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The 2004 election revisited, part 4: Ohio

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Rep. Conyers

Revisiting the 2004 election. Part 4–Ohio.

Heading toward the new year, following up previous 2004 election entries. This history may become newly relevant.

GWBush and his ‘brain’

On Election Day 2004, the close states were hit hardest: Voters in some areas in Ohio, Florida, Iowa and New Mexico suffered significant problems casting their votes successfully. Most of the problems were not widely reported, although subsequent efforts in Congress to address the situation did draw some media attention.

Ad hoc committee on election abuses 2004

Anecdotal evidence bears out the thesis presented by statistical researchers, posted previously, that the problems were indeed widespread.

Take for example Mercer County, Ohio, where following the election the information below was relayed to me.

At the time, Washington Journal had just run an article titled “How the Bush camp won Ohio,” remarking that “in some small conservative counties which have experienced net job losses nearing 10% of business payrolls, Republicans still lined up for the president. In Mercer County, which has lost 5% of its jobs in the last four years, residents voted 3-to-1–15,022 to 4,924–for Mr. Bush, a sharp increase over his winning margin in 2000.”

The none-too-subtle subtext here seems to be either that voters in Ohio were peculiarly dumb or, putting the same idea more charitably, that Team Bush successfully persuaded people to vote against their own interest.

book: What Happened in Ohio?

The voter on the ground in Ohio offers a rational second opinion, noting that “this is very peculiar since over 4,800 people voted in this year’s Democratic primary” in Mercer County. So “Mercer County has over 30,000 registered voters and yet Kerry was only able to pick up a measly 87 additional votes compared to the March primary”?

Not only did Kerry allegedly receive only 87 votes above the total cast in the Democratic primary, but Gore had over 5,200 votes in 2000 (when there were 6,227 fewer registered voters in Mercer County).

The reader provides some relevant numbers:

Mercer County, Ohio:

Year 2000:       25,079 registered voters; 18,285 votes cast

Bush 12,485

Gore 5,212

Ralph Nader 392, Howard Philips 13, John Hagelin 24, Pat Buchanan 125, Harry Brown 43

Year 2004:       31,306 registered voters, 20,058 votes cast

Bush 15,022

Kerry 4,924

Other 112

The same reader adds that people might think “this is a conservative county and that many voters may have switched to Bush especially with gay marriage on the ballot. But with 5 percent of the people losing their jobs in the past four years in this county, I think people are far more concerned about putting food on the table and meeting mortgage payments than worrying about gay people getting married.”

Be it noted that Mercer County, Ohio, is among the places where turnout increased in 2004 over 2000. As the researchers previously quoted point out, higher turnout historically favors the challenger, not the incumbent. Voter registration also increased from 2000 to 2004 in Mercer County, by 6,227.

Rampant problems voting in Ohio

Many Americans saw the video footage of voters patiently waiting in line to vote in Ohio, in 2004. Mercer County was by no means the whole story, and the previously indicated statistical anomalies were amply reinforced by anecdotal report from around the state.

Readers and other correspondents sent me an ongoing and growing list of anomalies, deceptions and intimations of vote fraud in Ohio. Part of the list follows.

Discrepancies:

  • Returns certified by officials recorded that all but 10 registered voters in the Miami County, Ohio, town of Concord voted on Election Day. So far, the election challenge team has identified more than 10 registered Concord citizens who did not vote.
  • About 580 more absentee voters were certified in Mahoning County than election board officials identified.
  • Cleremont County was among the counties with challenges to contested returns. In December 2004 a team of volunteer attorneys pored over election records at the Cleremont County Board of Elections, with the Board’s cooperation.
  • In Lucas County, four elections officials were suspended after mistakes or worse in the election.
  • In Cuyahoga County, a third of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out because of alleged registration irregularities.
  • The Associated Press reported a difference of over 17,000 votes in Kerry’s favor after the election more than in the initial vote tallies.
  • In December 2004, Rep. Conyers and Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee asked Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell to respond to inquiries about voting irregularities.

Problems with voting-machine technology:

  • In Mahoning County, election observers have testified under oath, more than a dozen voting machines switched Kerry votes to Bush votes repeatedly, while voters watched.
  • Citizens in Trumbull County using electronic machines, who voted for Kerry, saw their votes register as votes for Bush. Subsequent hearings in Trumbull County, as elsewhere, partially brought to light further possible election fraud.
  • A public hearing at the Warren Heights and Trumbull Library, in Mahoning Valley, where the vote count went to Bush, recorded thousands of complaints of voting irregularities.
  • Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus pointed out that more than half the votes cast in Ohio and the nation were recorded on electronic voting machines owned by Republicans, with no audit trail. One voting machine company, Diebold, also manufactures ATMs (automated teller machines) that do provide a paper receipt for transactions.

