I was wrong. The weather kept Bush voters away from the exit pollsters

[TruthIsAll]

All that work for naught. I should have been a weatherman.

Johnny Ray must have been a Democrat.
"Just walkin' in the rain
Getting soak and wet..."

And so was Gene Kelly:
"Singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling
I'm voting again.."


The greatest Dem of all, Barbara Streisand (with Donna Summer):
"It's raining, its poring
My love life is boring me to tears..."

Barbara, better stop talking to the pollster..


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1327618/posts

[EFerrari]

1. LOL! Twas a sign from the Almighty. n/t

[TruthIsAll]

12. It rained hard in the East (NY, OH, PA, FL) and the mountains (NM, NV, CO)

NC was very bad. People were waterlogged in Cape Fear. Just ask Robert DeNiro what that's like.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x318693

[EFerrari]

25. I saw that, TIA, insult to injury. Thanks for your work. n/t

[merwin]

2. Wow, he sure showed you! God brought rain upon the heathens

to skew the exit polls!

[Goldeneye]

3. I was going to make a post about how stupid they are...

But its so self evident...its not worth the time.

Here's the quote I was going to use, before I decided that they're lost causes and are totally unable to think critically:

Either the exit polls were screwed up or the election was. The people who put together the exit polls admitted the exit polls were faulty. Furthermore, one of the reasons seems to be that the exit poll interviewers were biased in favor of Kerry -- particularly exit poll interviewers with advanced degrees (such as PhD).

edit...I can't help it....they're so fricking stupid.

On January 19, 2005, Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International released a 77-page report on their
(p. 3) “analysis of the performance of the exit polls” in the 2004 election. The Edison/Mitofsky report
acknowledges widespread discrepancies between their exit polls and official counts, and admits that the
differences were far greater than can be explained by sampling error. The report repeats the assertion (p. 3)
that this disparity was “most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters”, but no evidence is offered to support this conclusion. In fact, data newly released in the report
suggests that Bush supporters might have been overrepresented in the exit polls, widening the disparity to
be explained. The report gives no consideration to alternative explanations involving election irregularities.

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

Mitofsky's report said there was nothing wrong with they're exit polls, only with the pollers and the over eager Kerry voters. They fail to substantiate this claim in any way.

[Webster Green]

4. Thank God thats been cleared up.....

Bet you're flattered that the freepers are talking about you.

You must be doing something right.

[The Sheik]

5. Its true! Jesus did want Bush to win!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. It's late can I ask you a dumb question??

all the work you've done with the exit polls...were those polls done over the phone? or at the polls.

For the longest time, I thought exit polls were precisely that -- maybe because I was polled by ABC one time.

[TruthIsAll]

8. At the polls, after exiting into the rain...

...

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. Cute. Be serious.

[Griffy]

17. Funny.. the school I went to had an AWNING, freep didnt factor in cover!

do they think the exit poller is just standing in the rain?!! wow, and we are the mentally challenged.. LOL They are just desperate to cover up or explain away the truth they dont want to hear. Maybe if they tilt there heads a little and squint....

[Igel]

23. Short answer: yes.

The main body of exit poll data was obtained near the polling stations. Pick every nth voter, and approach them and ask them to participate (or note that they didn't participate, or that you didn't have the opportunity to ask the nth voter). 53% of those asked to participate did.

A second set of polling information was trying to target early voters: these were conducted by phone. I don't know if the response rate for those voters was rolled into the overall 47% non-response rate or not.

The Oregon "exit poll" (in quotes because it served the same function as the exit polls elsewhere, but there was no exit involved) was done entirely by phone.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

27. thanks igil. So what exactly are they saying they did wrong in

the on site polling? They picked a disproportionate number of women? a disproportionate number of democrats?

If, yes, why did that happen primarily where it was close? And where the electoral votes were high?

[Igel]

28. The claim (which is actively disputed by many, and pretty

much unprovable either way in the absence of data and Mitofsky's model) is that the 47% that didn't vote wasn't random.

This is pretty much the case: apart from what a few DUers, the record is that since 1988 (the first presidential exit poll), early on in teh day the exit polls generally overstate the dem support. It hasn't been an issue until last fall, as far as I can tell. The usual conclusion is that dems participate more than repubs. Mitofsky's claiming that the response rate last November was less random than usual.

