Actually, Manjoo replaces the "rBr" nomenclature with a new label: "exuberant Democratic responder." In the past, I have referred to this idea as the "chatty Dem" theory. By whatever name, this nonsense is hardly new -- in fact, it's just another variant on the official explanation of the exit poll disparity which we've been hearing since day 1.
Manjoo is peddling horseshit, of course. Use your common sense: Are any Republicans of your acquaintance shrinking violets? Turn on your radio: Do the voices of reaction sound even slightly embarrassed or cautious?Democrats are the ones who have been cowed into silence by the violent brownshirts of the right.
If the "eDr" theory holds water, then why were Democrats so notably "exuberant" only in "purple" states? And why were exit polls accurate in this country until the ascension of the Bush dynasty? Why are they still considered extremely accurate in Europe?
If you look carefully at the work of Mitofsky and Liddle, you will see that their theories accept as a given the proposition that the count was accurate. How can we accept an explanatory scenario from someone who stipulates the very point under dispute?
If you want links to some good responses to Manjoo, visit this Democratic Underground thread. As one poster notes:
If you've read all the articles that Farahd Manjoo has written on this subject, the 180 Degree turn he's done is enough to make your head explode. First, he writes articles prior to the election on how the black box voting machines are rigged - and then he takes the anti-fraud side to his post election articles. It's ridiculous.I may respond to Manjoo's spew at greater length later. For now, let us simply remind ourselves of the basics:
The Republicans have done everything in their power to insure that our voting machines have no paper trails. As demonstrated in many previous posts (both on this blog and elsewhere), the vote tabulator companies are run by either crooks or theocratic fanatics. These companies have often bribed officials to use their easily-hacked machines.
Those facts alone prove vote fraud. We need no further evidence. If Republicans do not commit vote fraud, then why do they not allow paper trails? If someone using a fake identity asks for your credit card information, do you need to gather more evidence before you conclude that he hopes to rob you?
According to Manjoo, anyone who dares to raise these common-sense issues deserves to be damned as a wild-eyed lefty. In the past, Salon itself has been on the receiving end of such derision. How dare they lob similar accusations at those who do the progressive work Salon now prefers to ignore?
Why does Salon no longer publish work by investigative writers such as (say) Murray Waas? Why do they waste cyber-ink on frauds like Manjoo?
Ask yourselves: When was the last time Salon published a worthwhile, cutting-edge investigative piece about politics?
I STRONGLY urge Salon readers to unsubscribe.
And do not go gently. Make clear that you will not pay Salon one more dime until they understand that the Republican party has become just as dangerous as the Nazi party circa 1934. (NEVER apologize for making justifiable comparisons to the Nazis.) Inform Salon that their enterprise has no value to you until they agree to fight the neo-con menace, and until they announce that they will cease publishing their propaganda.
Michael Ledeen, at the beginning of his career, used to publish in left-friendly venues. (You can, for example, spot his byline in old issues of Playboy.) I wonder if that history will repeat itself...
28 comments:
oh god. i've followed manjoo's crappy coverage of this mess for the duration, and i canNOT believe he is so freakin' STUCK. i also canNOT believe that salon has not put another writer on this story.
back after his first contribution on this in november, i wrote a rebuke they published. then they had a short 'duel' between him and palast. clearly manjoo thought he'd won; the guy is so damn clueless. i responded to him personally on his next piece, and he wrote back the most arrogant and rude taunt that he bet nothing anyone could say would change our minds, "would it, would it?" why would i respond to that?
had i, though, i would have noted that we of the persistent concern for our democracy, in addition to the abundance of evidence for fraud in 04 and of course in 00, there is the overwhelming confirmation in this administration of corruption, malfeasance, and disdain for the democratic process and the constitution. as a scientist, i could call that a theory, but it serves as fact, and a fact that predicts future behavior. hell, when the sun comes up daily in the east, what would be the point is pursuing evidence to the contrary to predict tomorrow morning's direction?
so i've tried since january to unsubscribe, but your readers need to know, this is no small task. emails go unanswered, there is no fax number that i can find, and the customer service number is a voicemail. the lady's voice was lovely as a lullaby, but her name had more syllables. i asked her to call to discuss a matter of concern, but a week later now, nothing.