Low-tech old-fashioned vote suppression:

  • In Franklin County and other counties, largely Democratic precincts suffered a shortage of voting machines. All the precincts where voting machines were short and lines were long were Democratic precincts. Voters in more affluent neighborhoods reported no shortage of voting machines and no problem with long lines.

Obstruction and failure to investigate by public officials:

  • In December 2004 a legal team partly comprising volunteer attorneys issued subpoenas to top election officials in ten counties where vote-count fraud was suspected.
  • The subpoenas, a first step in interviewing people under oath, were rejected by the Ohio Secretary of State, Republican Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
  • Ten depositions were served by the election challenge legal team; the other side filed a motion to stop the process; the challengers responded.
  • A lawsuit was filed at the Ohio Supreme Court, charging that a fair vote count would give the state and the presidency to John Kerry rather than to Bush. Notice of depositions was sent to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony in Moss v Bush et al. The election challenge lawsuit was filed Dec. 17. Blackwell, the Bush-Cheney campaign, and Ohio’s Republican electors had ten days to respond. Each side then had 20 days for discovery or to gather additional evidence, plaintiffs going first. The Bush-Cheney team moved as slowly as possible, to run out the clock until the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Company logo

Subsequently, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee found that one precinct in Youngstown, in Mahoning County, recorded a negative 25 million votes. Back in Mercer County, Judiciary found that only 51 votes were recorded for one voting machine showing that 289 people cast punch card ballots president–a loss of 248 votes. The county’s website reported that 51,818 people cast ballots but only 47,768 ballots were recorded in the presidential race, including 61 write-ins, meaning that approximately 4,000 votes, or nearly 7%, were not counted for a presidential candidate.

Problems with Triad GSI voting technology company in Ohio reported on the Internet, not in print

Problems with vote technology in Ohio were not restricted to Diebold. Some concrete information is provided below, involving another major voting machine company, Triad GSI, based in Xenia, Ohio.

The following is a 2004 affidavit by the Hocking County, Ohio, deputy director of elections, Sherole Eaton. It deserved wider dissemination than it received. Ms. Eaton deserved not to be fired for being a whistleblower.

[Text follows:]

  “On Friday, December 10 2004, Michael from TriAd called in the AM to inform us that he would be in our office in the PM on the same day. I asked him why he was visiting us. He said, “to check out your tabulator, computer, and that the attorneys will be asking some tricky questions and he wanted to go over some of the questions they may ask.” He also added that there would be no charge for this service.

He arrived at about 12:30PM. I hung his coat up and it was very heavy. I made a comment about it being so heavy. He, Lisa Schwartze and I chatted for a few minutes. He proceeded to go to the room where our computer and tabulation machine is kept. I followed him into the room. I had my back to him when he turned the computer on. He stated that the computer was not coming up. I did see some commands at the lower left hand of the screen but no menu. He said that the battery in the computer was dead and that the stored information was gone. He said that he could put a patch on it and fix it. My main concern was – what if this happened when we were ready to do the recount. He proceeded to take the computer apart and call his offices to get information to input into our computer. Our computer is fourteen years old and as far as I know had always worked in the past. I asked him if the older computer, that is in the same room. could be used for the recount. I don’t remember exactly what he said but I did relay to him that the computer was old and a spare. At some point he asked if he could take the spare computer apart and I said “yes”. He took both computers apart. I don’t remember seeing any tools and he asked Sue Wallace, Clerk, for a screwdriver. She got it for him. At this point I was frustrated about the computer not performing and feared that it wouldn’t work for the recount. I called Gerald Robinette, board chairman, to inform him regarding the computer problem and asked him if we could have Tri Ad come to our offices to run the program and tabulator for the recount. Gerald talked on the phone with Michael and Michael assured Gerald that he could fix our computer. He worked on the computer until about 3:00 PM and then asked me which precinct and the number of the precinct we were going to count. I told him, Good Hope 1 # 17. He went back into the tabulation room. Shortly after that he (illegible) stated that the computer was ready for the recount and told us not to turn the computer off so it would charge up.

Before Lisa ran the tests, Michael said to turn the computer off. Lisa said, “I thought you said we weren’t supposed to turn it off.” He said turn it off and right back on and it should come up. It did come up and Lisa ran the tests. Michael gave us instructions on how to explain the rotarien, what the tests mean, etc. No advice on how to handle the attorneys but to have our Prosecuting Attorney at the recount to answer any of their legal questions. He said not to turn the computer off until after the recount.

He advised Lisa and I on how to post a “cheat sheet” on the wall so that only the board members and staff would know about it and and what the codes meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn’t have to do a full hand recount of the county. He left about 5:00 PM.

