Dear Mark,
In June 2006, Robert F. Kennedy,
Jr. wrote Was the 2004 Election Stolen? in
Rolling Stone Magazine. Farhad
Manjoo of Salon immediately attempted to refute the
article with this rebuttal. Farhad was himself debunked by many election researchers,
including Bob
Fitrakis, Paul
Lehto, Malcolm on Daily
Kos, Ron Baiman, Thom
Hartmann, Steven
Freeman, Michael Collins, Cliff Arnebeck, Mark
Crispin Miller and myself.
On the Mystery Pollster blog, you attempted to defend Farhad: Mystery
Pollster: Is RFK, Jr. Right About Exit Polls? I recently responded to your arguments with this rebuttal.
On July 4 you wrote about the Daily
Mark, you know better than that. The exit
pollsters do it all the time. In fact, it’s standard
operating procedure to force the exit polls to match the recorded vote. The matching process is a
stated policy of the National Election Pool, the mainstream media consortium
that funds the exit pollsters. Unlike the pre-election adjustments made by that
minor player R2K, forcing the exit polls to match the vote serves to camouflage
election fraud. But election analysts were not fooled by it.
You wrote:
By far the most troubling part of Ali's
response comes in these two sentences (left in their original form including
typographical errors):
“Regardless
though, to you so-called polling experts, each sub grouping, gender, race,
party ID, etc must equal the top line number or come pretty darn close. Yes we
weight heavily and I will, using the margin of error adjust the top line and
when adjusted under my discretion as both a pollster and social scientist,
therefore all sub groups must be adjusted as well”.
"Top line" in this context means the
results for the full sample rather than a subgroup, but it still unclear
exactly which "top line numbers" Ali is referring to. If he means the
results of attitude questions -- vote preference horse-race numbers, favorable
ratings, issue questions or possibly even the party identification question --
he comes close to admitting a practice that every pollster I know would
consider deceptive and unethical. "Scientific" political surveys are
supposed to provide objective measurements of attitudes and preferences. As
such pollsters
and social scientists never have the
"discretion" to simply "adjust" the substantive results of
their surveys, within the margin of error or otherwise. As a pollster friend
put it in an email he sent me a few minutes after reading Ali's statement:
"That's not polling. It's Jeanne Dixon polling."
Pollsters and social scientists do often adjust
their top line demographic results, and some will weight on attitude
measurements like party identification, to correct for non-response bias
(though party weighting continues to be subject of considerable
debate in the
industry). In either case, however, the adjustment needs to be grounded in
prior empirical evidence --
Mark, the NEP procedure of
matching to the recorded vote is statistically unsound and contrary to the
scientific method, regardless of whether the recorded vote is fraudulent or
fraud-free. That’s not polling. It’s Harry
Houdini polling.
In every election since 1968,
the recorded vote has deviated widely from the True Vote. In the eleven elections, the
Republicans won the recorded vote by 49-45%; the Democrats won the True Vote by
the reverse: 49-45%.
The very conservative 3% exit poll
margin of error was exceeded in 66 of 238 state
exit polls conducted for
the NEP in the five presidential elections from 1988 to 2004 - and 65 “red-shifted” in
favor of the Republican. Approximately six (0.025*238) should have been
exceeded assuming the elections were fair.
The probability that the margin of
error would be exceeded in 65
of the 238 state exit polls for the Republican is calculated using the Excel function
= BINOMDIST (65,238,0.025,FALSE)
= 1 in 43,729,463,568,632,100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!
The pollsters “tweaked” each of the 238 unadjusted,
pristine exit
polls to match
the recorded vote. The mainstream media presented contaminated state
and national exit poll demographics to explain how
The true intent of the electorate has been nullified though a combination of phantom voters and uncounted votes, the result of electronic vote-switching, ballot stuffing and spoilage.
To
illustrate, the 2004 and 2008 Final National Exit Polls are shown below. In
order to force a match to the recorded vote, the exit pollsters indicated that
110% of living 2000 Bush voters returned to vote in 2004 and 103% of living
Bush 2004 voters returned in 2008. These impossible return voter weightings had
the effect of reducing both Kerry’s and Obama’s margin by 13 million votes.
When a feasible turnout was used, Kerry won the True Vote by 10 million and
Obama won by 22 million.
Note
the use of preliminary 12:22am National Exit Poll vote shares in the 2004 True
Vote Model. They were used because the Final NEP shares were inflated for Bush
(along with the turnout of returning 2000 Bush voters) in order to match the
fraudulent recorded vote.
The
2008 True Vote assumes the Final vote shares. Evidently,
the NEP consortium does not want a repeat of the 2004 exit poll controversies
and have decided not to release the 2008 unadjusted and preliminary state and
national exit polls. Why don’t you lobby them for the data? It can’t hurt us,
although it might hurt them.
