence for vote-flipping on that scale is, AFAIK solely based on bad inference from the exit poll discrepancy. Sure there is evidence that Kerry was directly deprived of votes. I even produced some myself. But not for multi-million scale vote-flipping. If you can cite one piece of evidence for multi-million scale vote-flipping that is not derived from the exit polls I shall be impressed. But I haven't seen it, and the exit poll data are actually evidence against it.
PP
It is not an "obsession." It is a conviction, based on evidence
Fwbble
Well, the only argument, as I said, that I have heard are real anecdotes upscaled to millions by the exit poll story. I buy some of the anecdotes. I don't buy the upscaling. I think it is incorrect.
PP
and also, and importantly, on wide focus analysis. (Would these corporations, having achieved the power to steal elections, do so? Or, how are they shoving an unjust war down the throats of the American people, 70% of whom oppose it?)
Febble
That argument is circular: they would do it if they could is not an argument that they could. And the evidence suggests they didn't, possibly only because they couldn't.
PP
You want to narrow it down to a dry little discussion of statistics, where you are comfortable.
Febble
************************************************************
I want to narrow it down to reality. I want to narrow it down to what the data actually show. Call it "dry little discussion of statistics" if you want, but it's no dryer than TIA's statistics, and, importantly, it's done right. TIA's arguments are fundamentally flawed, and lead him to conclusions that are contradicted by the data. This is not a small point.
*******************************************************************
PP
I think us 2004-ers have a much wider view. Torture, unjust war, a huge and growing deficit, tax cuts for the rich--how did they keep all that going? It's not a matter of statistical methods or "proof," in a non-transparent system. It's a matter of why the system was made to be non-transparent. A people question. And those who have varying degrees of certitude from Kerry won by a landslide, to it's possible that Kerry won (given the system), understand and ask those wide lens people and system questions that are crucial to reform. Another one has to do with election officials' corruption--their stake in maintaining a non-transparent system, which may or may not be related to their participation in actual election fraud. Another: With the clear capability of untraceably stealing elections, why is it that these corporations permit some leftists get to elected? Is it because the voters can out-vote the machines? Or is it strategic smarts on the part of the fascists who run these corporations (--stealing just enough to get the job done, not being too obvious)?
Febble
I have no problem with people asking those questions. I asked them myself. It's how I got involved. But when I ask questions I want to know the answer. And the answer I found to the question as to whether millions of votes had been electronically flipped to Kerry was: vanishingly unlikely, given the complete absence of any correlation between either electronic voting, or electoral advantage to Bush and the magnitude of the exit poll discrepancy. It may seem like a dry little statistical point to you, but it pretty well deals a death blow to the supposition that the exit poll discrepancy arose from multi-million vote fraud, and actually makes it very difficult to envisage any scenario in which wide-spread vote-flipping on a scale to flip the margin could have possibly occurred.
PP
The designed, lobbied-for non-transparency is FACT NO. 1. You have got to start with it. It cannot be shoved aside because you don't like TIA's methods, or disagree with his conclusions. His evidence exists in a context in which powerful and rich fascists have achieved the capability to easily steal elections, and have much motive to do so. You're coming from a very narrow "can you prove it?" point of view that excludes all the things that, say, Diebold, or Karl Rove, or Terry McAuliffe, or Chris Dodd, would wish to have excluded. All the things that point to means, motive and opportunity.
Febble
I don't shove it aside because TIA is wrong, although he is. But I do conclude that however evil your government, they were either unable or unwilling to steal power through widespread electronic vote-theft. That's what the data is telling me. And it's not that I don't "like" TIA's methods - it's that they don't do what they say on the tin.
PP
Elections are guilty until proven innocent. That's the democratic contract. They must prove transparently that they hold legitimate power, given to them by peoples' VOTES, not by the highly manipulable, riggable "electrons" in a "trade secret" code system.
Febble
And there I pretty well agree with you. That's why I hate to see the case for reform undermined by fantasy arguments based on exit poll discrepancies. TIA is not the only culprit. Steve Freeman is worse IMO, because he trades on his academic credentials, whereas TIA lets his numbers speak for himself, remaining hidden in the shadows. TIA is also a heck of a lot more diligent, IMO.
But not less wrong.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?
az=view_all&address=203x496897
Déjà vu: Obama to Clinton Exit Poll Shift
Updated: Feb. 6 at 2pm
TruthIsAll http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/SuperTuesdayShif...
