http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/ukraine_11-24.html
Are you fucking kidding me?
How many times did we hear “exit polls are not accurate, blah blah blah”?
Now the White House is condemning the Ukranian election based partially on exit polling.
Ugh. Couple of things. First, you may very well have heard that exit polls are not accurate. If the person making the observation was informed, what s/he meant is that an exit poll is not exactly accurate – that we’re learning that they have similar margins of error to standard telephone polls. So an exit poll that calls a 2-point victory by the Star-Bellied Sneetches is not incompatible with an actual return which indicate a 1-point victory for the Plain-Bellied Sneetches. Here, the exit polls indicated an 11-point victory for the Star-Bellies and the Plain-Bellies “won” by three points. That’s large enough a difference to say “hey!” and suspect that one or the other is out of whack. See the distinction?
Additionally, of course, there are other indications. One of them is what people “know.” Our election was pretty sectioned off – if Bush ended up winning Greenwich Village, for example, pretty much everyone would know something funny was going on. But nationally everyone “knew” the race would be close and come down to small numbers in a few key states. And indeed, that’s precisely what happened. In Ukraine, all those guys calling for a national strike “know” what’s up. They could be wrong.
Even in the disputed election of 2000, the area of contention about votes was fairly small – a few thousand votes in a single state, maybe a few hundred in a couple others if either side had pushed it. Again, that’s not the situation in Ukraine.
That’s why many observers, and not just those from the United States, believe that the exit polls are part of a suite of reasons – not the sole reason, that the election was bad.
Calmer now?
If only they’d used Diebold machines then the Ukraine would’ve gone for Bush.
And oh, yeah, I forgot. I don’t think that Ukraine had modern touch-screen voting devices of the kind made by Diebold, which were a run-away, absolute, amazing success story here in the states.
Thanks for the reminder, Otto.
It’s enough that loyal support of your own country’s leader lets you dismiss any questions about the means by which he obtained office, manny, but that in no way obligates you to peremptorily dismiss them in other countries. Don’t debase yourself unnecessarily.
Here is the preliminary report from the International Election Observation Mission, a 15 page PDF.
Obviously, I don’t care to type it all in; I’ll merely submit this tidbit:
The exit polls are the least reason for concern with the honesty of this election.
Blow me. Now would be an excellent time for people from all sides of the aisle who believe in democracy and wish to see its buds flower across the earth to explain exactly, honestly and dispassionately the differences between US election controversies and those which have occurred in Venezuela and Ukraine. I am wholly unsurprised that you chose otherwise, as you are an opponent of democracy.
This has been news in the UK for days. Took the US long enough to notice but I kind of wish they hadn’t.
Colour me confused, but isn’t manhattan emphasising the questions of legitimacy in the Ukraine, rather than dismissing them?
I find it really depressing that US partisan stupidity is leading to the following reasoning being commonplace:
Similarly (observed in an earlier GD thread):
Sophisticated morons will of course only require the first and last stages of each. Why, oh why, must opinions be back-formed on the basis of which position which US political party takes? Is it really too much trouble to take an informed position based on the available facts? Come on, Elvis, stick your neck out - based on the facts such as those generously posted by This Year’s Model, do you think at this point that the Ukraine election was legitimate, or not?
Shhhh. You don’t want to get in between those two, Manny once knifed a guy for insisting that Certs was a candy mint…
Weren’t some of the US exit polls similarly inflated?
You’re welcome. For the record, I have absolutely no problem with touch screen voting, although my preference (since I’ve voted with it for the last several election cycles) is for optical scan. What I have a problem with is unverifiable touch screen voting that does not create a paper record of the voter’s choices. Your linked article talks about the reduction in ballot spoilage. It does not talk of any change in ballot counting accuracy. It can’t, because the touch screens left behind no ballots to count.
I was just making a bit of a joke but if you want to get all serious about the potential for corruption in touch screen “black box” voting, I’m sure that can be arranged.
I’m with you on that, Otto. How hard would it be, fer cryin’ out loud! The machine issues a paper reciept, tells you who you voted for. You examine it to verify, and then turn it over to a precinct worker, who puts it in a box. Box is sealed, put away, and if anybody wants to count the receipts and has some standing to do so, let him. Then the numbers the black box delivers and the numbers hand counted on those reciepts by God! had better match up!
Nah, I was just making a little joke of my own back. As it happens, I agree with you entirely. I don’t like Microsoft’s security for this purpose, I don’t like any process which doesn’t produce a paper trail (I’m in the financial industry, after all – if I have to make seven copies of something I’ve timestamped three times, everyone should have to!). The potential for abuse in how some of the these guys have designed their systems is just terrible.
That said, they worked this time. So that’s something of a slap to the crowd that hates the machines because a Republican runs the company that makes them as opposed to for more rational reasons.
I think the US noticed right from the beginning, but has been treading carefully. The problem is Russia backs and even campaigned for Yanukovych! (Can you imagine the uproar if Blair came to the US to campaign for Bush during the election?) Russia is trying to make itself once again a major power by absorbing Ukraine and some of the old Soviet republics into a very close federation. 37% of all infrastructure built during the Soviet times was in the Ukraine. How the west and particularly the US proceeds can have significant consequences.
Me too. It’s absolutely astounding. And every leftist argument on this board is rife with this logic.
Yawn.
Pathetic, even by your typical dimwitted standards.
I’m a leftist and I believe the election was illegitimate. So, fuck off, you coprophagic bottom-dweller. How’s that for leftist argument, you scum sucking denizen of the last 1/4 inch of warm beer in a bottle that’s been under the coffee table for a week.
The sun shines even on a dog’s ass once in a while.
And FTR: leftist <> liberal.