My faith in Tri Ad and the Xenia staff has been nothing but good. The realization that this company and staff would do anything to dishonor or disrupt the voting process is distressing to me and hard to believe. I’m being completely objective about the above statements and the reason I’m bringing this forward is to, hopefully, rule out any wrongdoing.”

This dramatic material was ignored by the larger media outlets. It was followed up in the online Free Press, by Ken Hoop here and by Victoria Parks here. Investigation by the House Judiciary Committee found copious indications of problems with Triad GSI. Daily Kos pointed out that the Rapp family behind Triad GSI was headed by a longtime contributor to the Republican Party.

The Judiciary Committee’s analysis stated,

“Based on the above, including actual admissions and statements by Triad employees, it strongly appears that Triad and its employees engaged in a course of behavior to provide “cheat sheets” to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets told them how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law. If true, this would frustrate the entire purpose of the recount law–to randomly ascertain if the vote counting apparatus is operating fairly and effectively, and if not to conduct a full hand recount. By ensuring that election boards are in a position to conform their test recount results with the election night results, Triad’s actions may well have prevented scores of counties from conducting a full and fair recount in compliance with equal protection, due process, and the first amendment. In addition, the course of conduct outlined above would appear to violate numerous provisions of federal and state law. As noted above, 42 U.S.C. §1973 provides for criminal penalties for any person who, in any election for federal office, “knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by . . . the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.” Section 1974 requires the retention and preservation of all voting records and papers for a period of 22 months from the date of a federal election and makes it a felony for any person to “willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter” any such record.398 Ohio law further prohibits election machinery from being serviced, modified, or altered in any way subsequent to an election, unless it is so done in the presence of the full board of elections and other observers. Any handling of ballots for a subsequent recount must be done in the presence of the entire Board and any qualified witnesses.399 This would seem to operate as a de facto bar against altering voting machines by remote access. Containers in which ballots are kept may not be opened before all of the required participants in are attendance.400 It is critical to note that the fact that these “ballots” were not papers in a box is of no consequence in the inquiry as to whether state and federal laws were violated by Barbian’s conduct: Ohio Revised Code defines a ballot as “the official election presentation of offices and candidates…and the means by which votes are recorded.” OHIO REV. CODE § 3506.01(B) (West 2004). Therefore, for purposes of Ohio law, electronic records stored in the Board’s computer are to be considered “ballots.” Triad’s interference with the computers and their software would seem to violate these requirements.”

[emphasis added]

The 2004 election revisited, part 3

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Election Integrity

Revisiting the 2004 election. Part 3.

Still working in the holiday season—a useful change of work from hearing about Gingrich/Santorum/et al. is to remember the problems in 2004. Whoever wins the GOP nomination this year will have to do some fancy stepping to win the White House. Re past tactics, forewarned is forearmed.

Title says it all

On March 31, 2005, a group of solidly credentialed faculty scholars and researchers released a comprehensive study of the discrepancy between exit polls, in the 2004 election, and the published vote results.

The researchers found no “statistically-plausible explanation for the discrepancy between Edison/Mitofsky’s exit poll data and the official presidential vote tally.” The irregularities in the presidential election thus posed “an unanswered question of vital national importance that demands a thorough and unblinking investigation.”

Election Integrity

The comprehensive investigation failed to take place, although some members of Congress including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) pursued inquiries. Where did the information go? Not into print in major newspapers. Not onto the airwaves. Like the U.S. Constitution, it is accessible on the Internet.

The 27-page “Analysis of the 2004 Exit Poll Discrepancies” reinforces earlier studies along the same lines, with further detail on election 2004. Authors and endorsers include professors in statistics, numerical analysis, computer studies, finance and mathematics from the U. of Utah, U. Wisconsin, Cornell, U. Pennsylvania, U. Illinois, Southern Methodist University and Notre Dame among others.

The introduction notes numerous election problems, including

  • “voting machine shortages;
  • ballots counted and recounted in secret;
  • lost, discarded, and improperly rejected registration forms and absentee ballots;
  • touch-screen machines that registered ‘Bush’ when voters pressed ‘Kerry’;
  • precincts in which there were more votes recorded than registered voters;
  • precincts in which the reported participation rate was less than 10%;
  • high rates of ‘spoiled’ ballots and under-votes in which no choice for president was recorded;
  • a sworn affidavit by a Florida computer programmer who claims he was hired to develop a voting program with a ‘back door’ mechanism to undetectably alter vote tallies.”

Campaigning Florida-Feeney style, 2004

These authors are not political hacks, whatever that term means. They are not hired guns paid to spin election results. They are genuine experts with earned credentials in the fields of inquiry, not backgrounds in public relations. They show a scholarly and patriotic passion for the truth.

“Under such circumstances” as the problems in this election, the authors wrote,

“we must rely on indirect evidence–such as exit polls, or analysis of election result data–as a check of the overall integrity of the official election results. Without auditability or transparency in our election systems, the role of exit polls as a trigger for further scrutiny is of paramount importance.”