He's also claiming that there are correlations between all sorts of things: weather, age of poller, length of employment with Mitofsky, and a few other things. Some seem like they could boost non-response rate; why they would alter the percentage of dems/repubs that participate is another question. And he left lots of things unsaid: he wasn't trying to convince the hardcore skeptics, just give plausible reasons for those that believed the polls were wrong. And since he didn't provide the details of his model and all the data, you have to take him at his word. Or not.

[FreepFryer]

30. It's just a state of mind. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

Beatles
Rain

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead,
If the rain comes, if the rain comes.
When the sun shines they slip into the shade,
And sip their lemonade,
When the sun shines, when the sun shines.
Rain, I don't mind,
Shine, the weather's fine.
I can show you that when it starts to rain,
Everything's the same,
I can show you, I can show you.
Rain, I don't mind,
Shine, the weather's fine.
Can you hear me that when it rains and shines,
It's just a state of mind,
Can you hear me, can you hear me?

[Laurab]

7. Why do they spend so much time on DU?

Loved this quote from Freeperville:

"I only listened to Rush on election day so I was not contaminated by the "News"

Gives you an idea of the intelligence factor over there...

[dzika]

10. I'm so disappointed...

I was really hoping that you had correlated exit polls with precipitation data for Nov. 2nd.

Or maybe Blumenthal's new hypothesis is Kerry voters are more likely to stand in the rain...

...but that's probably true because they were forced to wait longer to vote!

[Goldeneye]

11. WTF? stuffing exit polls.

Weather?...maybe. Exit poll ballot box stuffing is a much better explanation. His "red shift" graphics don't show anything except the extent to which various state's exit polls were stuffed with democrat votes.

[berniew1]

13. Whats the point being made here??

Rain affects Dems & Repubs in a given precinct the same, so its not clear rain biases the poll for a given precinct or county or state.

But rain could make a difference in how many vote where it is raining. Is the point here that Bush won some state because the Kerry area of the state had rain and the Bush area didn't? If so, which state?

Or what is the point?

[Griffy]

18. Well... sarcasm from us.. and stupidity from freeps..

the point of the post, I gather, was to make fun of the "analysis" that the freeper did in his weather reasoning of exit poll shifts. The freeper has no valid point.. its a weak attempt to explain the evidence we have of fraud as something else.. the fact that exit pollers wouldnt stand in the rain.. they would be under an awning or inside seems to escape the freeps logic.. (oxymoron: freep logic).

[RevCheesehead]

14. Well, of course, silly!

Everyone knows repukes melt when wet!

Or is it they multiply, like Gremlins do? Yeah! That's it!

[dzika]

15. Since the exit polls were the screwed instead of the vote count...

...does that mean that we can call them "Exit Fraudsters"?

Next time, I will try to remember to stuff the ballot box instead of the exit polls.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

16. "It's raining men. Hallelujah, it's raining men"...

... consult The Weather Girls.

What was the gender skew, Bush** or Kerry?

[davidgmills]

19. I heard Mystery Pollster is looking for new excuses

Has anyone sent this on to him?

Since he was told by UScountvotes that his last excuse was a "joke" maybe since this excuse has some correlating data with a pretty graph of the US and all, he can use this one.


On the other hand, maybe the rain affected the computer tabulators in this area. Computers don't work all that well when the humidity gets high. Or maybe sticky fingers on the keyboards from the humidity. Or something.

[McCamy Taylor]

20. Here is my comic take on it "Mifosky Uses Ethnology to Explain Exit Polls"

It is the third comic at

http://www.grandtheftelectionohio.com

As best I can tell, this really IS the Mifosky explaination, though it is sometimes difficult to follow the logic of things which are circularly logical.

[farmbo]

21. Shame on you TIA! (What we're we THINKING?)

So those hearty gun-toting, terrorist-hunting NASCAR Dads just couldn't work up the nerve to stand in the rain to talk politics for 15 seconds?Yeah...that explains it.

Thank God for FR in bringing this to our attention.