truly irritating, too, as i've been a member for years and really loved them at first. i saw to it that several of my friends signed on when they almost went under a couple of years ago, but now i'm embarrassed that i did. personally, i want my money back.
i just sent them yet another irate note that was more an exercise in catharsis than any real expectation of relief. i honestly don't get it, but all i can figure is that manjoo somehow convinced the editors that he was on top of this story, and they bought it.
god help us.
ps.
found salon's fax number:
415 645-9204
Joseph, my responses:
1) Actually, Manjoo replaces the "rBr" nomenclature with a new label: "exuberant Democratic responder."
That's a lie. I never say those words. You just made that up. And it's pretty astonishing that you do so in the context of questioning my ethics.
2) Are any Republicans of your acquaintance shrinking violets? Turn on your radio: Do the voices of reaction sound even slightly embarrassed or cautious? Democrats are the ones who have been cowed into silence by the violent brownshirts of the right.
Saying it's horseshit doesn't refute the studies done by pollsters showing this to be the case (studies cited in my article). Can you offer any response to those studies? And can you explain why exit polls -- not only in 2004 -- consistently show a Democratic tilt? You should be able to support your calling it horsehit. You do none of that here. (And if your response is that you can't believe the pollsters' studies because they're corrupt, tell me why you believe their polls.)
3) And why were exit polls accurate in this country until the ascension of the Bush dynasty? Why are they still considered extremely accurate in Europe?
That's wrong. You're making that up. Exit polls showed Clinton winning bigger than he did in 1992 and 1996. The only reason people didn't cry about it was that those races weren't close, and Clinton still won. As Mark Blumenthal points out, you can see proof of this in the movie "War Room." See how they figured based on the exits Clinton would win a landslide. Of course, he did not.
Don't lie to your readers about the history of exit polling, Joseph. 2004 was not the first year the exits were off.
4) If you look carefully at the work of Mitofsky and Liddle, you will see that their theories accept as a given the proposition that the count was accurate. How can we accept an explanatory scenario from someone who stipulates the very point under dispute?
Again, you're wrong. You're either lying or mistaken. Liddle does not accept this as a given, Joseph. You just made that up.
5)According to Manjoo, anyone who dares to raise these common-sense issues deserves to be damned as a wild-eyed lefty. In the past, Salon itself has been on the receiving end of such derision. How dare they lob similar accusations at those who do the progressive work Salon now prefers to ignore?
That's silly, Joseph -- I never suggest that. My article says only this: The evidence showing that the exit polls were off is pretty good. I say nowhere that Republicans are incapable of fraud; that raising the issue of fraud is crazy; or that we shouldn't reform the election system.
In fact the reason to refute the refutable theories of fraud is precisely to push forward reform. Salon has been pushing for election reform since the 2002 election. Search for "salon diebold" in Google. You'll see were were one of the first major outlets to write about that company and the dangers of electronic voting machines. I'm even one of the good guys in Bev Harris's book, for Pete's sake.
But if you want real reform you need to do it in a bipartisan way; you're not going to get any moderates on board by yelling, without evidence, that the last election was stolen. Which is exactly what you're doing in this post (with, as I've shown, not even the facts to back you up).
--Farhad Manjoo
I would say that statistical examination of the polls is beside the point, because it does not tell us what we need to know, and because the public, probably wisely, does not take it all seriously. What we need to know is what's in the machines, what's going on in the offices of all the Katherine Harris clones, etc.
The Ukraine example does not demonstrate that we should care greatly about exit poll results. The protests would have gone ahead there even if the exit polls had come out differently. It was Bushists bringing up issues such as exit polls that made Ukraine related.
I do not agree that election reform needs to be done in a 'bipartisan' way, unless perhaps the Bushist Arbeiterspartei breaks apart and spawns a new Republican Party. It is simply the case that the Bushist Arbeiterspartei will not engage in any good faith election reform. If I prove wrong on this, knock me over with a feather.
Hmm, I probably shouldn't have said 'any' good faith reform. Let's change that 'any' to 'significant'.