They conclude,

“If the discrepancies between exit poll and election results cannot be explained by random sampling error; the “Reluctant Bush Responder” hypothesis is inconsistent with the data; and other exit polling errors are insufficient to explain the large exit polling discrepancies, then the only remaining explanation – that the official vote count was corrupted – must be seriously considered.”

Regrettably, the polling company, Edison/Mitofsky, did not release all the raw data from the exit polling. Having published the exit polls–referred to in previous posts–the company went back later and changed the published exit polls to make them conform retroactively to published vote tallies. It also attempted to repudiate its own original exit polls.

The exit polls were dismissed with argument, not fact.  A typical argument was that Bush voters were more reluctant to be interviewed by pollsters than were Kerry voters.

The faculty scholars make short work of this claim. As they point out,

“The Senate and presidential races were both questions on a single exit poll survey. If Bush supporters were refusing to fill out this survey as hypothesized, the accuracy of the exit poll should have been just as poor in the Senate races as it was in the presidential race. The presidential and Senate poll results derive from exactly the same responders.”

However,

“In 32 states, Senate elections took place on the same ballot with the presidential race. The exit polls were more accurate for Senate races than for the presidential race, including states where a Republican senator eventually won (pages 19-24).”

[emphasis added]

As the researchers point out, even while exit polls across the nation were being debunked as unreliable by the White House and its partisans, the accuracy of those same exit polls for Senate races was not questioned. The conclusion: “There is no logic to account for non-responders or missed voters when discussing the difference in the accuracy of results for the Senate versus the presidential races in the same exit poll.”

Nationally,

“The many anecdotal reports of voting irregularities create a context in which the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally remains a coherent theory.”

“In fact, the burden of proof should be to show that the election process is accurate and fair. The integrity of the American electoral system can and should be beyond reproach. Citizens in the world’s oldest and greatest democracy should be provided every assurance that the mechanisms they have put in place to count our votes are fair and accurate. The legitimacy of our elected leaders depends upon it.”

Then and now, the points are unassailable:

  • “Well-documented security vulnerabilities and accuracy issues have affected voting equipment” back to the 1960s.
  • “The recent and ongoing proliferation of sophisticated computerized vote recording and tallying equipment” has drastically enhanced capabilities for vote-tampering.
  • “That the lion’s share of this equipment is developed, provided, and serviced by partisan private corporations only amplifies these serious concerns.”
  • “The fact that, in the 2004 election, all voting equipment technologies except paper ballots were associated with large unexplained exit poll discrepancies all favoring the same party certainly warrants further inquiry.”

As previously written, close-outcome states needing attention after the 2004 election included Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa. Some of the work on these problem areas will be posted.

One example: researcher Richard Hayes Phillips did magnificent work on election problems in Toledo, Ohio.

What we need meanwhile, among other things, is for our so-called ‘backwaters’ not to be left to the tender mercies of the GOP, corporate-funded influence groups, anti-human quasi-religious organizations, and the DC political press. It is wrong to neglect small towns and rural areas.

Returning to that interesting analysis from a reader in North Carolina who compared the NC 2004 early turnout to 2000 early turnout–

In 2004, the SBOE recorded 705,462 early voters. In 2000, there had been 393,152 early voters–an increase of 312,310.

Furthermore, in 2000, early voters were 46% Democrat and 38% Republican. In 2004, early voters were 50.4% Democrat and 36% Republican. That’s a 6-point net gain in Democratic turnout.

The reader points out that one would expect John Kerry to gain “at least several percentage points over Al Gore’s showing four years ago. But when the votes were tallied, Kerry registered virtually no improvement on Gore’s vote in North Carolina (Kerry 43.6%, Gore 43.2%).”

The reader anticipates possible objections:

  • Crossover voting might be a factor. But nothing indicates that crossover voting was bigger in 2004 than in 2000.
  • Southerners might have voted more for Gore than for Kerry. But that does not explain why Democratic turnout increased significantly, while GOP turnout decreased.

All in all, it was reasonable to expect Kerry to perform better in North Carolina in 2004 than Gore did in 2000, even aside from the fact that John Edwards was on the ticket. Although Kerry could not have won the state, there’s still an issue.

Again–as he points out–if Kerry got 47% in North Carolina, he would have another 130,000 votes in his column. “It’s not enough to win the state’s 15 electoral votes, but a 4-point upward shift across the country is in line with the exit poll projection of a 51-48% popular vote lead for Kerry.”

Four points or less would have moved close states to Kerry, costing George W. Bush the election.

The 2004 election revisited, part 2

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Revisiting the 2004 election. Part 2.

