Don't forget about vote fraud

Let's take a small break from Plamegate. After all, we wouldn't have to worry about Karl Rove if vote fraud were not a reality in this country. The scandal of the day should not divert all attention away from the scandal of the century.

One story in particular should have had me shouting long ago...

Andy Stephenson, one of this nation's bravest fighters for clean elections, did much to publicize the many problems besetting the 2004 election. I recommend his essay "What is a ballot?" He died of cancer on July 7.

In the months before his passing, fellow progressives made a valiant an effort to raise money for his medical expenses. Unfortunately, a cabal of right wing wackos -- mostly Freepers, it seems -- despised this activist so thoroughly that they cobbled together a web site denigrating him and the efforts to save his life. The attack dogs spent enormous energy spreading the rumor that he faked his own illness in order to raise money for his personal use.

The Seattle Weekly took note of this ugliness:

Then came the backlash. The origins of the rumors are murky, but the basic theme was Stephenson was a scam artist who didn't have cancer. The rumor spread like a computer virus across the Internet, and soon vitriolic postings were popping up all over the place.

The backlash falls into a couple of general categories. One group appears ideological in nature: Conservatives are attacking Stephenson because he's a progressive activist. "The right wing just went crazy," says Air America's Malloy. "This is one of the sickest things I've ever seen."

The fact that the rightists are keeping the site up even after Stephenson's death reveals much about their psychopathology.

For fuller details, read Paul Lehto's piece here. I wonder whether Stephenson's family has grounds for a lawsuit -- after all, the libellous claim that Stephenson faked the disease may have impeded his efforts to save his life.

This ghastly affair teaches four lessons -- three of them harsh, one of them hopeful. The harsh lessons: 1. Vote fraud is real. 2. The Republicans have engaged in a conspiracy (let us not shrink from the word) to keep power. 3. They will use any tactic to destroy their enemies.

The hopeful lesson: Activists have more power than cynics may believe. If truth-tellers did not pose a threat, why would the conspirators bother to go after a man like Andy Stephenson?

Ten thousand voter registrations documents shredded in Hocking County. The latest investigative piece by Bob Fitrakis deserves the widest possible publicity.

Sherole Eaton, the unfairly fired election official in Hocking County, Ohio, claims that Elections Director Lisa Schwartze (a Republican activist accused of using her office for partisan fundraising) has illegally shredded as many as ten thousand voter registrations documents.

I suspect that the shredded documents were not chosen at random...

The exits. A poster at Democratic Underground sent me a somewhat lengthy summary of the exit poll controversy, with an emphasis on the work of the semi-mysterious "Truth is All," a DU regular. I don't think the original author if I published it here:

THE UNANSWERED QUESTION: WHO REALLY WON IN 2004?

According to the vote tabulators, in the 2004 presidential election George W. Bush won a stunning victory that defied all odds, particularly those applied by unbiased statisticians. He won despite trailing in most state and national polls. He won despite an approval rating of less than 50%, usually the death knell for an incumbent presidential candidate. He won despite trailing in the three National Exit Polls three timelines from 4pm to 12:22 am (13047 respondents) by a steady 48%-51%, miraculously winning the final exit poll (with only 613 additional respondents, totaling 13,660). This poll was "weighted" (altered) to meet the reported election result on the assumption that the reported result was accurate -- quite an assumption. The final poll showed a stunning reversal of the Kerry 51%-48% poll margin, which had been measured consistently all day by the same polling group: major news/networks and polling firm Edison-Mitofsky.

The analysis of exit polls and documented fraud in this election began on the Internet. A number of academics posted detailed work showing the near-impossible odds of Bush overcoming deficits in the state exit polls and the National Exit Polls. Much of this analysis comes from "TruthIsAll" (TIA), a poster on DemocraticUnderground.Com. TIA has a background and several degrees in applied mathematics. Using various elements of the national and state exit polls and other data sources, he produces results that are thorough, detailed, sober and compelling. He shows ALL data and calculations, while encouraging others to check his math. Only once did he make a minor math error, after asking DUers to check his calculation of probability that at least 16 states would deviate beyond their exit poll margin of error and go for Bush. The answer turned out to be one in 19 trillion! The debates on DemocraticUndergroun's "2004: Election Results and Discussion" forum are legendary and have attracted observers from all over the Net.

