Here is something interesting I learned today at the voting fraud debate at the University of Pennsylvania between Walter Mitofsky and Prof. Steve Freeman (.pdf). Take a look at these numbers from the 2000 and 2004 elections:
Bush: 50,500,000
Gore: 51,000,000
Other: 4,000,000
2004 Election
Bush: 62,000,000 +11,500,000
Kerry: 59,000,000 +8,000,000
Other: 1,000,000 -3,000,000
From this data we can see several things. First, there was much higher turnout in 2004. Second, there were many fewer third party voters. And third, Bush improved his numbers more than Kerry improved on Gore’s. So, where did Bush get his votes? To try to figure it out, Prof. Freeman looked at the exit polls. One of the questions on the two-page exit poll asked who the voter voted for in 2000. There were four possibilities: the voter did not vote in 2000, they voted for Bush, they voted for Gore, or they voted for someone else (other). Here are the results, cross-tabbed for the 2004 election:
17% did not vote in 2000.
39% voted for Gore in 2000.
41% voted for Bush in 2000.
4% voted for other.
* note these numbers (above) have no relationship to who received more votes on election day, they simply reflect the total sample of people that filled out the exit polls.
Among new voters (did not vote in 2000), 54% voted for Kerry and 45% voted for Bush.
Voters that voted for Bush in 2000, voted for him again (91%-9%).
Voters that voted for Gore in 2000, voted for Kerry (90%-10%).
Voters that voted for other in 2000, voted for Kerry (71%-21%).
Looking at these numbers we quickly see that Gore voters stuck with the Democratic Party at 90%, and Bush voters stuck with Bush at 91%. There is no evidence of movement from one party to the other. So, it seems unlikely that Bush picked up his new voters by attracting more Gore voters than Kerry could attract from Bush’s voters.
So, maybe Bush picked up the lion’s share of new voters and that explains his advantage? But, no, Kerry picked up 54% of the new voters.
Well, then, maybe Bush took advantage of the fall-off in third party voting?
No. Kerry got a whopping 71% of third party voters from 2000.
So, where is exactly did Bush makes his gains? The only possibility is that many 2000 Gore voters stayed home in 2004, while very few 2000 Bush voters stayed home.
Yet, it is hard to see how this could account for Bush’s 3,500,000 million differential improvement when Kerry did so well with former third party voters and new voters.
I’ll write more about the conference tomorrow. This is just a warm up.
This matches my non-scientific polling – everyone voted. And everyone who voted for Gore voted for Kerry, plus a few more. So WTF happened?
I am the precinct captain in my precinct, and the turnout was amazing. On my block there was one (1) dem or unaffiliated voter who didn’t vote last year – and he was in college, so I bet he voted in that state.
I know, anecdotes and selective bias and all that. But deep down, it just doesn’t add up for me. All I can think is that in the privacy of the voting booth, people voted their fears, and then were too embarrassed to admit it. And I can see that, actually.
Mitofsky explains the exit poll discrepency as primarily a matter of Bush voters being disinclined to fill out the way-too-long survey.
Actually, there is no evidence that this is the case, and Freeman offered some counterevidence. But even assuming it were true, it still doesn’t account for the conundrum layed out above.
Where did Bush get his votes? He didn’t get them for the Democratic base, or new voters, and certainly not from 3rd party candidates. So, where did he get them?
Don’t tell the fundies. They still think it was a miracle of their creation.
Diebold. With all the shit that his coming out about BushCo I wound’t put anything past them. I’m with Carnacki. Mischief. Monkeybusiness. Robbers. Thiefs. Cronies. It was all in the major plan.
I guess it’s been a really long day. I read your post and saw all those periods as commas. So I’m thinking, “Carnacki, Mischief, Monkeybusiness, Robbers, Thiefs, Cronies…. jeez, I haven’t seen these posters around; these new people sure are negative.”
Time to get log off, I suppose!
” … Bush voters being disinclined to fill out the way-too-long survey”
Maybe there were large numbers of Bush voters who:
These people would be likely to vote Bush and skip the survey.
it would be interesting to look at the distribution of absentee votes as well, since those people would be obviously missing from the exit poll.
the proportion of absentee voters is rather large now, due to relaxed laws. I myself have permanent absentee status, which is perhaps less exiciting than “going to vote” on election day but is really much easier to manage, considering the arcane scheduling of elections in this country.