I've been knocked over by feathers before, of course, but a person has got to try to predict things, when deciding what to do next. I would not want to deal with the Bushists any more than they want to deal with me.
Manjoo's abrupt change makes it sounds like he has been bought.
"Bought and paid for" is a bright thread running through the journalistic field these days.
A broad study of journalists (and "journalists") who have shown a right turn from previously held viewpoints might enable us to develop a picture of the Bush Leaguers', shall we say, "pattern of investments" in having the news their way? Many of the signposts are already public; others might be deduced from their writings.
Could help us understand just how deep this nasty phenomenon goes.
Of course that wouldn't help us glimpse the outlines of the broader press puppydog abjectness before the Bush propaganda machine. But that's already pretty visible.
And Salon, it seems obvious, should be included among the organs (excuse me) of the press that may well have been nudged, with money, access, or otherwise, over the line.
What a shame! They used to be incisive and hard-hitting and I counted on them for good articles. Not now.
Of course I tend to drop from my list any website that insists on gating itself with a subscriber or commercial blockout mainpage. It's just like a neighbor getting a Rottweiler or a pit bull: tells you something not so nice about the owner.
in response to barry's post, i agree on your point that, contrary to manjoo's position, this apparently canNOT be done in a bipartisan fashion with these repugs, precisely because they seem bent on destroying the democratic process, elections at the top of the list. again, to believe that an administration so corrupt and disdainful of the constitution would risk an open election is just plain retarded. oh sure, let's trust the largest cabal of criminals in our history to play fair. right. and the repugs are almost completely in lockstep on this (i have not heard concerns from a single repug on this past election), so why should we expect them to get on board with a clean-up.
however, i cannot agree with barry's assessment of the importance of poll statistics, and i assume he was meaning the exit polls. his dismissal of the importance of exit polls in the ukraine exposes the extent of his misunderstanding; the fact is, exit polls have been used for decades as THE standard against which vote counts are measured for authenticity, both locally, and by UN observers. the discrepancy between the 'official' count and the exit polls in the ukraine is PRECISELY what triggered the public outcry there. in this country, though, there has been a concerted effort to sully the reputation of exit polls, starting even before 2000. mitofsky admitted that the exit polling numbers had been contaminated by mixing in vote counts in various precincts, which defies every rule of polling and stats there could be. unless, of course, your agenda is to make your employer happy and keep your job.
make no mistake, if we abandon exit polls as our standard, we have abandoned nearly as important a measure of vote authenticity - operating as the red flag for checking the real count - as the tangible ballot itself. and don't kid yourself, if we DO hammer home the importance of this point, the public WILL care. the public is NOT stupid (how else would we explain the administration's dreadful approval ratings in the face of media propaganda?), and this is really not that hard to understand. the arguments about the fine points typically force adjustments that are ultimately insignificant. and then conceptual nit-picking, like liddle's, end up being just wrong-headed.
in response to anonymous about journalism: i agree that salon used to be so cutting edge and really powerful, but it's just so much pap anymore; i never visit, except by link, and i paid my membership last fall! (that was before manjoo completely soured me with his wrong-headed obsession and clueless coverage.)
the notion of MSM being 'bought and paid for' is appropriate, but it's not likely that these organizations, especially those like salon, are being literally approached with bribes. it's less overt, but possibly more insidious than that, and this likely explains why we have lost our 'free' press. it has, due to our love affair - nay, religious worship - of free market profit that has reduced it to 'bottom-line journalism'.
finally, in response to manjoo's astonishingly defenseive reaction that clearly misses the point, i will defer to joe, and whoever else may join this debate from bradblog, velvet revolution, democratic underground, freepress, blackboxvoting, etc. if any of you do respond to manjoo on this, PLEASE copy salon and manjoo directly on it:
fmanjoo@salon.com
http://www.salon.com/about/letters/index.html
keep on this, folks; our democracy is at stake.
Farhad Manjoo,
I'll let Joseph fight his own battles, point for point, but the fallacies at the heart of your response (I did not see your original article) are glaring.
There's a very simple reason why exit polls consistently overstate the Democratic vote, to lesser or greater degrees: "vote spoilage" in Democratic precincts, and particularly in African-American and minority precincts located in red states, is far higher than anywhere else, often by factors of 6 or 7.
