It seems that Kerry won the 2004 election

Discussion in 'Politics' started by nirakar, Oct 25, 2005.

  1. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

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    "Other report data undermine the argument that Kerry voters were more likely to complete the exit poll interview than Bush voters. If this were the case, then one would expect that in precincts where Kerry voters predominated, the cooperation rate would be higher than in pro-Bush precincts. But in fact, the data suggest that Bush voters were slightly more likely to complete the survey: 56 percent of voters completed the survey in the Bush strongholds, while 53 percent cooperated in Kerry strongholds."

    http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/
    The above link is the more scholarly of the two and defeats the major explanations of why the exit polls were wrong. The lower link lays out the broader outline of the case for election fraud as the only explanation of the exit polls.

    http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html
     
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  3. marv Just a dumb hillbilly... Registered Senior Member

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    Oh! So exit polls determine the vote, not the ballots.........Hmmmmmmmm
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What ballots? Many votes were electronic. Some voters in Ohio chose Kerry, and the computer recorded Bush.

    Exit polls are generally very accurate, and serve as a check on the accuracy of the vote.
     
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  7. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    When people begin to believe polls and actually call them "accurate", I know that there's some real serious problems! ...most of it with the believers!

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Baron Max
     
  8. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    http://www.freepress.org/images/departments/997.pdf

    Conclusion

    These unexplained statistical anomalies in the vote count in critical states, such as Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, and in the national popular vote for the 2004 Presidential elections, indicate:


    a) Implausibly erroneous exit sampling especially for the national sample and for the most critical states where one would have expected pollsters to be most careful, and/or

    b) Election fraud and/or discriminatory voter suppression that resulted in a
    in an election result in Ohio, Florida, and other states, and in the national
    popular vote outcome, that is contrary to what would have occurred in a free
    and fair election.


    I conclude that, based on the best exit sample data currently available, neither the national popular vote, or many of the certified state election results, are credible and should not be regarded as a true reflection of the intent of national electorate, or of many state voters, until a complete and thorough investigation of the possibilities a) and b) above is completed.

    An election that is not “free” because of discriminatory suppression of the vote by not supplying an adequate number of voting machines, or by other means, could lead to an exit sampling discrepancy, as exit sampling is in part based on historic patterns of voter turnout. However the actual outcome in such an election would not be free or fair and would be less reflective of voter intent than exit sampling. Analysis of raw precinct level exit samples (which so far have not been released) should shed some light on where and when changes in the weights for raw precinct numbers, necessary to get state samples, were made.

    This raises the more general question of what form of vote counting is more reliable. Vote counting that is overseen by a highly partisan Secretary of State with a clear vested interest in the outcome with election equipment that leaves no audible paper trail and/or central tabulating equipment that has been shown to easily hacked, or vote counting by exit sampling firms whose major vested interest is in getting the prediction right.13 These “unfair” elections in the U.S. mirror the situation in the Ukraine where one party controlled the collection and tabulation of the vote. At a minimum one would have thought that the oldest democracy in the world would implement its elections with unbiased civil servants and a uniform code of regulations. “Neutral” election implementation was a key demand of the Ukrainian opposition.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Presidential-Election-2004.pdf

    In past election years the exit poll adjustments have been relatively minor while in 2004 they were, statistically speaking, huge: The National Exit Poll (sample size >13,000 voters) was off by 4.7 standard deviations. In other words there was approximately a one in a million chance of obtaining the 2004 exit poll results by random chance given the reported official election results unless there was error in the polling protocol or mistabulation of the vote).

    AND:

    University of Pennsylvania political scientist, Dr. Steven F. Freeman... established that the difference between exit polls and official results could not be chalked up to a statistical fluke. But he considered other possible explanations as well, and explained why they seemed unsatisfactory.

    Freeman concluded cautiously:
    Widespread assumption of misplay undermines not only the legitimacy of the President, but faith in the foundations of the democracy. ... The election’s unexplained exit poll discrepancies make fraud or mistabulation … an unavoidable hypothesis, one that is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies and the public to investigate.



    ...exit poll results differed from official results more in states with Republican governors, in states whose results were critical to the election, and in precincts that used certain vote counting technologies.
     
  10. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    2,671
    "...and in precincts that used certain vote counting technologies."
    Given the worry prior to the elections, and given the reports of people selecting Kerry, having "bush" appear on the confirmation screen, having to go back, start over, select Kerry, only to get Bush on the confirmation screen, etc,etc,etc....the whole thing was un-reliable.

    The lack of a paper trail on the DieBold systems was a bad idea. We should not have allowed the election to occur without paper printouts being saved in a lock-box portion of the voting machines.

    We should not allow the 2008 election to occur without paper printouts. No matter who wins, without a way to double-check the totals, how can we call our leaders duely elected?
    Software is way too easy to tamper with - and DieBold was already in trouble for having modified machine code after it had gone through security audits; not even the people considered 'Trusted' were trustworthy when it came to following the code audit laws. It was simply bad, from start to finish.

    Ignoring the political heat associated with the 2004 election, any anonymous election should be re-counted, to ensure that poll-takers aren't simply making the votes up. Computers do not somehow make the recount process unneeded. How often does your computer freeze? How many times does software have bugs in it? Why did we assume that computer voting machine were somehow so perfect that no paper record was needed?