IIRC the GOP has always had a rather vigorous campaign to encourage absentee voting.
have a thing for absentee ballots. Especially in places like Oregon.
You may be interested in the results of the manual recount in New Hampshire, one of the exit poll ‘red shift’ states:
4 pm Mitofsky EP Actual NH
Kerry Bush Kerry Bush
55 44 50 49
Manual recount results here
The differences between the original machine counts and the hand counts were minimal and statistically insignificant.
This double check would not have been possible if it weren’t for the systems New Hampshire has in place, with the most important thing being A PAPER TRAIL, followed closely by a clear system that involved double and triple checking each step of the recount.
You may be interested in seeing examples of discrepencies favoring Democratic candidates in previous elections.
A post-election memo from Mitofsky and Joe Lenski, Mitofsky’s associate and partner on the election desk, stated that on election day 2000, VNS’s exit poll overstated the Gore vote in 22 states and understated the Bush vote in nine states. In only 10 states, the exit polls matched actual results. The VNS post-election report says its exit poll estimates showed the wrong winner in eight states
and finally, be sure to read Perceptions of news media bias are consistently higher among Republicans and rising. in section (c), just below.
Perhaps I’ve misread it, but after looking at your last link there I found what might be a couple of flaws in the Mystery Pollsters take.
Just to mention one, near the end he cites a Pew Research Center study which says that “42% of Republicans believe news coverage of the campaign is biased in favor of Democrats compared to only 29% of Democrats [who] believe news coverage is biased in favor of the Republicans.” He then goes on to say that “the overall percentage that believes the news is free of any form of bias has declined dramatically…”
To sum up: 1) More Republicans than Democrats believe news is biased against their side. And 2) Overall perception of news bias is rising.
Then he talks about the fact that the survey is clearly, to the person being asked to participate, being conducted by a consortium of 6 major news organizations, identified by their logos.
Again, to sum up: The people being interviewed know they are talking to people representing major news organizations.
He then concludes that either “you can choose to believe that an existing problem with exit polls got worse this year in the face of declining response rates and rising distrust of big media, that a slightly higher number of Bush voters than Kerry voters declined to be interviewed. Or, you can believe that a massive secret conspiracy…” Blah Blah Blah. You can figure out how that one ends all high and mighty.
OK. Here’s the possible flaw. If you look at the Pew Study here.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=200
The part he’s quoting is under a section called “Bias Concerns Grow Among Democrats”
Uh, ex-squeeze me?
To make a long story short, the trend appears to be in larger numbers, percentage wise, of Democrats not trusting the major news media, because of a perceived media bias in favor of Republicans.
So if we’re talking about a trend of non-respondents, then it seems the trend would be moving the opposite direction.
Perhaps I’m mistaken in my quick little analysis here?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll go to my grave believing George W. Bush stole the election.
And you will be far from alone in that belief.
there with you and Cabin Girl, no need to look further.
I am of the same mind, Carnacki, but I don’t think that they let ole Georgie in on it — I think the election was stolen for him, but they needed Georgie to go on thinking that everybody loves him, so that he could go out and spew his “I’ve got a mandate” BS without his entire face becoming one huge spasming tic.
That’s giving him too much credit, Brinn. He was in on it, it showed on election night. Though he might have managed to convince himself otherwise.
Do I really have to ask?
What would surprise me is anyone in the Democratic Party outside Conyers and a few others taking note of this.
What would surprise me is anyone in the so-called media taking note of this.
Of course Bush got all his extra votes from right wing Christians against gay marriage ;o)
He swiped em. A little here, a little there in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, California, etc.
I do think that people voted thier fears. Fear of four more years of Bush. My boss is a good example to me of the shift from 00 to 04. He hates democrats, so he says, but voted for Kerry because he hated Bush more. My own father who last voted for Kennedy, got out and voted. So did my little brother who never voted before. I think the whole country turned out to turn out Bush but he had a plan.