Exit pollsters have no difficulty ascertaining the intent of these voters, but somehow local election officials can't quite manage to count these ballots.
If you were less inclined to accept the official vote count as the true measure of reality, you might have made this rather obvious connection yourself. One can readily accept the accuracy of exit polling data, at the same time one resists the unresearched opinions, theories or political responses of the polling company to account for the discrepancy between those polling results and the "official" count. I trust the gas company to read my meter, but I don't listen to its pronouncements on global warming.
Readers of this blog will also be happy to learn that you and Salon are deeply concerned about the integrity of electronic voting machines. So you should be: paperless technologies have produced remarkable upsets in the past, including the triumphs of Chuck Hagel, who overcame remarkable odds on two different occasions, and very peculiar results in the state of Georgia.
Unfortunately, you seem unwilling to allow for the possibility of hidden machine fraud in any real election, and are determined to ignore numerous reports during and after the election that machines routinely defaulted to Bush/Cheney.
Finally, your interest in "killing" this story is peculiar. In the face of the daily crimes against truth and the law perpetrated by the Bush administration, and the welter of unanswered questions about both the 2000 and 2004 elections, why are you so intent on "disabusing" the public of its deep suspicions about its electoral process? Listening to you, one would conclude that there's nothing at stake, and nothing at all to worry about.
anonymous1, you rock! thank you SO much for that astute rebuttal of the dems polling discrepancy.
ditto what you said; joe is fully equipped to fight this puny pip. i'd only add my nagging but vague memory that chuck hagel was actually part owner in one of the major voting machine companies when he 'won' that upset vote.
and you're right; if manjoo does, as he claims, at least allow for vastly suspicious maneuvers with the voting machines, etc., it is only logical that there WOULD be discrepancies between those rigged results - the 'official count' - and the exit polls. what else would he expect??? this is just simple arithmetic, not advanced statistics.
it is truly odd, the stubbornness he has exhibited on this issue. one is forced to wonder why. i'm betting not that he was bribed, but that his ego was so bruised by the response he got to his initial articles on the subject (prompting salon to post a debate between him and palast) that he has just dug in.
so much for objectivity. pffft.
Chuck Hagel is a former executive of the voting machine company which "counted" the votes in his two upset races (I forget which company, off hand). He went directly from that company, to the Senate.
Also, Manjoo neglects to explain why exit polling results are highly accurate (to a fraction of a percent) in districts which count votes by hand, but are wildly off in machine-count districts, and beyond any reasonable probability.
Manjoo & Co. keep repeating this chatty Democrat nonsense because they don't have the technical background to refute the statistical analyses.
anonymous1 said: There's a very simple reason why exit polls consistently overstate the Democratic vote, to lesser or greater degrees: "vote spoilage" in Democratic precincts, and particularly in African-American and minority precincts located in red states, is far higher than anywhere else, often by factors of 6 or 7.
But we know how many spoiled votes there were in 2004, and they're not enough to have given Kerry the win in Ohio.
To those of you who insist that we don't need Republicans or moderates to help on voting reform -- that's a pretty shortsighted view. Keep fighting the last election and you'll lose future ones for sure.
To Manjoo's last response: we don't think Kerry lost Ohio simply because spoiled Dem ballots weren't counted; we think there was massive electronic fraud that either erased Dem votes or shifted them to Bush.
To Manjoo's previous parries: this election debate isn't about exit polls; it is about statistical anomalies of many kinds, all of which seem to work in Republican favor and against the laws of probability. Do the anomalies "prove" anything? No. Wildly implausible explanations, like the reluctant Republican myth, prevent the anomalies from reaching a standard of ironclad "proof." The anomalies do, however, compel us to examine the COUNTING methods used. And you see the problem there--we CAN'T DO THAT BECAUSE THE PARTY IN POWER HAS BLOCKED ALL EFFORTS IN CONGRESS AT MAKING IT POSSIBLE!
"the vote tabulator companies are run by either crooks or theocratic fanatics"
Interesting distiniction to make.
Farhad,
Spoiled votes is *one* -- but not the only -- source of discrepancy between how Democrats do in exit polling and their recorded vote tallies. I've never seen an official count of spoiled votes in Ohio, but if you have that number, what is it and where did it come from?