    For God's sakes, the DieBold software was such that anyone with a copy of MS Office could step around the security on the vote databases, change the vote totals, and re-apply the security, without leaving a trace that the file had been touched.
    That's freakin' pathetic, people!
     
  11. Neildo Gone Registered Senior Member

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    5,306
    Heh, even a monkey was able to do it.

    - N
     
  12. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    Okay, so Kerry won the election. What now? What do y'all suggest that we do?

    Baron Max
     
  13. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    24,066
    I happen to be in the country. I could be the interim dictator (salary negotiable) until matters are solved.

    Or maybe it is time for you Americans to reflect on the necessity of having a head of state. Why not be your own head of state? Viva la progress and make yourselves head of state. The technology is there. Where is the willpower?
     
  14. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    2,671
    Continue to have Bush as a president, figure out areas of past elections that were unacceptable, and make sure that they don't happen again.

    To my own benefit or detriment, the country will be better off once we have a higher trust level of our own voting system (and in following, our elected leaders).

    and for anyone who things that Neildo is being funny, he's not:
    http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/2368.html

    Best spin ever: it doesn't matter that even a monkey could hack the machines, because "elections officials would know if a chimpanzee got into the voting machine room."
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    What should we do now?
    Independent auditing of the voting and counting process.
    Uniformity of voting and counting methods.
    Replace Bush with Gore now, then Kerry gets his 4 years, then the next election.
     
  16. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

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    Paper trail for every vote. Everybody sees a print out of how they voted and a matching print out goes into a box to be used in recounts of a suspect voting mchine.

    Only one type of voting machine in a state or at least correlations between voting machine types and the wealth of districts.

    The number of voting machines in a district should be proportional to the number of registerred voters.

    No voting machine shall be connected to anything by phone line. Nobody acsesses the voting machines software while the voting is taking place. Each voting machines vote is counted at the location where the votes where cast after the close of polls. Voting machines shall be sealed and nobody shall have acsess to the ability to alter their software until two months after the election. The vote totals and locations of each machine shall be posted on the internet so conspiracy theorists can locate which machines if any might need a paper trail recount.

    A five person per voting location randomly selected jury forced to serve jury duty just as the courts do should be selected to oversee their voting location. The government shall give one penny per voter to these voting location juries which they will then give to the exit pollers of their choice to help expand exit polling. This does not mean there will be exit polling at every location. Exit polling raw data incuding locations should be put up on the internet so that the conspiracy theorists can do their work.

    Some voting machines should be selected at random for paper trail recount and others should be selected for paper trail recount by another randomly selected jury of people tasked to review the findings of the parties, state government, poll workers, and conspiracy theorists and other amateurs.

    ....................................................................................................

    I am not sure that voting machines is really the way to go. I think a transparant internet voting system could be devised that would be hack proof and still maintain the voters secret ballot.
     
  17. mikasa11 Registered Senior Member

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  18. URI IMU Registered Senior Member

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    >> Okay, so Kerry won the election.

    This is the New World Order.... democracty is dead in almost all countries now, including Australia......

    The governments are now turning on the people....... world supression
     
  19. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

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    Mikasa11, I liked your link:

    http://www.freepress.org/department...ay/19/2005/1529

    If it's information is true it should be very big news. Where is the media? Ideally we would have a national media debate or a court trial in which the Bush haters try to back up the alleged facts in the linked article and the Bush lovers try to show that the alleged facts are incorrect and are not facts.

    This won't happen. I guess Sciforums will have to do because the media, both the Democratic and Republican politicians and most of the American people all suck at being willing to have the debate that needs to happen on every important issue in order for democracy to achieve it's potential.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2005
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    It could be too technical for the news. What's the sound bite? Where were they during 2000 when it was even simpler?

    Nirakar,
    perhaps the debate should include some parties other than just the Bush haters, but I guess that's just a typo.
     
  21. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

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    3,383
    It was either a typo or wishful thinking.
     
  22. dkb218 Banned Banned

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    793
    AND WE ALL JUST SIT BACK AND LET THEM...TELL THE SHEEP TO WAKE UP...

    The media is biased. Why would they want this story reported any more than the Bush Admin? Less we forget, the media is owned by big business. There is no such thing as a fair press anymore. The idea that major media is in business to keep power in check in no longer valid considering that they are part of the power in America.

    With the exception of people waiting to know what is going on around them and go out of there way to explore different sources of news, the average Americans views of the world are shaped by these media giants. Example, it was easy enough to find out that Suddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or that they didn't have WMD's or that Bin Laden want Suddam dead yet every major news source in the country ran with the Bush admin. version of the "facts". Why? Isn't there job to investigate the facts? Yet they just run with whatever comes out of the white house.

    It's no wonder that more people in other countries know more about America than most Americans. What we have here can not be considered news. It's better defined as propaganda.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2005
  23. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    23,053
    Interesting. But then, think about it ....how would you like it if "The People" actually ran things in the nations? I.e., would we have legislation via mass protests and demonstrations? Would we have places like sciforums attempting to tell us all how it should be?

    I'm just not so sure that I'd want "the people" telling me what I can and can't do! Besides, can "the people" ever actually agree on anything? Anything?

    Baron Max
     

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