1 IN 128: THE ODDS EXIT POLLS IN 7 NON-PAPER STATES WOULD DEVIATE TO BUSH

1 IN 128: THE ODDS EXIT POLLS IN 7 NON-PAPER STATES WOULD DEVIATE TO BUSH

ASSUME A FAIR ELECTION:
THE ODDS ARE 1 OF 128 THAT FOR 7 NON-PAPER BALLOT STATES, THE FINAL VOTES WOULD ALL TREND AWAY FROM THE EXIT POLLS TO BUSH. NONE TO KERRY. ALL TO BUSH.

THEY DID JUST THAT.

FORGET ABOUT THE AVERAGE 5% MAGNITUDE OF THE MOVE. I DIDN'T COMPUTE THAT ONE. IF I DID, WOULD YOU BELIEVE ODDS OF 1 OUT OF A BILLION OR MORE?

BUSH DEFIED THE ODDS. VERY LUCKY OR VERY CROOKED.

THE PROBABILITY CALCULATION:
1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2*1/2 = 1/128

by any self-respecting christian

From 50 trials, the odds of finding >= seven that deviate in a single direction are much higher.

I think the correct statistical approach is to show a high correlation between states with touch-screen, and states without it. I bet we'll find an equally strong result.

ballot, the Exit Polls were right on.

In the seven without a paper trail, all favored Bush.
I suggest you review other threads and graphs on the subject.

the discrepancy with presence of e-voting is the more correct approach. I don't think the "1/128" observation holds water, statistically speaking. Only when it's combined with the presence/absence of e-voting does it become a strong conclusion.

You're assuming that the probability that non-paper voting methods are equally distributed between Bush states and Kerry states.

Wheteher these are Kerry states or Bush states is irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is who gained from deviations? All Bush.
The states which had a paper trail had ZERO deviation.
The states which had did NOT have a paper trail and in which fraud could occur (incl. FL and OH) all deviated for Bush.

I'm doing my own analysis (I just NEED to) and I want the raw numbers in all states exit polls as well as the time of day they were conducted. Thanks anyone!

No dice.

The ONLY reason exit polls exist is to give the media something to say between the time voting starts and the moment enough official results are released to make it clear who actually won.

It's in the interests of the media to keep as many people tuned in as possible, so all the ads for beer and feminine hygiene products and cars and banks will be seen and heard. That's how the media make money.

Exit polling is used in 3rd world countries to monitor voting so dictators can't claim they're holding elections and then stuff the ballot box. Exit polling had been accurate in the US for decades until 2000. In fact, the exit polling is what showed something wrong with the butterfly ballots. I don't know what happened as far as the voting, but we need an explanation as to why the exit polling isn't working. This election was believed to have gone to Kerry, the media had descended on Boston. It has nothing to do with leaks to bloggers or any other stupid shit the media is trying to sell. Exit polling is done for a reason, it's a science, and it's done to call elections. It failed and we have got to know why. There simply is no other way to make sure our elections are being run fairly and honestly.

Don't you see a difference between:

A) Exit polls conducted by an international NGO or Jimmy Carter to ensure that an election is fair, and

B) Exit polling done by a corporation for whom the best possible outcome of an exit poll is one that gives them journalistic license to say "Stay tuned to our exciting election night coverage!"

Exit polling had been accurate in the US for decades until 2000.

Well, I guess you got me on that one. News organizations have NEVER before failed to correctly call an election result based on polls.



:dunce:

(edited for spelling)

my knowledge of stat is only fair, but the 5% error on PRE-POLLS AND EXIT POLLS, together with your (1/2)**7, makes me believe the the 1-in-a-billion is closer to the truth than the 1-in-128

of the % moves to Bush (beyond the MoE).

Just considering the the DIRECTION of the move (all to Bush) has a probability under 1%.

We can compute the joint probability assuming the deviations beyound the MoE. It is minute (1 in a billion or less) that people would not believe it or understand it.

Honest question. If you read my other posts you’ll see this is not disrupting.

I’d like to know why you include WI and OH (and possibly MN and NH) in your category of states that have no paper ballot. People have posted that WI has paper ballots and MN has a verifiable paper trail. OH uses electronic voting in only a few counties. And Nader is asking for a hand recount in NH leading me believe that there are paper ballots there, too.