Was it New Hampshire all over again? This time, Hillary Clinton – not Bush – was the beneficiary of an unlikely one-sided shift in the 16 state primary exit polls to the recorded vote.
At 7pm, Obama led the 16 state-weighted exit polls by 50.9% – 46.1%.
He was on track to win 11 states.
http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3670
But in the Final exit polls ( Image ), 15 of the 16 states shifted in Clinton’s direction.
As usual, the finals were forced to match the recorded votes.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/date...
The margin of error was exceeded in 7 states in favor of Clinton.
The probability of this occurring due to chance is virtually zero.
The CNN Final 16-exit poll aggregate vote share flipped to Clinton: 49.6 – 45.4%.
Obama’s lead was reduced from 11 states to 7.
These states had the largest exit poll discrepancies:
Massachusetts: Obama led at 7pm by 3%; he lost by 15%.
New Jersey: Obama led by 5%; he lost by 10%.
Arizona: Obama led by 6%; he lost by 9%.
Clinton won the final recorded vote: 49.1–46.8%.
Fourteen states shifted to Clinton from the 7pm exit polls to the final recorded vote. Only two states, Arkansas and Oklahoma, shifted slightly to Obama. But the states were never in play: Clinton easily won both – by 42% and 24%, respectively. Obama won 7 of the 16 states and leads in New Mexico by 71 votes (98% reported).
...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Febble (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-07-08 08:04 AM
Response to Original message
12. And your point is...? n/t
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-07-08 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. And the point of your "what is the point?" question is...?
It's data. It's early yet in analysis of Feb 5. It points to places to look at, and things to look for. It's interesting and provocative, given the egregiously non-transparent state of virtually our entire nation's election system. What are these fascist-connected e-voting corporations doing with this awesome "trade secret" power they have over our election results? Where and when are they using it? What are their goals? How can we penetrate this "iron curtain" of secrecy over our vote counts?
But you don't need bother about that, do you, Febble? You vote in Scotland.
Febble (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-07-08 06:40 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. That's unlike you, PP
to think that what happens in American doesn't affect someone in a different part of the planet. It does. Boy, it does.
And the "point" of my question is that I'd like to know what the OP is alleging - that there was election fraud in favour of one Democrat over another?
You said, in another post, PP, that it was possible to flip an election at "light speed". I know of no reason to think so, nor do I see any evidence of it.
I see plenty of evidence of electoral injustice, and it appalls me that such a broken system is responsible for choosing the leader of the world's most powerful and potentially most destructive nation.
Which is why it sickens me when people make stupid arguments about the kind of election theft that they think is possible, and the scale on which they think it occurred, and even worse, when they don't even make the argument, merely assert it in the face of clear contr-indications.
You have a broken and unjust election system. But at least partly because some people got it into their heads that nothing less than all-hand-counted-paper-ballots would solve the scale of the problem as they saw it, a good bill that would have materially advanced the cause of election integrity got sabotaged.
Discrepancies between exit polls and counted vote are NOT clear evidence of fraud, exit polls are NOT historically accurate, they are NOT used to monitor elections overseas, there is SOLID evidence that US exit polls tend to be prone to selection bias in the direction of over-stating the Democratic vote, and the evidence from 2004 strongly suggests that if there was fraud, the kind that would show up in an exit poll, it was NOT on the scale of millions, or anything like.
Gore should have been your president in 2000, and if he had been, he would probably be your president now. Kerry just might have won Ohio, had the playing field been fair. He did not win the popular vote, at least in terms of cast votes. I have seen no evidence that, great as the disenfranchisment of minorities was, it amounted to the denial of a Kerry win of the popular vote.
If you want Obama to win the primaries, if you want him to win the presidency, I suggest that people NOW start to tackle the egregious disenfranchisement of black voters in the US, and stop being seduced by the phantom of electronic theft of (mostly white) votes, as they imagine is evidenced by exit polls for which there is clear evidence of selection bias.
Yes, I'm furious. I've been working for four years now, off and on, to try and persuade people where the real injustices of the US electoral system lie, where the system is really broken, and to try to demonstrate that this obsession with exit polls is based on a fantasy that Kerry was a good enough candidate to beat Bush's lies, plus truly bad statistical analysis.
If you want to know where I stand on this, read this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/15/9734/4841
But this obsession with exit polls and hi-tech hyperfraud is a diversion from the real problems so effective that I am sometimes tempted to think it was masterminded by Rove himself. But no, people want to think that there's an easy enemy and a quick fix. THEY pull a switch and swing the election. Bring back hand-counted paper ballots and we have our democracy back.