Before the election, TIA produced a daily update of his Election Model site. On 11/1/04, based on extensive statistical analysis, he projected a Kerry win of 51.63% to 48.38% using a combined average of national polls, and of 51.80% to 48.2% using a Monte Carlo simulation of individual state polls. After the polls closed, data from the Edison Mitofsky NEP survey (sponsored by the major television networks and CNN) was unintentionally released over the Internet. This was internal network data, embargoed from public use, data with statements like "Estimates not for on-air use" and "This page cannot be displayed." The networks had locked down this data for their own use in an "electronic cover-up" that was offensive to those who knew the story. Luckily for all of us, Jonathan Simon downloaded the exit poll data and saved the CNN screen shots! The Edison-Mitofsky (EM)-Corporate Media (CM) "embargoed data" was available for anyone with eyes to see it and a mind to review it.

TruthIsAll immediately began analyzing and publishing analyses on the forbidden data. Looking at the demographics on the second to last E-M major network poll, He laid out the set of improbable circumstances needed for Bush to win: "To believe Bush won the election, you must also believe...." This post was cited by Will Pitt in a major blog, which gave it wide visibility on the Net. "KERRY WON THE FEMALE VOTE BY A HIGHER PERCENTAGE THAN BUSH WON THE MALE VOTE...AND MORE WOMEN (54%) VOTED THAN MEN (46%)." It was all right there, polling results that we were never intended to see. But this was only the beginning. There are over 100 individual analytical postings that demonstrate the tremendous odds against a Bush win. This high-level analysis dovetailed with and was confirmed by on-the-ground stories of voting rights violations all over the country, particularly in Ohio.

The key data sources for TIA's analysis are the four EM National Exit Polls and the 50 state exit polls. For those who doubt the reliability of exit polling, there has been a trend toward accuracy within 0.4% since 1998. These Exit polls are endorsed heartily by international voting rights activists -- the Carter Center, for example -- and even the Bush administration, which used them, ironically, in the Ukraine elections to demonstrate fraud and call for a new election. There has been a trend toward accuracy within 0.4% since 1998.

At 12:22 am on November 3, the national exit poll of 13,047 respondents showed Kerry to be the winner by 51% to 48%, matching TIA's pre-election projection. The poll was "un-weighted," meaning the EM and CM had yet to apply weighting "adjustments": percentages and weights applied to all the demographic categories to match the poll results to the reported vote count! Imagine if this technique had been applied by exit pollsters in the first Ukrainian election to show victory for the incumbent, who had committed gross election fraud. Yet this odd technique of turning a poll into a ratification of the actual voting results was applied in the American election. The final exit poll, with 13,660 respondents, showed a stunning reversal of fortune for Bush. The poll results were "re-weighted" to create a Bush "victory margin."

The odds against the deviations from the state and national exit polls to the final vote count are astronomical. In addition, there is the consistency of the "pristine" exit poll timeline from 4 pm (8349 respondents) to 7:30 pm (11,027) to 12:22 am (13,047).

In addition to the gender-based evidence cited above, TIA has shown that some weightings for the question "How did you vote in 2000" are mathematically impossible. For example, the final poll claims that 43% of all 2004 voters were former Bush 2000 voters. But 43% of 122.3 million, the number of votes in the 2004 presidential election, is 52.59 million, and Bush only got 50.46 million votes in 2000, approximately 1.75 million of them from voters who have since died. Therefore, BushÂ’s final poll exit poll numbers, WHICH WERE MATCHED TO THE VOTE, had to be off by 4 million votes.

The analysis also demonstrated that other voter statistics make it impossible for Bush to have won. Even if all Bush voters from 2000 showed up and voted for him, he still needed an additional 13 million votes. He didn't get them from new voters and those who did not vote in 2000; those voters preferred Kerry by an almost 3-to-2 margin. Because of this, a Bush victory required that he must win a whopping 14% of Gore 2000 voters, all of whom had to return to vote in 2004. But Gore voters were angry; they came back to defeat Bush once again after having the election stolen from them.

Logical absurdities and inconsistencies in Election 2004 abound...

This work is just part of a comprehensive set of election fraud work and analysis provided by the dedicated voting rights activists in DemocraticUnderground.Com's "2004: Election Results and Discussion" forum, a unique Net resource.