Reply #133: Febble, you are making all kinds of hidden assumptions in this list--

[Peace Patriot]

and are leaving out the most critical facts that should preface any investigation of the exit polls: Are conditions for election fraud present? Is the election transparent and recountable? And if the answer is "yes" to the first question, and "no" to the second, WHO has the best opportunity to commit fraud, and WHO created the non-transparent, unrecountable conditions? In short, who is in control of the vote counting?

I repeat my point from above: You MUST consider the CONTEXT in which the exit polls occurred.

Considering that conditions for election fraud WERE present, in spades, and that the election was unquestionably non-transparent and non-recountable, and considering who played the most critical role in arranging that non-transparency--two of the biggest Bushite crooks in Congress--and considering that two pro-Bush electronic voting corporations consequently gained control of the vote tabulation with "trade secret," proprietary programming code, which has been proven to be easily hackable in a matter of minutes by one programmer leaving not a trace, and which can switch large numbers of votes over a wide grid of results, in impossible to detect patterns, at the speed of light, you SHOULD NOT make any of the following assumptions, in analyzing the exit polls:

--that the fraud would be easiest to detect in DRE precincts
--that the fraud would be easiest to detect in any comparisons with Bush 2000 (different voting system entirely)
--that the fraud would be easiest to detect in swing states(*)
--that the fraud would be easiest to detect in Republican-controlled precincts
--that small inconsistencies are not meaningful (i.e., cross tabs)

As for pre-election polls, there is such a significant difference between pre-election polls and exit polls--the one of possible voters, the other of actual voters just after they voted--that this should not be considered at all. (Remember Harry Truman! Pre-election polls can be very wrong; exit polls seldom are.)

(*)Re: your "alternative explanation" about swing states. There is no evidence of higher interest in swing states in THIS election--an election that was unique in many respects (if one can call it an election at all), and concerning which there was high interest and big turnout all over the country. The watchword among Democratic grass roots groups was "this is the most important election in our history"--and is evidenced by a nearly 60/40 blowout success by the Democrats in new voter registration in 2004.

You are not considering the most likely scenario, given the fraud capabilities in this election system and its non-transparency: that the pattern of electronic fraud was cleverly randomized to avoid statistical detection, and that small percentages were stolen here, there and everywhere, with some concentration in the swing states, and that these thefts occurred in the CENTRAL TABULATORS, not in the voting machines (the DRE switches might even have been a red herring). These small randomized shaves (of various kinds: switch from Kerry to Bush, switch from Kerry to 3rd parties, 'disappeared' Kerry votes, added Bush votes, etc.) over a wide grid of results would be very hard to distinguish from the little up and down blips of any exit polling, and could only be seen clearly in the aggregate--a 3% margin of victory to Kerry in the exit polls, overall. The most detectable would most likely be in the swing states--several of which were critical to a victory (because of the Electoral College)--and that is exactly what we find, looking at the numbers (and the redshift) in this election. Certain states had to be taken by Bush; that's where the most noticeable redshift bumps occur. Bush's popular vote edge could then be manufactured in a randomized way all over the country. (But I recall that TIA found an east coast redshift--which would make sense in terms of election dynamics--to a fraudster.)

I believe that the electronic fraud may have been limited by a need for pre-progamming** (not easy to alter on election day), and that this may have been the reason for the blatant, illegal, and risky vote suppression in Ohio. One of the reasons I believe this is the tenor of the country at the time, and the spirit among Democratic voters and grass roots get-out-the-vote groups (also the new voter registration stats, and the high turnout). I think Kerry's win was higher than the Bushites expected (more than the exit poll 3%) and that additional measures had to be taken, and that some of the old pols like Rove didn't trust the promises of the electronic voting wizards, and had plenty of old-fashioned Republican "dirty tricks"-type vote suppression planned and ready to go (too few precincts, too few voting machines in poor black areas, etc.). They were faced with a big Kerry win on election night (and a big rejection of Bush and his filthy war) and had to pull out all the stops to get even the modest margin they got (2.5%).

There is evidence of pre-election vote suppression--in Ohio, Florida and other places--and it's possible that the randomized global thefts were planned to be combined with blatant vote suppression, either to avert a Kerry win, or to divert attention from the main fraud. But I tend to believe they were faced with an unexpectedly high Kerry win, and had to take extra measures. (The highly visible suppression of black voters was the most likely to cause notice and post-election trouble--as it did--that's why I think it was a desperation measure.)

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A note about Republicans:

It's my opinion that Republican precincts were the most likely places that the Bushites would steal votes--both because high Bush vote counts in such precincts would be less likely to raise eyebrows, and because the Republicans in control would not likely raise questions about unusually big numbers for Bush (or unusually low numbers for Kerry*).

Republican precincts are ALSO places of high suppression of contrary views and tight social, and sometimes church-related, control over individuals. These precincts therefore may well be subject to a "non-response" or "wrong response" effect--not by Bush voters, but by Republicans who voted AGAINST Bush. I happen to think there were a lot of such votes--possibly even a big factor in the election. My evidence is anecdotal but it is compelling. And I have some social and church experience with which to gage what a Kerry vote among rightwing Republicans, especially Christian rightwing Republicans, would do to the social standing of an individual. The suppression can be severe, and may well have resulted in social Republicans, or religious Republicans, being fearful of admitting a Kerry vote to anyone in a public place. I frankly think there was a lot of private rebellion going on, but it would never be admitted in any circumstance where it could get back to others in their social or religious groups.