Well, the problem isn't that simple and thinking it is is actually getting in the WAY of the solution.
If Obama loses the primaries or the presidency because of electoral injustice, it will because black voters didn't even get as far as casting a ballot, or, when they did, because their vote wasn't counted, not because of some fancy light-speed magic hack, but because of the hundreds of little ways in which black (and other ethnic minority) votes still count for less than white votes in America.
That is the elephant in the room. Exit polls are a mere distraction.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 05:36 PM
Response to Reply #33
37. Actually, if you read my words properly you will see that I said:
If Obama loses the primaries or the presidency because of electoral injustice, it will because black voters didn't even get as far as casting a ballot, or, when they did, because their vote wasn't counted, not because of some fancy light-speed magic hack, but because of the hundreds of little ways in which black (and other ethnic minority) votes still count for less than white votes in America.
Those "hundreds of little ways" include "problems with our voting systems" and I emphasised them.
maryallen (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-09-08 01:06 PM
Response to Reply #37
43. Amazing how they come in to double team and interfere with ...
Edited on Sat Feb-09-08 01:09 PM by maryallen
any discussion of the machines or exit polls.
Like blocking backs on a football team ...
Like gatekeepers ...
You can talk about this and this, but OH, NO, DON'T GO THERE!
I don't know how about the rest of you guys, but when people gang up on me telling me not to do or say something, I become immediately suspicious.
OnTheOtherHand (1000+ posts) Sat Feb-09-08 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #43
44. I know just what you mean
I find it very suspicious that you are urging people not to think.
I've run into TIA's gatekeepers here time after time. Rarely does any of them even try to defend what TIA actually wrote. I often wonder whether they read it.
In this case, however, TIA mostly said that the exit polls were off on Tuesday, which is true. If anyone thinks that Clinton (and McCain) stole a bunch of votes in Massachusetts, I would certainly be interested in hearing more about that.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 07:15 AM
Response to Reply #18
25. And to clarify I did not say, and I do not thing, that DREs are a safe or secure way to vote. They aren't.But the idea that the exit polls indicate massive electronic theft is false and a distraction IMO.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 04:41 AM
Response to Reply #16
21. Did you actually read my post?
Where did I "dismiss report after report of problemsvoting in the last several election cycles"? I've been banging on about those for years.
My point is simply that the EXIT POLLS are NOT evidence of fraud, and, if anything, tend to support the conclusion that Kerry did not win the popular vote in 2004.
Did I say Bush won it fairly or that elections had no "problems"?
Try reading my post again, for meaning.
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 04:35 AM
Response to Reply #15
20. "I've been working for four years now, off and on...". You've worked for Edison-Mitovsky,
the exit pollsters who doctor U.S. exit polls to force them to fit the results of Diebold & co.'s 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code. You are the one with the "obsession"--to point people away from this nasty confluence of secret power.
In other countries, exit polls are used to check for fraud, not to CONFIRM the fraudulent results of an egregiously fraudulent and untrustworthy election system. It is unprofessional and corrupt to do otherwise.
TIA's analyses are a tool--one of the few we have--with which to divine how the illegitimate power of this unaudited 'TRADE SECRET' code vote counting is being used. Never in history have the powerful and the greedy and the murderous had a capability like this, and NOT used it. It was DESIGNED FOR FRAUD. There is no other reason to have such a system. Our job is to figure out how, where, and for what, is it being used, to expose it, and to fight like the devil to change it.
"TRADE SECRET" vote counting is part of a total picture of disenfranchisement and disempowerment of the American people--particularly of its most progressive voters--black voters and other minorities, Democratic voters, students, the poor, the workers, the vast majority--which includes many elements. The power of "organized money," as FDR put it, excludes huge swaths of the population from ever running for or holding public office, and from having any influence with political officeholders. It's a closed system in which huge amounts of money--billions of dollars--are poured into the pockets of rightwing billionaire "owners" of our public airwaves, for TV campaign ads--"owners" who simultaneously control all news and opinion in the country, and hire lackeys like Edison and Mitovsky to cover up for the other billionaires who rig the elections.
The citizens of this democracy cannot penetrate this system. We are excluded. And it's true enough that "TRADE SECRET" vote counting is as much a symptom of the corruption, as it is a cause, but to preach blindness to it ("dears, you have so many other problems, why worry about 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting with VIRTUALLY NO AUDIT/RECOUNT CONTROLS, in the hands by RIGHTWING BUSHITE corporations?"), and to try to lead people away from one of the few tools we have to understand it, can only be interpreted as encouraging stupidity. And that's how I interpret your constant message about exit poll analysis: you are encouraging stupidity.
