I wasn’t implying there isn’t room for disagreement on the matter; what there isn’t room for (at least I’ve never allowed room for it) is the sniggering* condescension displayed by the likes of Bricker, Shodan, et. al at mere mention of the very real possibilty of foul play. I don’t know, perhaps they feel empowered now that their man’s ostensibly been declared the winner. But it’s easily as obnoxious–if not more so–coming from conservative Dopers as it is coming from liberal ones.
*I’m aware that I used this adjective in my previous post as well–let’s face it, it’s a great word
I’ll agree that sniggering is gauche.
Re: possibility of foul play – one man’s “very real” is another man’s “microscopic”.
Do you know who owns the Washington Times?
No, this has been documented with hard numbers. I’ll produce the cites if you’re really interested.
What about the skew?
I think you misread it. Zogby is referring to the impossibility of the exit polls deviating to that extent due to fraud or incompetence. Here’s the next paragraph:
According to Zogby, it would have required “wrong sampling in wrong areas throughout the country,” or the purposeful manipulation of data to obtain exit poll results so significantly different from the official totals. He viewed neither as a possibility.
Yeah, if you’re talking about penis size 
If you want to argue faulty methodology, go to it. As it stands, it’s just dismissiveness.
I most certainly do – that doesn’t get commondreams.org off the hook. I lumped CD with WT and DEBKA in my question because of slant and journalistic standards, not because of liberal/conservative affiliation.
Please do – extra credit if they are from major media outlets. But remember: simple reports of long lines in minority precincts won’t be sufficient. Specific reports that in Precinct X there were half the number of polling machines as there were in 2000 would be more persuasive.
(Thought: are the newer voting machines more expensive than the old ones? Maybe a district could afford 12 old machines in 2000, but only 6 new ones this year? But then people should be able to get in and out of the booth faster with the newer machines, so it might all even out.)
What about the skew?
Do you mean that when Zogby said “fraud” he meant only exit-poll fraud and not ballot-box fraud? If so, that makes even less sense, because he can’t definitively say fraudulent exit polling has some limit on how far the figures could be moved.
Our standards of satisfaction are just different. I’m looking for stronger sources of info is all.
Not that this is the only reason I feel like fraud was highly unlikely, but what strikes me is that well-documented presidential election fraud is too big a story to cover up. If something was there, major media outlets would be running with it. I know mainstream media doesn’t give 100% of the picture all of the time, but a scandal like this would be too big to pass up.
I stated this too strongly – it is, in fact, clear to me that localized shenanigans may have kept people from voting (e.g. flyers telling people that cops would be at the polls to arrest people with unpaid parking tickets, etc.). I am focusing more on fraudulent counting accusations based on exit poll vs. ballot box discrepancies, and on accusations of deliberate underappropriation of polling machines in minority districts.
You want to compare the “journalistic standards” of Craig Brown to the Rev. Moon? I’m willing, but it’s way OT.
You mean like this?
This is from a public hearing. Want to actually hear it? Here.
There are at least 27 lawsuits in Ohio alone (Confirmed by Blackwell himself in the Washington Times).
Moritz Law School has a page full of docs for various cases.
Here’s the House Judiciary request to the GAO (sorry, it’s a pdf).
There’s more out there, for Ohio and several other states, if you’re looking for it. But I understand that someone who is satisfied with the results will be less inclined to do the legwork and reading.
I think you’re still missing the point. But as I said earlier, it’s fruitless to expect “definitive” statements about the exit polls as long as the raw data and methodology is unavailable. AFAIK, this won’t be released publicly for nine months, unless you want to purchase it.
This isn’t a court of law, it’s a messageboard. We’re speculating with the info available so far. Partisanship aside, either you like to speculate, or you don’t. If you don’t, then why bother to post?
It’s only been two weeks. It took three years to break out Watergate.
A (potential) scandal like this is too big to run with prematurely. Nobody in MSM wants to be Dan Rather. But, you don’t think they’re following the blogs and net news? Who broke the “memogate” fiasco? It wasn’t MSM, was it?
Well, I’m not sure how credible they are but Fox has started to report. It seems in some ways as if they are wanting to jump right on it to discredit it, but even so they are acknowledging both that there are a lot of people concerned and also that some people who are NOT internet fantasists still believe we have some significan issues that need to be addressed. It’s interesting that they seem to release their story about the same time as the UC Berkeley and Bev Harris’ incidents in Fla, but they don’t mention either of them.
[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138753,00.html](Fox Article)
Did we ever REALLY get a good answer on why a Fla county in the 2000 election recorded NEGATIVE 16,000 or so votes for Gore? I never saw a good explanation.
In any event, if what Bev Harris alleges in Volusia COunty is actually what is happening - what is the “everything’s on the up and up” explanation?
Trying again for the link:
One stop cite source:
Voters Unite! has a database of reported problems, state-by-state, type-by-type, all linked to a media source.