Still in the spirit of the holidays, following up on the 2004 presidential election

Electoral College, 2004

Not merely was the Electoral College manipulated. What happened in November 2004 to the popular vote? The question is raised by, among others, Jonathan D. Simon, J.D., of the non-profit Verified Vote 2004, and Ron P. Baiman, Ph.D., Institute of Government and Public Affairs, U. of Illinois-Chicago.

Baiman and Simon’s paper, “The 2004 Presidential Election: Who Won the Popular Vote? An Examination of the Comparative Validity of Exit Poll and Vote Count Data,” focuses on disparities discussed by U. Penn research professor Steven Freeman, quoted previously.

Key question from 2004

Substantive and solidly researched, the paper bears out the fact that vote tallies diverged significantly from the reasonably expectations based on exit polling. Here quoted for convenience are Baiman and Simon’s main points:

“Executive Summary

  • There is a substantial discrepancy–well outside the margin of error and outcome determinative–between the national exit poll and the popular vote count.
  • The possible causes of the discrepancy would be random error, a skewed exit poll, or breakdown in the fairness of the voting process and accuracy of the vote count.
  • Analysis shows that the discrepancy cannot reasonably be accounted for by chance or random error.
  • Evidence does not support hypotheses that the discrepancy was produced by problems with the exit poll.  [emphasis added]
  • Widespread breakdown in the fairness of the voting process and accuracy of the vote count are the most likely explanations for the discrepancy.
  • In an accurate count of a free and fair election, the strong likelihood is that Kerry would have been the winner of the popular vote.”

Many of us couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Regrettably, Baiman and Simon’s paper never cracked through the surface in large media outlets. A quick search of the Lexis-Nexis database shows zero mention of the paper in U.S. newspapers. The print press collectively did not quote, or mention, the public statement released through U.S. Newswire Jan. 4, 2005, announcing a press conference at the National Press Club by the authors, other election experts, and activist groups including the NAACP. No magazines ran articles on election fraud as an issue.

The authors echoed questions raised by my North Carolina reader quoted in the previous entry. As they pointed out,

“Although it is the Electoral College and not the popular vote that legally elects the president, winning the popular vote does have considerable psychological and practical significance. It is fair to say, to take a recent example, that had Al Gore not enjoyed a popular vote margin in 2000, he would not have had standing in the court of public opinion to maintain his post-election challenge for more than a month up until its ultimate foreclosure by the Supreme Court. [emphasis in original]

In the 2004 election now under scrutiny, the popular vote again has played a critical role. George Bush’s apparent margin of 3.3 million votes clearly influenced the timing of John Kerry’s concession. Although the election was once again close enough that yet-to-be-counted votes offered at least the mathematical possibility of a Kerry electoral college victory–and although, once again, concerns about vote counting were beginning to emerge from early post-election reports and analyses–Kerry apparently believed that, unlike popular vote-winner Gore, he did not have effective standing to prolong the race.”

Baiman and Simon were well aware of the sensitive situation in Ohio,

“Yet to overturn the Ohio result, giving Kerry an electoral college victory (or even to disqualify the Ohio electors via challenge in Congress, which would deprive Bush of an electoral college majority and throw the election to the House of Representatives), would likely be regarded as unjust and insupportable by a populace convinced that Bush was, by some 3.3 million votes, the people’s choice.

Thus, although the popular vote does not legally determine the presidency, its significance is such that we must give due consideration to any evidence which puts the popular vote count itself at issue.”

[emphasis in original]

Hence the analysis of the anomalies. Citing the historical track record of exit polling and the 2004 results reported by exit polling authority Warren Mitofsky, Baiman and Simon argue convincingly for the credibility of the exit polls.

The crux:

“On election night 2004, the exit polls and the vote counting equipment generated results that differed significantly.”

As the authors remind readers,

“In the early morning of November 3, 2004, a CNN.com website screenshot entitled “U.S. PRESIDENT/NATIONAL/EXIT POLL” posted national exit poll results updated to 12:23 A.M., broken down by gender as well as a variety of other categories.[note] The time of the update indicates that these results comprised substantially the full set of respondents polled on election day, but were free from the effects of a subsequent input of tabulated data used to bring about ultimate congruence between the exit poll and vote count results.”

The outcome of this national exit poll was 48.2% Bush, 50.8% Kerry.

There has perhaps never been a less reported headline in the history of U.S. politics. In a world, or in a political realm, now bating its breath over the possibility that Iowa Christian conservatives may wander from Newt Gingrich to Rick Santorum or vice versa–in an election neither can hope to win–the fact that historically reliable exit polling showed John Kerry on top in the presidential election in 2004 went unremarked.

Baiman and Simon quoted Freeman’s discussion of the close battleground states, cited earlier:

“In particular, the odds against the discrepancies in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania occurring together are computed at 662,000-to-one, or a virtual statistical impossibility that they could have been due to chance or random error.”