Please, disabuse me of these misconceptions, if that’s what they are.

I don’t have the ability right now to “just Google it yourself” (long story, internet access 2 minutes at a time).

tia

Sorry to do this, TIA, but maybe this will get your attention and compel you to explain what is a paper and non-paper state. I have reallocated the states to two categories I believe are just as defensible as yours and reanalyzed the data. As you can see, there is no appreciable difference in BushGain between the two categories.

Your hypothesis, as I understand it, is that there is a difference in BushGain between paper and non-paper states, between states that can possibly audit their vote and those that, at least in part, cannot.

So, while acknowledging that problems could still occur with optical scanners used on paper ballots, and the general fishiness of the exit polls, and while declaring that in no way should we stop investigating vote fraud in this election, I say to you:

Justify your partitioning of the states based on voting method or stop posting this data.

(Also disturbing in this reanalysis is that it shows a general trend in both categories of exit polls shifting toward Bush from the first to second batch of exit polls, a trend that continues into the actual tallies. This lends support to the idea that the exit polls slowly “corrected" to agree with “actual” results. I’m not endorsing that view or rejecting it because that's not a lot of evidence. I encourage people to look at the data themselves and partition the states how they see fit and reanalyze.)

Once again, sorry TruthIsAll, but you need to address these questions. People are sending your data out and using it as proof when it is not.

STATES USING VOTING THAT INVOLVES A PAPER BALLOT THAT CAN BE RECOUNTED

Exit Poll 2PM

State...Kerry/Bush/Diff

AZ......45/55/-10
LA......43/56/-13
MI......51/48/3
IA......49/49/0
NM......50/49/1
ME......53/45/8
NV......48/51/-3
AR......45/54/-9
MO......46/54/-8
IL......55/44/11
WI......52/48/4
MN......58/40/18
NC......49/51/-2
NH......57/41/16

avg.....50.1/48.9/1.14

Exit Poll 4PM

State...Kerry/Bush/Diff

AZ......45/55/-10
LA......43/57/-14
MI......51/48/3
IA......49/49/0
NM......50/48/2
ME......55/44/11
NV......48/49/-1
AR......45/54/-9
MO......46/54/-8
IL......55/44/11
WI......52/47/5
MN......54/44/10
NC......48/52/-4
NH......58/41/17

avg.....49.9/49.0/0.93

ACTUAL VOTES

State...Kerry/Bush/Diff

AZ......45/55/-10
LA......42/57/-15
MI......51/48/3
IA......49/50/-1
NM......50/50/0
ME......53/48/8
NV......48/51/-3
AR......45/54/-9
MO......46/53/-7
IL......55/44/11
WI......50/49/1
MN......51/48/3
NC......43/56/-13
NH......50/49/1

avg.....48.4/50.6/-2.2

BushGain from final exit poll: 3.13

STATES USING SOME PROPORTION OF UNVERIFIABLE VOTING

EXIT POLL 2PM

PA......60/40/20
OH......52/48/4
FL......51/48/3
CO......48/51/-3

avg.....52.75/46.75/6.0

EXIT POLL 4PM

PA......53/46/7
OH......51/49/2
FL......50/49/1
CO......46/53/-7

avg.....50/49.35/0.75

ACTUAL VOTE

PA......51/49/2
OH......49/51/-2
FL......47/52/-5
CO......46/52/-6

avg.....48.25/51.00/-2.75

BushGain from final exit poll: 3.5


SUMMARY

Comparison of BushGain from "Paper"/"Non-Paper" States: 3.13/3.5

I simply reallocated NC, MN, WI, and NH into the paper ballot category in the face of evidence that that is where they belong.

I think Faun Otter is right - it is suspicious. And the factor affecting discrepancies between exit polls and published vote tallies is whether or not the state was considered "in play." This is different from your hypothesis, though.

TruthIsAll, people like Will Pitt are taking your data and running with it and drawing conclusions - unjustified conclusions, IMO - about electronic voting. And your chart on so-called paper v. non-paper states may even be confusing people who are also looking at the Florida discrepancies (the ones that aren't using exit polls data, but expected turn-out), for which the division into optical scan and electronic counties is much more solid than your division into paper vs. non-paper. The theories between the two are totally different. Yours: fraud in electronic voting, optical scan ok. Theirs: fraud in optical scan, electronic voting ok. Now, who knows, maybe fraud could occur in different ways in different states - or even within a state. But I think you are confusing people with misleading information.