:crazy:

[FogerRox]

22. truly friggin funny stuff--really funny---Tia - U- made me chuckle

[johnaries]

24. I guess only Dem's waste money on umbrellas. n/t

[NationalEnquirer]

26. Why pollute DU with their drivel?

Anything on there is suspect.

[Peace Patriot]

29. Nine Ph.D.'s say that the E/M exit poll data not only doesn't support...

...the notion of Republican shyness, the data actually indicates just the opposite, that the exit polls favored Bush, in which case (they say) the discrepancy with the official tally is even greater than we thought.

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

In his second report on the election--dealing with the E/M excuses--Freeman did an analysis apart from the exit poll data, and found 4 to 8 million votes that Kerry should have gotten, and didn't get in the official tally--by adding together the base vote going in (who voted in 2000), the big jump from Nader to Kerry (documented in polls), and new voter registration which favored Democrats 57% to 41%.* He makes a very strong case for the integrity of his numbers, and errs on the conservative side.

Basically, there is no way Kerry could have lost by 3.5 million votes--and he probably won by a margin of 5% or 6%.

You gotta figure the Dem leadership knew this on 11/2, and knows it now. These kind of figures are their bread and butter. What the hell is the matter with them? Why are they so silent?

----------

* That is an astounding number! 57% vs 41%. And the grass roots democracy movement that accomplished this, did so in the face of massive suppresson of Democratic voter registration, especially among minorities, by Repug election officials (most notoriously in Ohio and Florida, with their purge lists and so on), Repug dirty tricks (registering Democrats then shredding their forms) in at least three states, and Repubs' virtually unlimited funds. What an accomplishment! And what a dismal tragedy that it was stolen!

But I think that movement will rise again--is doing so even now--and, TruthIsAll, you and others here at the DU "2004 Election Results and Discussion Forum," are one of the reasons that it is recovering. You never lost faith in peoples' ability to absorb information and see the truth. And you were here when you were most badly needed. My hats off to you, and to your humor as well.

--------

Freeman's reports: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm

[TruthIsAll]

31. They must be reading my posts.

CALCULATING KERRY'S POPULAR VOTE BASED ON THE NATIONAL EXIT
POLL 
 
Edited on Fri Dec-31-04 08:40 AM by TruthIsAll
 
......2000..BUSH KERRY NADER 
NoVote(17%) 39% 59% 1% 
Gore  (38%)  8% 91% 1% 
Bush  (41%) 90%  9% 0% 
Other (4%)  13% 65% 16% 


Assume 100 million voted in 2000 (actually there were a few
million more, but let's keep it simple):
1)Gore got 48.5 million, Bush 48, Nader et al 3.

2) Assume 20 million new voters in 2004 (120 million).
Kerry gets 59%, Bush 39% (Kerry gets 3 out of 5) or Kerry
gets 12 out of the 20 million. Bush gets 8 million.
That's a net gain to Kerry of 4 million votes.

3) Kerry got 65% (2 million) of the 3 million who voted for
Nader et all. Bush got 13% or 0.5 million.
That's a net Kerry gain of 1.5 million votes.

4) Assume the rest of the voters voted as they did in 2000.
Total net Kerry gain: 4 + 1.5 = 5.5 million votes. Add thte
5.5 million to the .50 million Gore margin and...

************ Kerry wins by 6 million votes *****************

Therefore, assuming 120 million voted, this is the split:
Kerry: 63 million (52.5%, Bush: 57 million (47.5%)
Deduct 1.0% for the third party vote (split between Bush &
Kerry).

Final Vote: Kerry 52%,  Bush 47%, Other 1%

This is almost exactly equal to the weighted calculation
below: 
Kerry 50.9%, Bush 47.1%, Other 1.2%

2000	Mix	Bush	Kerry	Nader	Bush	Kerry	Nader
No	17%	39%	59%	1%	6.6%	10.0%	0.2%
Gore	38%	8%	91%	1%	3.0%	34.6%	0.4%
Bush	41%	90%	9%	0%	36.9%	3.7%	0.0%
Other	4%	13%	65%	16%	0.5%	2.6%	0.6%

	100%				47.1%	50.9%	1.2%