The same pattern held on a broader scale:

“Receiving somewhat less emphasis is the overall pattern of discrepancy in the state polls—again with the vote counts turning in Bush’s favor, though less dramatically in the nonbattleground states, as will be discussed below. The national popular vote is not addressed in that paper, but the same statistical principles are applicable, and will be
employed in this analysis.”

The authors emphasize the large size of the national exit poll,  even more accurate than other exit polls:

“While the individual state samples totaled 73,678 reported respondents,[note] a national sub-sampling was undertaken by Edison/Mitofsky, which comprised 13,047 reported respondents, chosen as a representative random sample of the nation as a whole. This sample was drawn from 250 targeted polling places and from 500 individual telephone interviews with absentee and early voters.”

Baiman and Simon concluded with 95% certainty “that Kerry’s popular vote percentage would fall in the range 49.7% to 51.9%; that is, it would fall outside that range only once in 20 times.”

As they summarize, dryly, “Kerry’s reported vote count of 48.1% falls dramatically outside this range.”

That is, the vote reported for Kerry fell well outside the realm of probability.

The reaction to this solid analysis? In the immortal words of Sinclair Lewis, it made as much noise as a bladder hurled into the ocean. It had as much effect as a tract left in a speakeasy (paraphrase from Ann Vickers, 1933).

Despite the disregard in the national political press, other researchers have pursued the issues raised by the 2004 election. In a lengthy footnote, Baiman and Simon cite the work of MIT grad student William Kaminsky:

“Kaminsky finds that in 22 of the 23 states which break down their voter registrations by party ID the ratio of registered Republicans to registered Democrats in the final, adjusted exit poll was larger than the ratio of registered Republicans to registered Democrats on the official registration rolls. In other words, the adjustments performed on the exit polls in order to get them to agree with the official tallies would, if valid, require Republicans to have won the get-out-the-vote battle in essentially every state. We find this requirement implausible, and indeed observational evidence pointed to just the opposite: massive new voter turnout, which virtually always cuts in favor of the challenger; huge lines in Democratic precincts; unadjusted exit poll data showing apparently greater Democratic turnout; etc. Exit polls appropriately stratified to official party ID percentages, which would effectively neutralize any suspected “reluctant Bush responder” phenomenon by including the expected proportions of Republican and Democratic voters, would on the basis of Kaminsky’s analysis have yielded results at least as favorable to Kerry as those upon which we have relied in our calculations.”

Again the Amen Corner.

The public out in front, again

As written previously, it wasn’t only eggheads who perceived the issue of lost votes. Taking a leaf from Ronald Reagan’s book, here it seems only fitting to quote an email from one of my gracious readers:

“Margie,

Thank you for your recent piece on the above that I read today at buzzflash.com.  Bush is the worst president of my fifty-three year lifetime and I lived through Johnson and Nixon back-to-back.

Bush has managed to combine the guns and butter policies of the Johnson administration with the excessive secrecy and lies of Nixon.  This is almost as big an accomplishment as his uniting of Sunni and Shiite factions against us in Iraq.

I was a precinct captain for the Kerry campaign for the three months prior to the 2004 Iowa caucuses.  I would often ask the Democrats I called upon what they were hearing about Bush from their Republican acquaintances.  They usually replied in the following way, “You know, it is funny that you should ask that question.  I cannot believe the number of Republicans that I know who have VOLUNTEERED the information to me that they will never, ever vote for Bush again.”  And this was well before things in Iraq turned really, really bad.

What is your sense about the mood among Republicans these days?  Thanks, again, for your efforts on behalf of truth, justice and peace.  The best, [name]”

The 2004 election revisited, part 1

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Revisiting election 2004. Part 1

Ohio results as published 2004

As the U.S.A. heads into a new election year, a string of GOP presidential candidates has demonstrated conclusively that each will need all the help s/he can get, to get into the White House. Thus it is timely, in this holiday season, to review the 2004 election.

Short story: Election Day 2004 involved more signs of election fraud, in more states, than any other election including that of 2000, when our not counting votes in Florida gave George W. Bush the White House without compelling him to win it.

Exit polling in Venezuela

The 2004 anomalies were revealed when polling consultants Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International released final exit polls conducted in all states. A troubling pattern emerged, which has not to this day been explained away. Although the data were analyzed in an excellent paper by Prof. Steven F. Freeman, “The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy,” there was no significant follow-up by the national political press. Undoubtedly this cavalier disregard for the fundamental right to vote contributed to fuel the big changes of 2008, including the rise of Barack Obama and the further decline of the news media in public esteem.