If Mitofsky really wants to put this question to rest, all he needs to do is release the raw polling data, precinct by precinct. With that information in hand, along with the official vote count, we have more than enough statistical tools to determine if the outcome can be explained by any means other than fraud.
Did I hear you call for such a release -- or do you prefer repeating theories which are, by their very nature, untestable?
Finally, you haven't explained why exit polling is highly inaccurate in hand-counted districts, but wildly inaccurate in red state Democratic districts counted by machine. Any ideas?
Sorry, that last paragraph should read:
"Finally, you haven't explained why exit polling is highly **accurate** in hand-counted districts, but wildly inaccurate in red state Democratic districts counted by machine. Any ideas?
Excellent point, (last)Anonymous. Mitofsky also might release all his raw data, but he has refused. Has Manjoo, or any Republican, asked for that? The silence is deafening. It is the same with the matter of the source code in the machines. "No, it's not crooked, but no, you can't see it, what are you, a tinfoil madhatter who sees conspiracy in everything?"
This is a consistent pattern with Republicans. When they want to hide something, they do so, and then assassinate the character of anyone who asks why it's concealed. Do we know yet what Bush is wearing under his jacket? No. Do we know how Gannon got his press passes? No. Etc, etc.
oh good grief, farhad.
you missed anon1's point completely. he was not saying that the spoiled votes would shift the final 'official count'; he was saying that the spoiled votes explain why exit polls tend to skew toward democrats. is that really so hard to grasp?
please forgive me, but this remark of yours exposes your lack of logic in addressing these issues. let me explain. you can't hold the 'official count' up as if it is the measure against which we decide everything! this is, after all, what we are bringing into question here!! so to say that the spoiled votes still would not bridge the gap with the 'official count' doesn't just miss the point, it doesn't even appear to aim in its general direction.
anon1's point was that the spoiled votes address the pattern of democratic skew in exit polls, a skew you tried to use to shoot down the exit poll 'conspiracy theorists' and bolster some 'chatty dems' theory.
your response then claims these spoiled votes still could not catch up with the (yep, here it comes) 'official count'!!
i am truly sorry to have to put it this way, but it is so frustrating how stubborn you appear to be on this issue. ALL of your articles since the election have been obsessing on this single sliver in the spectrum of election fraud issues. (do your editors not even question this??) and like i said, this last remark you made tells us all (well, me at least; i am quite skilled with stats, so i can speak with some knowledge to these points), as it shows your shallow understanding of the subtleties of the math and the related statistical concepts. for you to conflate the spoiled votes with the questionable outcome is weaker than sophomoric. you clearly do not get the numbers game that is working here at all. thank you for confirming my suspicions.
and with regard to your comment on working with repugs, it exposes an equally shallow grasp of the principles at stake here, and how any one with a dedication to those principles would proceed in these circumstances. i don't think anyone here is suggesting that we purposely alienate and exclude repugs; THEY HAVE DONE THIS THEMSELVES, on virtually every front. trying to get any member of that party on board to anything democratic or constitutional has been close to impossible for years now. so don't lecture on being bipartisan when the other party is disdainful at best, and imperious at worst (did you miss sensenbrenner's kruschev-like outburst last week??)
in order to actually get anywhere, we will have to be realistic (remember, they are NOT reality-based, by their own admission). and realistically, what are the odds that they'll break ranks on election reform? they have made their position quite clear. or did you just never get that memo?
and you again miss the point, expose your shallow grasp of the principles at stake, and announce your lack of logic by claiming we'll never win another election if we continue to fight the last one. your articles suggest that you presume we are all just whining that kerry is not in the white house and we want to force him in there, that we're just bent because we didn't want to lose. if you truly investigated this issue, and really did your homework, and actually understood the process and what is at stake, you might actually begin to see that this fight is precisely about discovering what really happened in the past three elections, how they are actually using those opaque, nondisclosive, no-paper-trail, unaccessible, BEGGING TO BE RIGGED machines - MACHINES PROVIDED BY COMPANIES RUN BY OPEN REPUGS AND EX-CONS - to throw elections. there has been a clear pattern to discredit exit polling for a few years now, and that would have to be part of any scheme to make intentional vote rigging work. your misguided perspective is playing right into their hands. sort of like the insidiously passive way so many have just rolled over to the power of the USAPATRIOT Act, and refer to it so casually now as the Patriot Act.
