- Dr. Stephen Freeman is a University of Pennsylvania professor
whose expertise includes research methodology. In a recent paper titled
The Unexplained Exit Poll Data he reports that the International Foundations
sponsored an exit poll in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia during
their November 2003 parliamentary election and projected a victory for
the main opposition party. [1] Exit poll data is considered so robust that
when the sitting government counted the votes and announced that its own
slate of candidates had won, supporters of the opposition stormed the Parliament,
and the president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, resigned his office under pressure
from the United States and Russia. [2]
-
- Contrast that event with what happened in the United
States in the recent national election when in three battle ground states,
Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, with data based on exit polls predicted
an outcome in variance with the tallied vote outcomes. Major news organizations,
including CNN changed their exit poll data to conform with the tallied
outcomes, most of which came from paperless, electronic voting equipment.
In each case the tallied outcomes favored the incumbent, George W. Bush.
The odds for such an occurrence is one in 250 million for this to have
occurred by chance. [1]
-
- Does the phrase, "Something is rotten in Denmark"
have any meaning for the media? In plain language the term refers to a
line from the play Hamlet, when an officer of the palace guard, who after
the ghost of the assassinated king appears, utters the immortal line, "Something
is rotten in the state of Denmark." The term has universal meaning
to describe corruption or a situation in which something is wrong. [3]
-
- Freeman Analyses
-
- Professor Freeman's analyses of the data are compelling
for a number of reasons. First, he was able to sample 2004 exit poll data
that was not meant to be released directly to the public and was available
through a computer glitch that allowed him to view "uncalibrated data
that had not yet been corrected to conform to the announced counted vote
tallies. These data remained on the CNN website until approximately 1:30
a.m. election night. At that time CNN substituted data 'corrected' to conform
to reported tallies." (1, p. 3). Second, uncorrected exit poll data
have been secreted in a black box and AP, Edison Media Research, Mitofsky
International and the New York Times have ignored all requests for the
raw data. In an open democratic system or any scientific inquiry the data
would be open to inspection. The fact that it is not adds to the suspicion
that widespread fraud occurred in vote tallies in the battleground states.
-
- The integrity of the system is being questioned by citizens
across the nation and internationally. The response of mainline media is
a harsh attack on citizens and writers who dare raise questions about the
data. Robert Parry [4] points out that The New York Times (NYT) has joined
the Washington Post and other major news outlets in scouring the Internet
to find and discredit Americans who have expressed suspicions that Bush's
victory might not be entirely legitimate.
-
- What the Freeman Data and Analysis Reveal
-
- In the three battleground states, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and Florida, exit polls differed significantly from the recorded vote tallies
with Bush winning and thereby ascending to an electoral victory. Let us
examine the exit poll predictions versus tallied votes in each of these
battleground states combining the male and female vote, weighted for their
percentage in the electorate by state. For example, the Ohio electorate
data comprised 47 percent males and 53 percent females. This procedure
was also followed in Florida and Pennsylvania (1, p. 4 & 5).
-
- * In Florida Bush was predicted to win by the narrowest
of margins, 49.8 to 49.7 percent. In fact, Bush tallied 52.1 percent and
Kerry 47.1 percent of the vote.
-
- * It was predicted that Kerry would win Ohio by a sizeable
margin 52.1 percent versus 47.9 percent for Bush. The tallied outcome was
51 percent for Bush and 48.5 percent for Kerry.
-
- * In Pennsylvania Kerry was predicted to win by a sizeable
margin 54.1 percent versus 45.5 percent for Bush. The tallied outcome was
50.8 percent for Kerry and 48.6 percent for Bush.
-
- According to Professor Freeman, "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 sciences 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." [1]
-
- Given these discrepancies in the data and the probability
that these events did not occur by chance, in order to document integrity
of the process, it is crucial that the NYT, CNN and other media sources
open their books for public inspection rather than provide questionable
explanations about the discrepancies between exit poll and tallied vote
data. While the NYT cites a report issued by pollsters that debunked the
possibility that their exit polls are correct and the vote count wrong,
they provide no data to support an error in exit polling data.
-
- Multiple explanations provided about error in exit polling
procedure crumble under careful scrutiny. For example, the predictions
in the Utah presidential election were remarkably accurate. Exit polls
predicted Bush would take 70.8 percent and Kerry 26.5 percent of the vote.