This kind of suppression is extremely rare in Democratic-dominated areas. Democrats are more tolerant, more respectful of others' views, and much less coercive in both social and religious settings. Further, there was quite a difference in the nature of Bush and Kerry supporters. I can remember elections when Democrats were possessed by the personality of the candidate (JFK and RFK are good examples). But that was not the case with the bulk of Kerry supporters, who were more possessed by the idea of ousting Bush--for which they were VERY enthusiastic--and were not especially fanatical about Kerry as a person (mainly because of his cool stance on getting out of Iraq). Contrast this with Bush supporters, many of whom do tend to be hard-line and fanatically attached to Bush. A Republican in a Democratic precinct who was voting for Bush would have no fear of social disrepute, or dirty looks, or slashed tires, or lost employment, or other punishments, as a result of telling a pollster of their vote of Bush. A Republican in a Republican precinct who was voting for Kerry would be inclined to keep their mouth shut about it, for fear of repercussions by the hardliners.

These are to some extent value judgments, I know--but they are also based on long experience.

If there is any bias in the exit polls, I therefore think that it is the opposite bias than the one E/M put forward--which, for one thing, assumed that Republican non-responders were Bush voters. That is not a safe assumption, if you take REAL political and social conditions into account. E/M also made the assumption that Bush voters--some of whom put Bush on a pedestal with Jesus Christ--and who had had four years of their heart's desire in anti-gay and anti-abortion proposals, and in war, mayhem and thievery by the rich, would at all be reluctant to admit to a Bush vote, as Republicans might have in the past. We were living in BushWorld by then, with Bush doing anything he liked, to a fawning news media. Why would any Bush voter be reluctant to admit a Bush vote? They would be more inclined to brag about it, and even be in your face about it--my experience of Bush supporters; not at all shy.

I think the exit polls had this hidden hole in them--the socially fearful Republican voter for Kerry--and they missed some of of the Kerry vote because of it.

I think the exit polls correlate closely to the real vote, with the exception of the above (which adds to Kerry's margin, making it more than 3%), and that, if all the votes had been counted, and all those who wanted to vote had been permitted to, Kerry won the election by a 4% to 5% margin of victory.

I consider the Edison/Mitofsky falsification of the exit polls to be the greatest disservice ever done to the American people by a polling organization and by the corporate news monopolies which commissioned the polls. The numbers were doctored in impossible and absurd ways to confirm a Bush win, in the knowledge that the election system was non-transparent. If ever we needed an honest pollster, it was 2004. E/M failed us completely, as did the five fatcat, war profiteering CEOs who run the news monopolies and all their toady, careerist, so-called journalists. I shall never trust E/M again on any matter. They are liars in the pay of people who helped lead us into unjust war--into murder and torture, into the loss of our very soul as a nation. What they did was the height of irresponsibility. It was unforgivable.

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*(California is an interesting case. Barbara Boxer (running as an incumbent for US Senate) won the state by a 20% margin in 2004. Kerry won the state by 10%. All of the difference between them is to be found in Republican precincts, which makes no political sense. They ran about even in Democratic areas. The difference does not correlate with method of voting, but rather with Republican political control. It's my opinion that this points strongly to the central tabulators (Diebold/GEMS) as the culprit in 'disappearing' Kerry votes, to reduce Kerry's national popular majority (a potential popular/Electoral vote difference haunted the Bushites, after 2000), and possibly also to pad Bush's popular majority, and that Republican precincts were chosen because an unusually low vote for Kerry would be less noticeable there, and the Republican election officials could be counted on to ignore anomalies in vote totals that favored Bush. The exit poll difference was small in California (a half a percent, as I recall--although in California that's a lot of votes). This means that the California exit poll could be off by as much as 9.5% (failure to detect Kerry votes). Some part of the Boxer margin (over Kerry) in Republican precincts might be due to incumbency or familiarity; some also might be Republican women voting for a woman (but not Kerry). Say half that 9.5% is accountable--which would mean that the exit polling missed 4% to 5% of the Kerry vote. I think the Republican Kerry voter/reluctant responder may have been a factor. My experience of California Republicans over the last several decades is that they tend to cluster in tight enclaves and exercise strong social control over each other--and some Republican areas can be quite rightwing extremist. Fear as to admitting a Kerry vote in public would be a factor there. At the same time, the OLDER Republicans--those who had joined the Republican Party in its more liberal heyday ('50s-'70s)--would be good candidates for Kerry voters (and my anecdotal information points that way). The Bushites may have had their reasons for not ALSO altering the Boxer vote (along with the Kerry vote), which I won't go into here. The Boxer/Kerry discrepancy remains one of the oddest things I've seen in a California election, or any election. Boxer is to the left of Kerry--and voted against the Iraq war--yet did better with Republicans???) (Are California Republicans secret leftists? Or are they crazier--more schizie--than other Republicans? A Bush/Boxer vote is very hard to figure.)

**(This is a rather important strategic issue--does the electronic fraud have to be preprogrammed, or, if it had to be preprogrammed in 2004, will that continue to be the case? I am hoping that close, refined analysis of the election numbers, including exit poll analysis--that takes the context of the fraudulent election SYSTEM into consideration--can help us figure this out.)