do you see what i'm getting at?
what is it about this administration that leads you to believe for even one optimistic second that they might even briefly consider risking an honest election by the people who could take away their hard-earned power? THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHO WON OR LOST; IT'S ABOUT HOW WIDESPREAD IS THE CORRUPTION AND PRECISELY HOW IT WORKS SO WE CAN STOP IT IN THE FUTURE!!!
honestly. you documented yourself how riggable these machines are. why do you think the owners of these companies have been so guarded about them? do you really believe those folks really intend for their machines to deliver a fair and open election? they exhibit no evidence that they are championing the right to vote; they're in it for the money and the power (and scary stuff like theocracy; did your diebold piece cover that part?).
WE NEED THIS INFORMATION AS EVIDENCE IN OUR FIGHT TO KEEP THIS CRIME FROM HAPPENING AGAIN!
THAT is why we are conscience-bound to dog this mess until we expose it fully. oh, you know, those who don't pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it? simple, logical, smart stuff like that.
but of course, the whole enterprise - exposing corruption, recovering the integrity of our elections, saving our democracy - is seriously impeded when folks in your position dismiss these concerns so smugly and offhandedly. you know, you could be helping by being open-minded about this. you could be helping by recognizing the many fallacies of your position. you could be helping by actually addressing some of the myriad OTHER exposures of fraud and rigging besides this one note samba exit poll OBSESSION that YOU have repeatedly hammered on like some perseverative dementia case, all the while accusing us tin foil hats of doing the obsessing. you could, in a perfect world, see the light - which would actually require that you do some exploring and investigating beyond the few 'experts' you've chummed with, and beyond the one issue you seem to have glommed onto, and gosh, in a timely fashion (how insulting to your readers that you pawn this crap off on them when it's months old, omitting what's transpired in the interim!) - and take up this issue so crucial to our democracy and insist that salon allow you to devote yourself to it, instead of giving it the same investment you give to garlic, but somewhat less than you give macs.
forgive the strident tone here, but i cannot begin to tell you how frustrating this has been trying reason with a brick wall. ESPECIALLY on something so vital to the future of our democracy. and you're treating it like a disputed call in a damn football game.
Someone said "Finally, you haven't explained why exit polling is highly **accurate** in hand-counted districts, but wildly inaccurate in red state Democratic districts counted by machine. Any ideas?"
It's a good question; I'd want to look into it if it were true, but I haven't seen any evidence of that being the case. Can you tell me where you saw that? I'd appreciate it.
Farhad,
You're still apparently flogging the exit poll question, despite a myriad of other issues raised here, but if you proceed to http://www.uscountvotes.org/ and download their most recent studies, I believe you'll find tables which indicate multi-percentage point discrepancies between exit polling and vote counts in "automated" districts, and tiny discrepancies (fractions of a percent) in districts which use hand-counting.
That aside, I myself and my colleagues here have raised many other issues, on which you are silent.
Do you really want to defend this election system, and by extension, the integrity of its results? Didn't our very own Jimmy Carter, that radical tinfoil left-winger, assert that he would never certify a U.S. presidential election, if it occurred in Nicaragua or Timbucto?
There is nothing paranoid, fantastic or conspiratorial in asserting that an administration which lies about everything (including, literally, the weather) in all likelihood stole not one, but two presidential elections, in the face not only of exit polling discrepancies (in which the Bush administration has far more faith than you do, as witness Ukraine), but many other reported discrepancies (see Conyers) and wholesale voter purges.
And yet there you are, assuring everyone that it's all hunky-dory, thanks to chatty Democrats. Odd, no?
I respectfully submit that it's time to rethink your investment in this question.
I agree with you, Joe. And I'm thinking...I'm thinking...re unsubscribing to Salon. But then, how would I know how far Salon has slipped into the morass of media outlets who want to increase their subscriptions by appealing to numnuts. So...for now I'm keeping my subscription. But a definite change has taken place at Salon, and I hate it.