Your division into paper and non-paper states, to me, still seems picked exclusively to maximize differences between the two groups. You may have done the math right - but your assumptions are wrong.

Again - this doesn't mean I think no fraud occurred. But let's get our message straight.

EVote states with NO paper trail.

Sure, there is ALWAYS a mix of optiscan, etc.

I DID NOT CHERRY PICK. PERHAPS THE TITLE COULD HAVE BEEN MORE CLEAR,
BUT LET'S FOCUS ON THE FACT THAT THESE ARE THE SEVEN STATES THE REPUKES SAID WERE IN PLAY.

And they all deviated to Bush.

The other states did not (there was a paper trail). They were dead-on the money. And these were states that were of secondary importance to the Repukes.


Bush stole on optiscan and Evote in FL, but so big that there will NOT be a vote count.

In OH, there is also a mix of punch cards, evotes and paper ballots which are NOT being recounted.

I appreciate your efforts at precise definition.

But now YOU are fogging the issue by including ALL the states in your average and diluting the deviations, even though 3%+ is still beyond the MOE.

In fact, for 17 states, the smaller it makes it even worse for Bush because there is a greater exit poll sample size and a lower group MoE.

Let's focus on the deviations and the states and NOT on the method of voting.

Jeb Bush fixed the optical scanners in FL; he's been doing it for years.

I don’t know, TruthIsAll. I don’t want to keep badgering. But: it seemed to me that the major thrust of what you were saying, why it was novel, was that the wild discrepancies in exit polls only occurred in states with e-voting. We all know that they occurred in states that were “in play” and this is what is fishy and deserves investigation – but it’s not novel and you don’t need statistics to show that. The raw data are enough. So I think what you are saying now – “focus on the deviations in the states” – does not warrant all these threads with capital letters and so forth. It seems clear from other threads that the meme you are instilling is “exit poll discrepancies only occurred in e-voting states,” and as I think I showed, that depends on what you’re calling an e-voting state.

You said I was diluting the deviations by including all states in my average but this is just not true. I partitioned the data into two sets just like you – except that I switched some states to paper ballot (NH, MN, WI, NC) because it seems that they are paper ballot states. This did have the effect of raising the average BushGain in so-called “paper ballot states” and lowering it in “non-paper ballot states,” but it’s not a good reason to disqualify the analysis just because it doesn’t agree with your hypothesis.

And you said:
“In fact, for 17 states, the smaller it makes it even worse for Bush because there is a greater exit poll sample size and a lower group MoE.”

I’m not sure what this means, and I’m reasonably familiar with statistics.

Yes, 3% is beyond the normal margin of error for exit polling (from what I’ve read on DU), but so long as there is no big difference in BushGain between your two groups, you haven’t rejected the hypothesis that exit polls were just wrong across the board because of faulty modeling or whatever (not saying I believe that – just saying it’s a viable alternate hypothesis).

The media is only too happy to pick something up, report it, and then crush it like a bug to stifle further analysis.

State level precision is just not enough, but it’s a starting place. County level exit poll data would be ideal.

Also I believe North Carolina does belong under the "at least in part, cannot" audit category. Could be wrong, but that story regarding "lost votes":

http://www.hendersondispatch.com/articles/2004/11/06/news/opinion/opin01.txt

And this site giving a county breakdown of voting devices used:

http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/map.php?&topic_string=5estd&state=North%20Carolina

:shrug:

site and get this-THESE PEOPLE NEVER TESTED THE MACHINES. Then they certified them. What are the possible illegalities there?

I saw bar graphs on this discussion board over the weekend, but now I can't find them. It was on 1 page with 4 bar graphs that compared exit poll results with paper vs. machines results. Can some one reposted them or direct where I can find them?

Thanks!

Im not buying the conspiracy crap. We LOST for a huge shitbag full of reasons.

One of those reasons was not that the election was stolen. The longer you push the conspiracies and continue to ignore the substantive issues of why Kerry lost, the harder it will be to prevent a repeat.