Media rep 2004

Quick run-down, 2004:

  • In 2004, contrary to results in every other election for the previous twenty years, there was a variance between exit polls and the published vote tally of more than two points in 33 of 51 jurisdictions.
  • This variance amounted to a swing in each state of 4% or 5% or more to Bush.
  • That is, regardless of which candidate won in those states, a significant variance allegedly occurred in every exit poll in all of them, and always in the same direction.
  • This crucial swing occurred in all the close states: Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa all had the same alleged ‘red shift.’
  • Most of the close states seemingly shifted more than two points, a swing of 4% or 5% favorable to Bush, regardless of the size or region of the state, and regardless of whether the state ultimately went for Bush or Kerry.
  • Exit polls from nine other states, less close, were also contradicted by a smaller swing toward Bush in the published vote tally. The same seeming swings to Bush occurred in the District of Columbia and Maryland.
  • Thus four out of five states are alleged to have swung to Bush, in an election where previous polling had consistently indicated new voters, independent voters, and younger voters trending toward Kerry and/or away from Bush.
  • This four-out-of-five swing is alleged for an election in which turnout increased, although increased voter turnout is generally held to favor the challenger against the incumbent.
  • In four states, the swing from exit poll to published vote tally was enough to swing the state from Kerry to Bush–Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa.
  • These four states added up to 59 electoral votes, more than enough to change the outcome of the national election.
  • Numerous election problems were reported on the ground from counties and precincts in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and Iowa.

According to Professor Freeman, whose PhD in organizational studies came from MIT and who holds professorships at the University of Pennsylvania and at an international MBA program founded by Harvard, the swing between exit poll and vote tally is an anomaly even in just three battleground states. Take Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida alone, and as Freeman calculated, “The likelihood of any two of these statistical anomalies occurring together is on the order of one-in-a-million. The odds against all three occurring together are 250 million to one.”

“As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error.”

Even for a non-scientist, the statistical problem above seems fairly obvious: If the exit polls were simple mistakes, then they should have diverged from the vote tallies randomly. Honest mistakes should vary at different locations. Honest mistakes should vary in favor of different candidates, benefiting different parties. You don’t have a nationwide set of honest mistakes all magically benefiting one candidate. This is not random, it is a pattern.

Freeman

It would also be near miraculous for a nationwide set of honest mistakes all to fall within a fairly short percentage range, just significant enough to affect the outcome of the election but not dramatic enough to trigger federal and state investigation under the law.

Disclaimer:  It is only reasonable to read opinion polls and other polling with skepticism.  Incessant polling can weaken the individual’s reliance on his/her own judgment, can plant suggestions, can intimidate reporters, and can manipulate public acceptance of the unacceptable. Following the 2004 election, an opinion poll was quickly published suggesting that most people were relieved—ironically–that the outcome was clear.

All well and good, if it was clear. But the integrity of vote counting is essential to our nation’s survival as a democracy. The horse-race obsession about who is ahead before the election often makes news media look silly. The question of who won the election, after the election, is fundamental.

Exit polls hit closer to the mark than do opinion polls. Exit polls are taken on the ground with people who show up to vote, are taken just after the voting, and are weighted to take into account a preponderance of one group. As Dr. Freeman points out, exit polls have been used globally to check and verify the validity of elections in countries including Germany and Mexico. When exit polls contradicted Eduard Shevardnadze’s claim that he had won election in the former Soviet country of Georgia, Shevardnadze was forced to resign under pressure from the U.S. among other nations.

Pundits’ disdain for the issue of what happened to the 2004 election not shared by the public

Writing about these issues soon after the 2004 election, this author focused initially on the small tilts that added up to a big tilt in the U.S. Electoral College. However, even then I pointed out that questions had also arisen affecting the popular vote count in ‘safe’ states. The responses below, from readers who vote, include this interesting anecdotal account:

“Margie,

A friend pointed me to your article “Did Bush lose the election?” which I found very interesting. I was also interested in your final comment about irregularities “even in safe states.”

I live in the “safe state” of North Carolina where something I observed may be worth passing along.

During the early voting period, the state Board of Elections was releasing daily turnout reports. The early voters were identified by their party registration. It occurred to me that comparing this year’s turnout with early voting in the 2000 election might reveal a trend.

At the close of early voting on Oct. 31, SBOE recorded 705,462 early voters. In 2000, 393,152 early voters were recorded. Four years ago, early voters were 46% Democrat and 38% Republican. This year, early voters were 50.4% Democrat and 36% Republican.

Given a 6-point net gain in Democratic turnout, it seemed reasonable to expect that John Kerry would gain at least several percentage points over Al Gore’s showing four years ago. But when the votes were tallied, Kerry registered virtually no improvement on Gore’s vote in North Carolina (Kerry 43.6%, Gore 43.2%).

Knowing who is voting doesn’t reveal how they are voting, and crossover voting has long been a feature of North Carolina elections. But there’s nothing to suggest that crossover voting was any different this year from four years ago. [emphasis added]

When a similar pattern was observed in parts of Florida, the response was that “Southern Democrats may have been more willing to vote for a moderate Southerner (Gore) than a Massachusetts liberal.” But that doesn’t explain why Democratic turnout increased while Republican turnout seemed to decrease.