Freeman demonstrated that the outcome as it was reported was a statistical impossibillity. That, my friend, is extraordinary evidence that this was not just a set of systematic errors. I have no direct evidence of fraud, but I can’t think of any other hypothesis that accounts for all the facts. Can you?
You folks who are dismissing this as conspiracy crackpottery are utterly full of shit until you can prove that Freeman and his analysis – which are steadfastly scientific – are dead wrong.
From: http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html#appendixA
Comment from private email of (laughable) programmer of Diebold’s touch-screen voting software advising how to sneak past the examination of the official software tester, Metamor:
We as a nation really need to find, tar, and feather the officials who wrote such a ridiculous “contract” with Deibold -AND- the worthless junior programmers who wrote such excremental code. (Some details of the utterly juvenile, tenth-rating programming of the voting software can be found here: US voting system vulnerable to fraud)
Bull. All Freeman proved was a mismatch between the polls and tally. There is no proof or evidence one way or another as to WHY there is a mismatch.
The rabid anti-Bush crowd thinks it’s either a conspiracy or a collection of individuals deliberately tampering with the tally. There is no evidence of that. This case is a mountain of feathers, looks big, but it’ll blow away with a stiff breeze. Find one rock, one solid piece of evidence showing direct tampering with the vote, just one.
I don’t want to hear about voter suppression, parking tickets, or bad log books. We’re looking at a mismatch between exit polls and vote tally. Unless the exit polls are capturing people who were didn’t vote, these issues are not relevant to Freeman’s analysis.
Show me the one case where the vote tally was communicated up the chain incorrectly due to the deliberate actions of an individual attempting to alter the final tally. That is called ‘evidence’.
Statistical anomalies are also called ‘evidence.’ Or do you not believe in DNA evidence?
Is this a necessary component of your argument? Is this really a partisan issue? Really?
So what happens when “your guy” loses? Or you change your mind about “your guy” and then you can’t get rid of him?
Try taking the longer view: As long as electronic voting schemes don’t have 100 percent voter verifiable paper trails, the losing side is going to be able to claim fraud. And they might be right. We’ll never be able to know for sure.
Barring the discovery of “extraordinary” evidence, we’ll never know for sure if there was fraud or not. We won’t know.
Why would you accept that level of uncertainty when it’s avoidable?
Yes, evidence of something. Not evidence supporting everybody’s individual pet theories, of which there seem to be dozens. What is it that caused this particular anomaly? I don’t know. Neither do you. Neither does Freeman. There is absolutely positively NOTHING that conclusively points to any particular cause. Of course, that won’t prevent people from foaming at the mouth over fraud, blaming everyone from Bush to Rove to Diebold’s CEO to every republican who worked the polls.
BTW, Bush isn’t my boy. I didn’t vote for him, didn’t want him as my next president, but I’m sick and tired of the whining. I had to listen to 4 years of that garbage already. Prove something.
It has been proven that we don’t have all the answers yet. That takes time. How about you hold your water instead of muddying the waters with your irresponsible talk of “The rabid anti-Bush crowd”?
Thank you annaplurabelle and the rest for continuing the fight against ignorance despite the ingratitude you have received here. I, for one, hope you will continue. As should all who care about the truth.
BTW, Kerry isn’t my boy. I didn’t vote for him, didn’t want him as my next president, but I’m sick and tired of the whining. I had to listen to 4 years of that garbage already.
Let’s say I have first hand evidence of fraud (hot and hard, just the way you want it).
Where should I go? Who should I talk to?
For the sake of argument, let’s say I live in Ohio, and I decide to go to the FBI:
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/Documents/ExitPoll.pdf
(read bottom page 15, top page 16)
Cheesesteak: You’re in NYC? If you have even an inkling of how dirty politics can be (just based on your location) you should be ashamed of yourself for posting this smack-talk.
2sense: Thanks. But I don’t have any cred here, so it’s really no big deal for me. I’m here to pick brains (That’s right, you heard it here first: I was ignorant, and the SDMB set me free!).
Funny that they ask for cites and you give them cites and they don’t come back with a reply.
Funny that so many of the big brain/high cred people here are avoiding this issue…
Maybe freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Maybe we’ll get a sprinkling of threads on the subject in the run-up to the midterm elections in 2006 (just like the run-up to 2004).
Maybe pigs can fly…
For anyone who wants a tinfoil fix:
Forget Rove (for the time being), and think Jeb.
Some other names to look for (once the pesky “hard evidence” hits the MSM):
Accenture, Election.com, Osan Ltd.,…
Just my “pet theory” mind you…
When you get some evidence, be sure to let me know. The fact that the tally didn’t match the exit poll is something anybody could see, WHY is the part of this that needs evidence. You just keep saying that the numbers don’t match, and expect that to suffice.
Ditto. Shoot me a PM when there is proof of widespread, more-than-usual hanky-panky.