Many kinds of disenfranchisement and disempowerment are at work, to produce a situation, for instance, in which 70% of the American people oppose the Iraq War and want it ended, and yet the war is ESCALATED, and billions and billions MORE of our tax dollars are poured into it. 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting is the 'coup de grace' of disenfranchisement and disempowerment. It is the final blow. It is the thing that makes our situation NOT SOLVABLE. It is the dam holding up all other reforms--for instance, the government's failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you have properly and genuinely elected office holders, disenfranchisement of black voters would be FORBIDDEN. It would be prosecuted!
Similarly, we can never achieve campaign finance reform in a system in which office holders do not owe their power to the voters, but owe it, rather, to the rightwing corporations who are 'counting' all our votes with secret code. That is the dam that must be broken. Neither is there anything we can do to break up the war profiteering corporate news monopolies who decide who gets news coverage, and who gets to be in debates, and what gets to be discussed (--and you will notice that "trade secret" vote counting, in the control of rightwing corporations, is NEVER discussed) until we can elect office holders, in open, transparent elections, who represent our interests.
You say, what about disenfranchisement of black voters? TO WHOM are you appealing? The Attorney General? Perhaps you think Bush's Department of Justice will do something about it. Or perhaps the Democrats who let it happen in Ohio in 2004, and then refused to support a challenge of those results by the House Black Caucus? One Democratic Senator stood up--Barbara Boxer. The others--the entire glitterati of our party--sat on their fatcat behinds and LET IT GO UNCHALLENGED.
Perhaps you are appealing to us--the powerless, the "trade secret" vote counting disenfranchised majority? What can WE do?
And that is my point. We can do nothing--we cannot get our laws enforced, on war, on torture, on injustice or anything else--until we have restored our right to vote with its inherent accompanying right to have our votes counted IN PUBLIC VIEW.
That is the blockade to change. It is the first thing that has to fall, before change can begin.
And we are lucky that that struggle is local--in state/county venues--where ordinary people still have some influence. Put the matter to Congress, and they amend the bill to their own purposes of war and endless looting of our treasury. They fucked us over to begin with--with the "Help America Vote for Bush Act": $3.9 billion to fast-track non-transparent electronic voting systems all over the country, at the same time--in the same month--as the Iraq War Resolution. The two things are RELATED. And failure to see this, and understand it, is blind stupidity.
OnTheOtherHand (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 06:11 AM
Response to Reply #20
22. wow, you are SO full of it
And you know it, or should know it, because it has been explained carefully and patiently. But you just can't let go of your master narrative in any respect.
Anyone with an iota of critical distance can see that if there is a plot to cover up the differences between exit poll results and vote counts, posting tabulations for each state the moment the polls close is not a great way to go about it.
Your unwillingness to think clearly about this issue disturbs me, and your propensity to take it out on Febble appalls me.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 07:07 AM
Response to Reply #20
24. Yes.
PP
You've worked for Edison-Mitovsky
Yes, I did. And, if you've ever read any further than my sig, you'll know why. I thought the exit polls in 2004 might be an indicator of massive vote theft. I tried to figure out whether or not this was the case. I figured out an analysis that might shed some light on it, using the raw (not "forced") data. I was contracted to do it. I concluded that the discrepancy between the exit poll and the official count was extremely unlikely to be due to mega-scale fraud.
I also investigated the impact of machine allocation strategy in Franklin County, Ohio on Kerry's vote, and concluded that Democratic (largely black) voters were significantly more likely to be disenfranchised by under-provision of voting machines than Republican voters. I also investigated the effect of push-button DREs on the Democratic, particularly the Hispanic, vote in NM, and I'm of the opinion that Kerry won NM.
But that's not very sexy, is it? Who cares about that retail-scale stuff. Who cares about the reality of election integrity in the US. Much more exciting to declare that Kerry won the popular vote, that votes were flipped at the speed of light. Much more comfortable to think the Democrats won.
Well to me, that attitude is as dangerous and anti-science as the attitude of creationists towards global warming. Reality matters more than a comfortable narrative.
If you want a decent government in America, you need to fix the system, and to fix the system you have to know what's wrong with it. That means engaging with facts, not fairy tales.
You could start here.
Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #24
26. In 1965, I spent the summer (white girl from Calif) in Alabama, getting my
car chased by bigoted white sheriffs because I was volunteering in the black community as a member of Martin Luther King's voting rights project. They followed me down a dark road, stopped me, another white girl and a black boy, and took out their rifles. The previous summer three civil rights workers had been murdered and buried on a dark road like that, in the neighboring state of Mississippi. In fact that's the reason I was there--my primary motive--to widen the target, to join with many other white students from the north, and to say, "You've got to kill all of us!"
Luckily for me and the friends who were with me, they were just trying to scare us, or possibly, since another Alabama sheriff's car showed up on that dark road and parked next to the first one, a plan to harm us got foiled. We were taken to the county jail and placed in a jail cell the likes of which I hope I never see again--absolutely filthy with vomit and piss. We spent the night cleaning the cell. It was a way not to be scared.
S.C.L.C. got us out the next day. We had been charged with "causing a fray"--a ridiculous charge. (Two white girls and a black boy in a black restaurant, eating hamburgers, was the crime.) Bullying. Intimidation. Harassment. Threats.
I spent four months altogether living with the fear that black citizens lived with then, every day of their lives--and many of whom still live with now, in different ways--never knowing from which direction the white bigots might strike, nor by what method, nor on what trumped up excuse. All over the right to vote.
I have been a passionate activist for black citizens' rights all my life. The long lines of black voters in Ohio made cry. This can't be happening again! But it was, and is--from the caging lists of Florida to the paucity of voting machines in black precincts in Ohio. It is no small matter to me. And yet I say it is a distraction, possibly a deliberate one, from the larger, more hidden reality. Black voting rights are already protected by law. The issue is enforcement. How have our officials gotten away with not enforcing the explicit law that I helped get passed, in 1965, protecting black voters from just this kind of disenfranchising activity?
The answer lay in the officials' smug assurance of impunity for their crimes against black and other minority voters. They are NOT beholden to the voters--to all of us. They are beholden to the election VENDORS, and to the extremely corrupt corporate/political establishment that put this egregiously non-transparent voting system in place everywhere in the country.
The larger reality is that we are ALL disenfranchised now. They might as well put a poll tax on all our heads. Billions of dollars for these machines that can flip an entire state's vote--one insider hacker, a few lines of code, leaving no trace, that's all it takes. It is designed not to be noticed. It is designed not to be non-transparent. These corporate profiteers lobbied relentlessly, and are still lobbying, for the most invisibility they can get: paperless touchscreens.
And election computers do operate at the speed of light. That's why it's called electronic voting! They dump your ballot into a box, to gather dust--99% to 100% of them never to be seen again--and turn your "vote" into electrons--that is, into practically nothing, and, in that highly malleable form, they tabulate the electrons with speed of light messages shooting around in the electronic aether, where, as physicists have shown, anything can happen. Particles appearing, disappearing, annihilating one another. Little bits of nothing twirling around commanded by "trade secret" code. And somehow we come out in a parallel universe where George Bush is still president.
Some Defense Department general was just testifying the other day about how vulnerable we are because of electronic networks! Yes, you can build some security into a system. But guess what? All of that has been neglected, and is rife with malfeasance, and outright lies and fraud, when it comes to our election system! It's porous to hacking, from inside and outside. ATM's, made by the same companies, have more security. Las Vegas slot machines have more security.
And why is that? Why so much malfeasance, lying and fraud--just for our election system security?
The new, reforming Sec of State in California just sued ES&S for $15 million for selling nearly a thousand uncertified (insecure, untested by the state) voting machines to five counties including San Francisco. How many times have they gotten away with this crap in states that don't have diligent secretaries of state (most of them)? Malfeasance and fraud are rampant, and have been from the beginning, when this system was rushed into place, all over the country, with no federal testing standards, and a federal commission that was told to "go slow" in creating them!
I am amazed at your apparent ignorance of the capability of this non-transparent electronic system. And it is not only non-transparent, the "trade secret" code is owned and controlled by corporations with very close ties to the Republican Party, the Bush/Cheney regime and/ far rightwing causes.
It is a set up for fraud. That is the reality. And that reality combines with the reality of what unelected officials can do to further cement their power, with caging lists, and Department of Justice political prosecutions, and massive domestic spying, and so on. To see reality, you must look at the whole picture, widen the lens, understand the inter-locking interests in stealing U.S. elections, and look at the FACTS of the system itself. What is it designed to do? Give us verifiable elections? Count the votes in public view? Invite maximum citizen participation and oversight? It is designed to do the opposite of these things--to hide the vote counting from public view, to avoid oversight, to put the public off, to pull everything behind closed doors.