The actual tallies recorded that Bush received 71.1 percent and Kerry 26.4
percent of the vote.
-
- This was not the case in 11 key states (Colorado, Florida,
Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and Wisconsin). In each of these states Bush's tallies were greater than
expected, and in all but Wisconsin, Kerry's tallies were less than expected
from exit polling. (See Professor Freeman's paper for tabulated data comparisons.)
-
- Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman warned that
there are many perils in electronic voting. He posits a scenario in which
on election night the early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent.
Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and when it resumes, the incumbent
pulls ahead. [5] What Krugman reported is not a paranoid fantasy. It is
a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, California, reported
by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper, The Independent. [6]
-
- Analyses of available data by independent pollsters show
some alarming trends from both Florida and Ohio. In Florida certain counties
tallied votes for Bush that were far in excess of what one would expect
based on Republican registrations. These were primarily counties that used
optical scanning equipment to feed votes into precinct computers that were
then sent to countywide databases. At any point after physical ballots
became databases, the system is vulnerable to external hacking. Colin Shea
reran preliminary CNN data and points out a number of disturbing trends
that include counties where 88 percent of the voters are registered Democrats
with Bush receiving nearly two-thirds of the vote. Other disturbing data
reveal that "according to official statistics for Cuyahoga County
[Ohio] they had a turnout well above the national average. In fact, their
turnout was well over 100 percent of registered voters." [7]
-
- Was November 2, 2004, the final act for what began in
Florida in 2000, tested in various locales with electronic voting equipment
in 2002 and finally played out in a disastrous final act that left the
media simpering that this election was about moral issues? That may be
true, but they depict the wrong moral issue. The untouchable topic is that
election fraud rather than gay marriage turned this election on its ear.
The media and politicians would be wise to listen to the voices of dissent
and concern.
-
- Freeman's Conclusions
-
- Professor Freeman concludes his paper with the following
statement:
-
- "Given that neither the pollsters nor their media
clients have provided a solid explanation to the public, suspicion of fraud
or among the less accusatory, "mistabulation" is running rampant
and unchecked. That so many people suspect misplay undermines not only
the legitimacy of the President, but faith in the foundations of democracy."
[1]
-
- Neither the people nor corporate media should accept
the fact that networks altered exit poll results to fit the tallied vote
numbers. This calls into question the integrity of other information these
networks report. Or as Andrew Gumbel so aptly states, "As the world's
most powerful democracy talks of exporting freedom to Iraq, it is at risk
of becoming an object of international ridicule." [8]
-
- For historical perspective, let us review what happened
in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia when their November 2003 election
results contrasted sharply with exit polls. Both the United States and
Russia pressured the president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, to resign. Compare
that behavior to what has just happened in the United States. CNN changed
its exit poll data to conform to counted vote numbers under the very eyes
of Professor Freeman and other observers. Meanwhile the media do everything
in their power to undermine the credibility of independent observers. Those
who sound the alarm of voter fraud are summarily dismissed as conspiracy
theorists and traitors of democracy.
-
- References
-
- 1. Freeman, Steven. "The unexplained exit poll discrepancy"
Nov. 10, 2004.
-
- 2. Plissner, Martin. "Exit polls to protect the
vote". New York Times, October 17, 2004.
-
- 3. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3rd Edition,
2002.
-
- 4. Parry, Robert "Big Media, Some Nerve!" Consortium
News, November 13, 2004.
-
- 5. Krugman, Paul. "Too many perils in electronic
voting." Arizona Daily Star, July 28, 2004.
-
- 6. Gumbel, Andrew. "Mock the vote." Los Angeles
City Beat, October 29, 2003.
-
- 7. Shea, Colin. "I smell a rat." www.Zogby.com.
-
- 8. Gumbel, Andrew. "Portrait of a country on the
verge of a nervous breakdown." Common Dreams, November 13, 2004.
-
- Sara S. DeHart, MSN, PhD, Associate Professor Emeritus,
University of Minnesota. Dr. DeHart is a freelance writer and democracy
activist, living in the Seattle, Washington area. She may be contacted
at dehart.ss@verizon.net.
-
- Copyright © 1998-2004 Online Journal. All rights
reserved.
-
- http://onlinejournal.com/evoting/111704DeHart/111704dehart.html
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