Ratbang Diary-http://ratbangdiary.blogspot.com
Anonymous1: I'm not "flogging" the exit poll question. I'm responding to points about the exits in connection with an article I wrote about the exit polls. You and others here have raised dozens of issues tangential to that debate, some of which I've addressed in other articles and some of which I'm unqualified to address because I haven't reported on those issues (I don't talk about things I don't know about). In the instances you've raised questions about my reporting, I've made an effort to respond.
As to your allegation that there were differences in hand-count vs. machine count areas: The data does not show this. Indeed, it shows that some paper ballot places did well -- those in rural areas. But in urban areas paper ballots had as big an error as other machine types.
Here is the data from Mitofsky's report, page 40.
[Mitofsky's report is here: http://exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf ]
I'll reproduce part of his chart here. "WPE" is "within precinct error"; the more negative the WPE, the greater the difference between the exit poll prediction and the final count. (i.e., a higher WPE is better.)
Median WPE for voting type, CITIES UNDER 50,000 pop
Paper Ballot -0.6
Mechanical Voting -5.4
Touch Screen -4.8
Punch Cards -1.7
Optical Scan -5.0
As you can see, in these small cities paper ballot places diverged the LEAST from the exit polls; mechanical voting (lever machines) diverged the most.
Now look at big cities:
Median WPE for voting type, CITIES OVER 50,000 pop
Paper Ballot -11.5
Mechanical Voting -12.5
Touch Screen -7.6
Punch Cards -10.0
Optical Scan -5.8
As you can see here, paper ballots didn't do that well. The best was optical scan, followed by touch screen; punch cards, paper ballots, and mechanical machines were very far off from the exits.
Therefore, your hypothesis that the exits were off only in machine-count areas is not true.
You also asked, "Didn't our very own Jimmy Carter, that radical tinfoil left-winger, assert that he would never certify a U.S. presidential election, if it occurred in Nicaragua or Timbucto?"
As far as I was aware, Jimmy Carter rightly criticized the U.S. election system before last November's vote, and he also said that he didn't have the resources to monitor the vote. He did not say what you have him saying here.
--FM
I do not remember where, but I saw or heard that Jimmy Carter said 'he' (his people) would not even AGREE TO MONITOR a U.S. election, because it would not meet the minimum standards to be worth monitoring. First, and most galling, is that we have partisan hacks running our elections, rather than (for example) civil servants. THIS matters greatly and is FUNDAMENTAL. Screw the exit poll arguments -- even if right they do not have persuasive power. Prove me wrong, show me they are persuasive; give me the poll results showing that people were persuaded; and also show me that the Ukraine protests were contingent on exit polls.
Farhad wrote:
"To those of you who insist that we don't need Republicans or moderates to help on voting reform -- that's a pretty shortsighted view. Keep fighting the last election and you'll lose future ones for sure."
There is such a thing as nearsightedness in the opposite direction -- not learning from history. I was born in the United States in 1961; what was happening in the United States one hundred years earlier, in 1861? The longer you go on drawing Mason-Dixon lines, the harder and the more painful becomes the ultimate and necessary resolution.
If we get the necessary election reform, it will not be by dealing with 'moderate' Bushist collaborators -- it will be by the disgrace of the Bushist Arbeiterspartei, which also will tarnish the Democratic Chamberlains.
Else knock me over with a feather.
I do not remember where, but I saw or heard that Jimmy Carter said 'he' (his people) would not even AGREE TO MONITOR a U.S. election, because it would not meet the minimum standards to be worth monitoring. First, and most galling, is that we have partisan hacks running our elections, rather than (for example) civil servants. THIS matters greatly and is FUNDAMENTAL. Screw the exit poll arguments -- even if right they do not have persuasive power. Prove me wrong, show me they are persuasive; give me the poll results showing that people were persuaded; and also show me that the Ukraine protests were contingent on exit polls.
Farhad wrote:
"To those of you who insist that we don't need Republicans or moderates to help on voting reform -- that's a pretty shortsighted view. Keep fighting the last election and you'll lose future ones for sure."