Inter-locking interests. Take for example the initial funder and major investor in ES&S: rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals. Would he have an interest in twiddling the vote on a gay rights initiative? In having George Bush as President? In militarizing the country? ES&S is one of the Big Three--brethren to Diebold, the two corporations run by two brothers, and Diebold with a CEO who was a Bush/Cheney campaign manager and major fundraiser.
Gee, what would these guys do with the awesome power of "trade secret" vote counting?
Restrain themselves? Uh-huh. You are writing the "comfortable" narrative, Febble--the comfortable narrative that says all we have to do is restore black voting rights again and all will be well. We have a lot more to do than that, starting with the elimination of private corporations from our voting system, and that includes Edison-Mitovsky and their role of validating an inherently fraudulent vote counting system.
We have to insure that public officials are accountable to us, not to fascist corporations--including these fascist election theft corporations. Only then can black voting rights, and all voting rights, be secured--when we have officials who can prove that they were elected. There is hardly an office holder in the country right now who can do that. And the burden is on them. We don't have to prove fraud. They have to prove, up front, that they were elected. That is the democratic contract. Fraud must be presumed in this system, until proven otherwise by vote counting that everyone can see and understand.
And meanwhile we are forced to read the entrails--the little bits of information that we are permitted to see, what's left of our democratic system--to try to figure out what the hell they've done, how, where, and to what ends? TIA has been brilliant in pulling those little bits together, to try to divine how the system is working. We can't really "prove" anything, because a third of the ballots don't exist (by design) and 99% to 100% of the ballots that do exist are never counted (by design), and the code that tells us who won is a
Why rag on him? What interests are you serving to constantly show up in TIA threads, and try to dam up the rising tide of suspicion of electronic voting?
The numbers he's shown are interesting, in some cases compelling. They add to other evidence of inexplicable Republican, Bushite and pro-war, pro-corporate "wins." And I guarantee you that everyone who is interested in this evidence is also committed to black voting rights, and to fixing everything that is wrong with our election system and our country. Why are you trying to divide us? We who think that Kerry won are not fantasists. It's based on the best evidence we can obtain in a non-transparent system--and there is far more evidence than the exit poll analysis. It is not an "obsession." It is a conviction, based on evidence and also, and importantly, on wide focus analysis. (Would these corporations, having achieved the power to steal elections, do so? Or, how are they shoving an unjust war down the throats of the American people, 70% of whom oppose it?)
You want to narrow it down to a dry little discussion of statistics, where you are comfortable. I think us 2004-ers have a much wider view. Torture, unjust war, a huge and growing deficit, tax cuts for the rich--how did they keep all that going? It's not a matter of statistical methods or "proof," in a non-transparent system. It's a matter of why the system was made to be non-transparent. A people question. And those who have varying degrees of certitude from Kerry won by a landslide, to it's possible that Kerry won (given the system), understand and ask those wide lens people and system questions that are crucial to reform. Another one has to do with election officials' corruption--their stake in maintaining a non-transparent system, which may or may not be related to their participation in actual election fraud. Another: With the clear capability of untraceably stealing elections, why is it that these corporations permit some leftists get to elected? Is it because the voters can out-vote the machines? Or is it strategic smarts on the part of the fascists who run these corporations (--stealing just enough to get the job done, not being too obvious)?
The designed, lobbied-for non-transparency is FACT NO. 1. You have got to start with it. It cannot be shoved aside because you don't like TIA's methods, or disagree with his conclusions. His evidence exists in a context in which powerful and rich fascists have achieved the capability to easily steal elections, and have much motive to do so. You're coming from a very narrow "can you prove it?" point of view that excludes all the things that, say, Diebold, or Karl Rove, or Terry McAuliffe, or Chris Dodd, would wish to have excluded. All the things that point to means, motive and opportunity.
Elections are guilty until proven innocent. That's the democratic contract. They must prove transparently that they hold legitimate power, given to them by peoples' VOTES, not by the highly manipulable, riggable "electrons" in a "trade secret" code system.
