Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

Camelot with the genders reversed, yes.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

[some waygug-in]

Here's some more interesting reading for you:

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2004/11/on-exit-polls.html

At least one diarist on Kos attempts to offer a more substantive answer. The diarist makes reference to Mark Blumenthal:


My point is that there are two competing theories for the discrepancy: The first is that the exit polls were slightly biased to Kerry due to a consistent pattern of what methodologists call "differential non-response" that has been evident in exit polls to a lesser degree for a dozen years (Republicans were more likely to refuse to fill out the exit poll than Democrats). The second theory is that systematic and consistent vote fraud occurred in almost every state and using every type of voting equipment. The first hypothesis seems plausible to me; the second wildly improbable.
Reverse the terms "plausible" and "wildly improbable," and you get closer to the truth.

"Differential non-response" is simply an impressively polysyllabic term for what I have called the "chatty Democrat" theory. The idea that conservatives are taciturn by nature is, of course, pure horseshit. The modern Republican party is a cult, and most cultists are verbal bullies. Liberals, by contast, have been cowed; they speak up only in non-mixed company.

Once we toss the "chatty Dem" theory onto the trash heap where it belongs, what do we have left?

Vote fraud.

Is the notion "wildly improbable"?

How many pundits in 1972 would have used those very words to describe the proposition that Nixon's men would break into Democratic headquarters? How many pundits would still use such a term to describe the (pretty much proven) thesis that Reagan's team cut a deal with Iran in 1980? How many pundits in 2003 would have described as "wildly improbable" the thesis that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in order to grab another nation's oil reserves?

Blumenthal places a lot of stock in Warren Mitofsky's interview in Mayflower Hill. (Mitovsky is one of the heads of the polling consortium.) This precis (by a Kos reader) sums up the situation well:


Mitofsky in Mayflower says he has already checked to see whether there's any divergence between precincts with electronic voting and others, and he didn't find any. Case closed, said Blumenthal.

But wait a minute. Which precincts did Mitofsky check? Many of us are not concerned that all precincts have voting irregularities. Only a select few. Why is Blumenthal so quick then to close the case? Why is he so ready to call us delusional?

I appreciate his web site as an aggregator of info, but i haven't appreciated his analysis at all.

With regards to Mitofsky, the only thing the revered exit pollster offers to rebut questions of possible fraud is speculation. Mitofsky refuses to consider possible machine irregularities.
Once again, the debunker's argument presumes the validity of the very data being questioned. Why should we consider the final tallies accurate? They're accurate because they're accurate. That's why.





It's hard to argue with "logic" like that.............. kind of reminds me of some on this forum.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

why should anyone believe what you say about the machines.

[hypnotist]

His "chatty democrat theory" theory is rubbish.

It's correct to say that exit polls don't just report the raw results of the polling, but go through some post-processing first. The issue seems to be that either a) this post-processing has always been woeful and unable to ever produce decent exit results (in which case why is anyone still paying for them?!), or b) the assumptions underpinning the exit results have somehow become invalid.

Now, one explanation for b) could be voter fraud but there are clearly others. I don't see what Homer's trying to say though - if Bush increased his share of the vote, he must have engaged more of the voters somehow, so how come fewer of them would admit voting for him?

Joo, why would anyone believe anything anyone says about the machines? The code that runs them can't be examined and there's no paper trail to verify the results. Maybe they're 100% accurate, but who knows? It can't be proven either way.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

I will go with what the pollsters said.

I guess more activists would be willing to say who they voted for and I would say Bush voters might be more busy.

I haven't seen any real reason to doubt the election results. And I think conspiracies are hard to pull off and cover up.

As for the anti Bush people - well most of them - the answer is obvious.

[saw6436]

What was the margin of error on these exit polls?