The following tables are from the Recursive True Vote Model (1968-2008)
|
2004 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Method: Final NEP (Forced to match) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
95% |
98% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recorded |
Cast |
Recorded |
Alive |
Voted |
|
Voter |
2004 |
Final National Exit Poll |
|
Voter % |
|
|
|
2000 |
2000 |
2000 |
2004 |
2004 |
|
Turnout |
Mix |
Kerry |
Bush |
Other |
Turnout |
|
DNV |
|
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
20.8 |
17% |
54% |
45% |
1% |
- |
|
Gore |
48.4% |
55.3 |
51.0 |
48.5 |
47.5 |
|
45.2 |
37 |
90 |
10 |
0 |
93 |
|
Bush |
47.9% |
51.8 |
50.5 |
47.9 |
47.0 |
|
52.6 |
43 |
9 |
91 |
0 |
110 |
|
Other |
3.8% |
4.0 |
4.0 |
3.8 |
3.7 |
|
3.7 |
3 |
71 |
21 |
8 |
98 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Margin |
|
Total |
|
111.2 |
105.4 |
100.1 |
98.1 |
Total |
122.30 |
Share |
48.5% |
51.1% |
0.4% |
-2.6% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
59.3 |
62.5 |
0.5 |
-3.2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recorded |
Share |
48.3% |
50.7% |
1.0% |
-2.5% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
122.3 |
59.0 |
62.0 |
1.2 |
-3.0 |
|
2004 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Method: True Vote |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
95% |
98% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
True Vote |
Cast |
Recorded |
Alive |
Voted |
|
Voter |
2004 |
12::22am National Exit Poll |
|
Voter % |
|
|
|
2000 |
2000 |
2000 |
2004 |
2004 |
|
Turnout |
Mix |
Kerry |
Bush |
Other |
Turnout |
|
DNV |
|
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
22.6 |
18% |
57% |
41% |
2% |
- |
|
Gore |
50.3% |
55.8 |
51.0 |
53.0 |
51.9 |
|
51.9 |
41 |
91 |
8 |
1 |
98 |
|
Bush |
46.0% |
50.9 |
50.5 |
48.4 |
47.4 |
|
47.4 |
38 |
10 |
90 |
0 |
98 |
|
Other |
3.7% |
4.1 |
4.0 |
3.9 |
3.8 |
|
3.8 |
3 |
64 |
17 |
19 |
98 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Margin |
|
Total |
|
110.8 |
105.4 |
105.3 |
103.2 |
Total |
125.74 |
Share |
53.5% |
45.1% |
1.3% |
8.4% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
67.3 |
56.7 |
1.7 |
10.6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recorded |
Share |
48.3% |
50.7% |
1.0% |
-2.5% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
122.3 |
59.0 |
62.0 |
1.2 |
-3.0 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Error |
-10.9% |
|
2008 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Method: Final NEP Forced to Match |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
95% |
97% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recorded |
Cast |
Recorded |
Alive |
Voted |
|
Voter |
2008 |
Final National Exit Poll |
|
Voter % |
|
|
|
2004 |
2004 |
2004 |
2008 |
2008 |
|
Turnout |
Mix |
Obama |
McCain |
Other |
Turnout |
|
DNV |
|
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
17.1 |
13% |
71% |
27% |
2% |
- |
|
Kerry |
48.3% |
62.2 |
59.0 |
56.1 |
54.4 |
|
48.6 |
37 |
89 |
9 |
2 |
87 |
|
Bush |
50.7% |
63.1 |
62.0 |
58.9 |
57.2 |
|
60.5 |
46 |
17 |
82 |
1 |
103 |
|
Other |
1.0% |
1.2 |
1.2 |
1.2 |
1.1 |
|
5.3 |
4 |
66 |
26 |
8 |
451 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Margin |
|
Total |
|
126.5 |
122.3 |
116.2 |
112.7 |
Total |
131.46 |
Share |
52.6% |
45.6% |
1.8% |
7.0% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
69.2 |
59.9 |
2.3 |
9.2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recorded |
Share |
52.9% |
45.6% |
1.5% |
7.3% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
131.5 |
69.5 |
60.0 |
2.0 |
9.6 |
|
2008 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Method: True Vote |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
95% |
97% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
True Vote |
Cast |
Recorded |
Alive |
Voted |
|
Voter |
2008 |
Final National Exit Poll |
|
Voter % |
|
|
|
2004 |
2004 |
2004 |
2008 |
2008 |
|
Turnout |
Mix |
Obama |
McCain |
Other |
Turnout |
|
DNV |
|
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
16.4 |
12% |
71% |
27% |
2% |
- |
|
Kerry |
53.5% |
67.3 |
59.0 |
63.9 |
62.0 |
|
62.0 |
47 |
89 |
9 |
2 |
97 |
|
Bush |
45.1% |
56.7 |
62.0 |
53.9 |
52.3 |
|
52.3 |
40 |
17 |
82 |
1 |
97 |
|
Other |
1.3% |
1.7 |
1.2 |
1.6 |
1.6 |
|
1.6 |
1 |
66 |
26 |
8 |
97 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Margin |
|
Total |
|
125.7 |
122.3 |
119.4 |
115.9 |
Total |
132.31 |
Share |
58.0% |
40.3% |
1.7% |
17.8% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
76.8 |
53.3 |
2.2 |
23.5 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recorded |
Share |
52.9% |
45.6% |
1.5% |
7.3% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vote |
131.5 |
69.5 |
60.0 |
2.0 |
9.6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Diff |
|
|
|
Error |
-10.5% |