Febble (1000+ posts) Fri Feb-08-08 05:31 PM
Response to Reply #26
36. OK, thanks for the detailed response. Here's mine:
Edited on Fri Feb-08-08 05:55 PM by Febble
I am not ignorant of this capability, although I consider your description hyperbolic. Not because I don't think people would do it if they could, but because I think you overestimate the wholescale nature of the kind of hack that could be done and not noticed. The checks and balances may not be enough (they certainly are not enough) but - dare I say it - a hack of that kind on that scale would show up in the exit poll data. And it doesn't. As I've explained in detail on many occasions. It's specifically what I went looking for in the RAW data, because I wondered whether the evidence was there. And it wasn't. What WAS there was strong evidence of selection bias.
So the thing is, PP, that it's not that I don't think that evil people would exploit the capability if they could, or even that I don't think that they might try to foist wholescale hackable technology on election officials if they could (although I have my doubts). It's that I think they couldn't and didn't. I think it is possible - even probable - that there was the odd deliberate hack. I think it is probable - to near certainty - that the machines are buggy and capable of systematically flipping votes. But I don't think it is remotely probably that several million Kerry votes were flipped to Bush in 2004 because if they had been, they would have shown up in the exit polls as a pattern by which precincts with electronic voting machines had a larger discrepancy in Bush's favor than precincts with non-electronic technology. And in fact the reverse was the case. And not only that, it would have shown up as tendency for Bush to do apparently better relative to 2000 in precincts in which the exit poll was greatest. And there was no such tendency. There is simply nothing in the RAW exit poll data to indicate massive vote theft - merely evidence of systematic selection bias of a kind for which there is also good independent evidence.
That's why I think that exit polls are a huge distraction from the many elephants in the room, which include the disenfranchisement of voters, especially black voters, the vulnerability of voting systems to tampering, and the lack of independent audits of voter-verifiable voting records.
PP
Gee, what would these guys do with the awesome power of "trade secret" vote counting?
Febble
Possibly steal an election. Possibly not. But only if they could, without it being apparent.
PP
Restrain themselves? Uh-huh. You are writing the "comfortable" narrative, Febble--the comfortable narrative that says all we have to do is restore black voting rights again and all will be well. We have a lot more to do than that, starting with the elimination of private corporations from our voting system, and that includes Edison-Mitovsky and their role of validating an inherently fraudulent vote counting system.
Febble
No. It's not what I said, and not what I meant. I don't trust anyone not to tamper with the vote, whether it is electronic or hand-counted. That's why I think you MUST at the very least have mandatory independent random manual audits of all ballots, with secure custody of the ballots at all times, and under public scrutiny.
PP
Fraud must always be presumed possible - that's why audits are so vital.
And meanwhile we are forced to read the entrails--the little bits of information that we are permitted to see, what's left of our democratic system--to try to figure out what the hell they've done, how, where, and to what ends? TIA has been brilliant in pulling those little bits together, to try to divine how the system is working. We can't really "prove" anything, because a third of the ballots don't exist (by design) and 99% to 100% of the ballots that do exist are never counted (by design), and the code that tells us who won is a
Why rag on him? What interests are you serving to constantly show up in TIA threads, and try to dam up the rising tide of suspicion of electronic voting?
Febble
Why rag on him? Because he is practising statistical voodoo, and making inferences that are simply invalid. And I do not believe any end, however noble, is best served by bad arguments, especially when they point away from the direction in which we should be looking.
PP
The numbers he's shown are interesting, in some cases compelling.
Febble
Not in my view. I have yet to see a compelling argument from TIA, and, interestingly, I have yet to see anyone actually MAKE TIA's argument for him. All I see is cheer-leading for his conclusions.
PP
They add to other evidence of inexplicable Republican, Bushite and pro-war, pro-corporate "wins." And I guarantee you that everyone who is interested in this evidence is also committed to black voting rights, and to fixing everything that is wrong with our election system and our country.
Febble
You may be right, but I am not convinced. You had a slam-dunk case for voter suppression in 2004, and I saw it squandered on the phantom of a stolen Kerry popular vote win. You had a slam-dunk case for mandatory independent manual random audits, and I saw it squandered by people who were convinced that electronic scale was so large-scale that random audits would be worse than useless. That argument was largely fueled by hyperfraud narratives deriving from the exit poll story.
PP
Why are you trying to divide us?
Febble
Actually, I'm trying to unite you. I'm trying to get you to join forces with the reality-based election integrity activists (including Greg Palast - did you read OTOH's quotation from Armed Madhouse?) in putting forward a coherent argument for election reform, instead of one that is undermined by bad statistical arguments for hyperfraud.
PP
We who think that Kerry won are not fantasists. It's based on the best evidence we can obtain in a non-transparent system--and there is far more evidence than the exit poll analysis.