This year’s early vote in North Carolina was 20% of the total vote. Four years ago it was 13.5% of the total. So, there’s a statistically significant sample to use as a basis for comparison. If a correlation exists between early voting patterns this year and four years ago, it seems pretty improbable that a significant jump in Democratic turnout would not have translated to some improvement for Kerry over Gore.

If Kerry were getting, say, 47% in North Carolina, that would have put another 130,000 votes in his column. It’s not enough to win the state’s 15 electoral votes, but a 4-point upward shift across the country is in line with the exit poll projection of a 51-48% popular vote lead for Kerry. And it would have moved Ohio and a couple other close states into his column.

It would be interesting to do these comparisons in states where the relevant data is available to see if Democratic turnout increased from 2000 to 2004, and if so, whether it translated to gains for Kerry over Gore.

I’m not ready to conclude there was vote manipulation. But there are a lot of questions about the results that need to be examined and answers provided.

Thank you for your efforts.”

“Dear Ms. Burns,
Thank you for your interesting, informative, and truthful article, “Did Bush
Lose the Election?”
The evidence of what you say has existed for quite some time now

  • patent evidence of election fraud presaged by Avi Rubin at Johns Hopkins University
    and echoed in the recent UC Berkeley study, by Zogby International as reported in IPS News, and
  • as Bill Simpich observes in the SF Bay View
  • by former MIT mathematics professor David Anick, among others. Notwithstanding, the mainstream media continue to exclude from its purvue this most heinous and glaringly evident act of deception
  • the defrauding of the American people of its vote and therefore of its sovereignty. By failing to lend their attention to this issue, the mainstream media act as aiders and abettors of a blatant attack against the security of the United States of America.

It is therefore extremely refreshing to hear someone valiantly speak out for the American people in our time of crisis. I thank you most profoundly for being one of the seminal figures to tell the truth about the Third Millenium scandal that is now gaining a reputation worldwide as “Votergate” or, as I also like to call it: “the NeoCons” [Election] Piracy 2004.”

[name redacted]

Governor Palin’s Ride

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Palin on Harley

Governor Palin’s Ride

 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of Palin’s requital for snubs severe

From electable candidates, in 2008:

Hardly a politico can now relate

He remembers that famous time and year.

 

She said to her friends,–“If Romney announce

By land or sea from the town tonight,

Tweet a message, or text, don’t let it bounce,

To me or a fan if we lose the limelight,–

One if by land and two if by sea;

And I on somebody’s Harley will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every sex-messaging village and farm,

For the knuckleheads to be up and to arm.”

 

Then she said good-night, and with muffled oar

Silently rowed to Max Factor’s shore;

Meanwhile, her friends, through alley and street

Wandered and watched with eager ears,

Till in the silence around them they hears

The muster of men at the green-room door,

The clink of mugs, and the tramp of feet,

And the shuffling of photo-grenadiers

Slouching down to their marks on the floor.

 

Palin in greenroom

Beneath, they could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,

The watchful night-wind, as it went

Creeping along from tent to tent,

And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”

A moment only they feel the spell,

For suddenly all their thoughts are bent

On a shadowy something far away,

Where the river widens to meet the bay,–

Like literacy, but it’s still the GOP—

A line of black, that bends and floats

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and to ride,

 [another “Meanwhile,” Henry, really? Seriously?]

Alarmed that somebody’s boat might be raised by a tide,

Black-jeaned and leathered, with heavy stride,

On a different coast walked Governor Rear

Now she patted the Harley’s side,

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,

But mostly she watched with eager search

The twinkling monitor of the old iPod.

 

Palin and Harley fan

And lo! As she looks, on the menu site,

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

She springs to the back seat, the angle she turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on her sight

A second light on the monitor burns!

 

A hurry of Harleys in a village-coast,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a Hog that flies fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a career was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that hog, in her flight,

Kindled the launching of Romney to toast.

 

Romney launches bid for president

It was one by the village-clock

When she rode into Lexington.

She saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as she passed,

Like a tweety bird already staring aghast.

 

It was two by the village-clock

When she came to the bridge in Concord town.

She heard the bleating of the flock,

And one at the bridge would be first to fall,

Pierced by his own tweeted photo-ball.

 

Former Rep. Weiner

You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the former governor fired and fled,–

How the GOP regulars gave ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,

Chasing other knuckleheads down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again,

While Governor Palin denied it all.

 

 

So in the spotlight did not ride Revere;

Through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,–

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,–

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

As long as people try to get it right,

Through all our history, if we read,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,

And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.

 

 (“The liars are winning! The liars are winning!”)