Please note. I posted this yesterday before realising that some gremlins had gotten into the data. I have now fixed it up however and the conclusions are similar... with the exception of New York. Bush's massive gains in NY can now be seen in their proper light...http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00270.htm Scoop Images: 2004 Exit Poll "Red Shift" As Seen In Vote Numbers
By Scoop Co-Editor Alastair Thompson with DUer Ed ShalomThe following analysis was sent to Scoop as a response to the Scoop article
" Complete US Exit Poll Data Confirms Net Suspicions"concerning the discrepancies between the 2004 US exit polls and the Presidential election's actual results. The exit polls showed Democrat John Kerry winning the election comfortably, but the actual election recorded Republican President George Bush winning by over 3 million votes.
Democratic Underground forum member Ed Shalom decided to illustrate the observed State by State "Red Shift" (the difference between the US 2004 General Election exit polls - conducted by Edison Mitofsky - and the actual results), in terms of actual numbers of votes rather than simply as percentages.
As some US States have considerably more voters than others this image enables the reader to view where and how many votes were picked up by George Bush over and above what he was expected to receive in the 4pm exit polls.
The numbers are obtained simply by multiplying total Presidential votes cast per state by the "red shift" percentage.
When presented in this way the data shows a remarkable conclusion, three of the four biggest vote "red shifts" occurred in the three battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Notably the two giant states in terms of Democratic Party vote bookend the series with New York showing the biggest gain in Bush vote numbers vs the exit polls and California showing the biggest vote loss.
In New York Bush picked up 24% more votes than he did in 2000, or 544,973. California is one of a tiny handful of states where Bush did not gain votes in comparison to his 2000 poll, in the initial count he actually lost 34,000 votes..
Coincidentally Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio were also the three states addressed in the academic paper
"The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy" by Dr Stephen F. Freeman. In this paper Dr Freeman discusses the use and methodology of exit polls extensively. He concludes that the odds of the level of variation from exit polls to actuals occurring in these three states as did so was 250 million to one. (note: Dr Freeman has agreed with critics of his report that this may overstate the case a little, but the odds of this occurring remain very very low and statistically speaking near impossibility.)
Dr Freeman ends his report saying:
"Systematic fraud or mistabulation is a premature conclusion, but the election's unexplained exit poll discrepancies make it an unavoidable hypothesis, one that is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies, and the public to investigate."
To date no major US mainstream media outlet (with the sole exception of Keith Olbermann's Countdown show on MSNBC) has addressed the exit poll issue in spite of the fact that the data used in the exit polls was commissioned by them.
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THE GRAPHS & DATA
The 2004 Exit Poll – Bush "Red Shift" In Percentage Terms
The 2004 Exit Poll – Bush "Red Shift" In Terms Of Pure Vote NumbersTo view the data for this second graph in tabular form see…
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00270.htm