Febble
Well, I haven't seen it. Not for vote-flipping. I might buy Greg Palast's argument that there was a Kerry majority's worth of voters who never got as far as the precinct if I could see the provenance of his numbers, but the evidence for vote-flipping on that scale is, AFAIK solely based on bad inference from the exit poll discrepancy. Sure there is evidence that Kerry was directly deprived of votes. I even produced some myself. But not for multi-million scale vote-flipping. If you can cite one piece of evidence for multi-million scale vote-flipping that is not derived from the exit polls I shall be impressed. But I haven't seen it, and the exit poll data are actually evidence against it.
PP
It is not an "obsession." It is a conviction, based on evidence
Fwbble
Well, the only argument, as I said, that I have heard are real anecdotes upscaled to millions by the exit poll story. I buy some of the anecdotes. I don't buy the upscaling. I think it is incorrect.
PP
and also, and importantly, on wide focus analysis. (Would these corporations, having achieved the power to steal elections, do so? Or, how are they shoving an unjust war down the throats of the American people, 70% of whom oppose it?)
Febble
That argument is circular: they would do it if they could is not an argument that they could. And the evidence suggests they didn't, possibly only because they couldn't.
PP
You want to narrow it down to a dry little discussion of statistics, where you are comfortable.
Febble
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I want to narrow it down to reality. I want to narrow it down to what the data actually show. Call it "dry little discussion of statistics" if you want, but it's no dryer than TIA's statistics, and, importantly, it's done right. TIA's arguments are fundamentally flawed, and lead him to conclusions that are contradicted by the data. This is not a small point.
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PP
I think us 2004-ers have a much wider view. Torture, unjust war, a huge and growing deficit, tax cuts for the rich--how did they keep all that going? It's not a matter of statistical methods or "proof," in a non-transparent system. It's a matter of why the system was made to be non-transparent. A people question. And those who have varying degrees of certitude from Kerry won by a landslide, to it's possible that Kerry won (given the system), understand and ask those wide lens people and system questions that are crucial to reform. Another one has to do with election officials' corruption--their stake in maintaining a non-transparent system, which may or may not be related to their participation in actual election fraud. Another: With the clear capability of untraceably stealing elections, why is it that these corporations permit some leftists get to elected? Is it because the voters can out-vote the machines? Or is it strategic smarts on the part of the fascists who run these corporations (--stealing just enough to get the job done, not being too obvious)?
Febble
I have no problem with people asking those questions. I asked them myself. It's how I got involved. But when I ask questions I want to know the answer. And the answer I found to the question as to whether millions of votes had been electronically flipped to Kerry was: vanishingly unlikely, given the complete absence of any correlation between either electronic voting, or electoral advantage to Bush and the magnitude of the exit poll discrepancy. It may seem like a dry little statistical point to you, but it pretty well deals a death blow to the supposition that the exit poll discrepancy arose from multi-million vote fraud, and actually makes it very difficult to envisage any scenario in which wide-spread vote-flipping on a scale to flip the margin could have possibly occurred.
PP
The designed, lobbied-for non-transparency is FACT NO. 1. You have got to start with it. It cannot be shoved aside because you don't like TIA's methods, or disagree with his conclusions. His evidence exists in a context in which powerful and rich fascists have achieved the capability to easily steal elections, and have much motive to do so. You're coming from a very narrow "can you prove it?" point of view that excludes all the things that, say, Diebold, or Karl Rove, or Terry McAuliffe, or Chris Dodd, would wish to have excluded. All the things that point to means, motive and opportunity.
Febble
I don't shove it aside because TIA is wrong, although he is. But I do conclude that however evil your government, they were either unable or unwilling to steal power through widespread electronic vote-theft. That's what the data is telling me. And it's not that I don't "like" TIA's methods - it's that they don't do what they say on the tin.
PP
Elections are guilty until proven innocent. That's the democratic contract. They must prove transparently that they hold legitimate power, given to them by peoples' VOTES, not by the highly manipulable, riggable "electrons" in a "trade secret" code system.
Febble
And there I pretty well agree with you. That's why I hate to see the case for reform undermined by fantasy arguments based on exit poll discrepancies. TIA is not the only culprit. Steve Freeman is worse IMO, because he trades on his academic credentials, whereas TIA lets his numbers speak for himself, remaining hidden in the shadows. TIA is also a heck of a lot more diligent, IMO.
But not less wrong.