There is such a thing as nearsightedness in the opposite direction -- not learning from history. I was born in the United States in 1961; what was happening in the United States one hundred years earlier, in 1861? The longer you go on drawing Mason-Dixon lines, the harder and the more painful becomes the ultimate and necessary resolution.
If we get the necessary election reform, it will not be by dealing with 'moderate' Bushist collaborators -- it will be by the disgrace of the Bushist Arbeiterspartei, which also will tarnish the Democratic Chamberlains.
Else knock me over with a feather.
Farad,
I can't comment directly on your polling data, without seeing it in its original context, and I continue to refer you to the link I provided, and the peer-reviewed statistical analysis of the election results.
However, assuming your data to be accurate for the sake of the argument, there are a host of other reasons why exit polls don't conform to actual vote tallies which are far more plausible than loquacious Democrats: inaccurate or hacked machines and "spoiled" votes are two.
I can only take my cue here from the Bush Administration, which views election results which diverge from exit polls as conclusive evidence of fraud (as long as it occurs outside our borders).
As for Jimmy Carter -- I suggest you contact him for his views on U.S. presidential elections. I believe you'll find that my representation is fundamentally accurate. In the event he's since recanted, I can only suggest you query outside experts as to whether U.S. elections are free and fair by accepted international standards.
lynn--
brilliantly written, as usual. you have been kicking some serious butt the last few days. --S
Farhad,
On second thought, maybe these statistical arguments are largely beside the point, in the face of what we *know* to be true, and what is beyond dispute.
1) uniform standards do not exist in U.S. presidential elections. Even *within* districts, and from table to table, standards of recording votes and certifying voters can vary widely.
2) U.S. vote tallies are inauditable, thanks to paperless voting and the discretionary power of local election officials, who can and do refuse to recount votes.
3) in many parts of the country, elections are supervised and overseen by highly partisan officials, including campaign chairpersons who have been shown to engage in illegal activities (e.g., Kenneth Blackwell, most recently).
4) Many U.S. votes are recorded on equipment produced by companies owned and staffed by felons, and intimately connected with the Republican party. This equipment has been shown repeatedly to be both insecure and unreliable.
5) several elections conducted on electronic voting equipment are highly suspect.
4) In 2000, Republican officials in Florida made concerted efforts to purge Democrats from voter rolls, prevent Democrats from voting, and to avoid counting the votes of Democrats who did vote. These activities occurred before, during and after the election, and almost certainly dipped the presumption of victory to Bush (latter ratified by fiat at the Supreme Court). In a word, GWB stole the 2000 election, in plain sight of the country. This should not be a controversial statement.
5) In 2005, Republican officials in Ohio made concerted efforts to purge Democrats from the rolls, to prevent Democrats from voting, and to avoid counting the votes of Democrats who did vote. Whether these actions were decisive in swinging the election to Bush are not yet known for certain.
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One could go on -- this list is hardly exhaustive. But it does lay out the context of the vote.
What sort of journalist would defend election results produced by such a system against the best measure of fraud we have (exit polling), using an unprovable theory about reluctant Republicans -- and when we *already know* Republicans cheated successfully in 2000?
Enough said?
Mr. Manjoo wrote:
"To those of you who insist that we don't need Republicans or moderates to help on voting reform -- that's a pretty shortsighted view. Keep fighting the last election and you'll lose future ones for sure."
If U.S. elections continue to be rigged, fighting for votes has become irrelevant.
Besides the straightforward arguments for fraud made here and elsewhere, systematic election fraud is the only explanation I can find for the otherwise irrational behavior of the GOP.
We have a president and a party facing some of the biggest unpopularity numbers in recent history and facing a midterm election next year. Yet this is their agenda:
1. Pushing radical and unpopular proposals (dismantling social security, eliminating bankruptcy protections, and the Schiavo mess to name a few).
2. Attacking the independence of our judges and changing Senate Rules to push controversial judicial picks.
3. Attacking and manipulating the press.
These actions make no sense until we remember that Republicans no longer need to worry about winning elections. They are attacking the two branches of government (Judicial, Media) that can't be controlled through rigged elections.
Those who are not yet convinced have only to wait for 06, 08 and beyond. Those who are convinced are many.
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