Yep. I was just about to post that it must have been those scary anal-sexed-gay-people trying to get married that brought the fundies out. It did.
with Diebold around, maybe the bits & bytes that are flying around the internet comprising this very message were formerly part of one of those mystery votes for W…
I’m not much of a commenter yet, but I did want to say thank you. It is a rare moment indeed when a highly respected front-page poster at a liberal blog delves the exit poll/election 2004 question! Makes me feel a little less crazy. I look forward to your next post about the conference.
I haven’t seen you before so let me say welcome to the pond, an oasis in a desert full of insanity.
If there was fraud we need solid evidence. Have any poll workers come forward with eyewitness stuff. What did Carl Sagan say something like extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I hate bush and I hate the fucking neocons. But I remember the contempt I had for the right wingers when they claimed Clinton murdered Vince Foster. I want to believe, but I need solid proof that these guys stole it.
I’ve read that they pulled crap like manipulating the amount of polling booths on college campuses in Ohio. So students that they knew who were going to vote heavily democratic would have to wait in line for hours. But the numbers Booman has shown us while suspect are not a smoking gun. We need a smoking gun. Do we have that…..yet?
Hi Salunga. I don’t know how much you’ve read or seen about all the instances of fraud and suppression but here are a couple of links for you to check out if you’re interested. IMO there’s plenty of evidence of fraud. I think many people know that something wasn’t right and the media made sure the rest heard nothing about it, except for Keith Olberman who kept it out there as long as he could. Considering who signs his paycheck, he did well I thought. What we needed was our own Orange Revolution, but even that is a dream in America where we don’t steal elections. We’re too pure for that.
Oops! Forgot the links.
http://election.solarbus.org/
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19
Got it. I’ll read them today thanks!
The problem is that, with electronic voting and tabulation machines, the actual conspiracy size needed is under a dozen people. In at least a couple of precincts in Ohio, unscheduled maintenance was reported by the Green/Libertarian recount observers as having been performed on the election machines between the actual election and the scheduled recount. This, combined with other aspects of their report, makes it very clear that we did not get a valid recount in Ohio.
I am not convinced the 2004 election was stolen. (I am convinced the 2000 presidential election was.) But I am willing to consider evidence that it was. What would be great is if we could have a place (I hope this blog is it) where people could consider the evidence and come down on different sides of the question and not trash the people on the other side. It is certainly POSSIBLE that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. But it entirely believable (to me) that it was not.
I also would like to have some hard evidence that there was manipulation of the votes themselves, whether computer hackery or more old-fashioned ways of doing it (“losing” a bunch of paper ballots or changing them). That said, even if there was, it’s very hard to prove and we may never know the truth.
I certainly don’t put it past Rove and all of his wannabe’s to do it.
But I think there’s really no doubt that there was an effort in many places to prevent people from voting who were likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Beginning with striking qualified voters from the rolls, preventing registration (my favorite – the company hired by the RNC to do voter registration that shredded registration forms marked D – a very good reason not to have that question on your registration forms), disallowing “provisional” ballots, misinformation about where the polling places were, unreasonable challenges to voters at the polling places, and inadequate numbers of machines in D leaning areas causing hours long lines.
To me, even if that’s “all” there was, and no computers got hacked or ballots changed – the election was stolen.
That’s the point, Janet–with those electronic machines like Diebold, there is NO WAY TO TELL if they have been tampered with. That’s why California is going to require paper receipts.
Oh I absolutely agree – we have an initiative here in Austin to get voter-verified paper trails on our voting machines (not Diebold brand, but still). But election-stealing didn’t start with the computer voting machines, and it’s hard to prove unless somebody sings. Which we can hope for.
I fear it may have been a little here, a little there, rather than a grand coordinated conspiracy. Obviously at all levels, from the RNC to the county clerks, the word was out to prevent as many D votes as possible. I think it’s possible that some local R’s took it upon themselves to take the next step – to fudge whatever they could get away with, in whatever way they could, whether their area used the machines or not. But a little here, a little there could add up, especially where it was close, as in Ohio.
It would take an awful lot of “singers” to get the whole story. Any one incident that comes to light will be dismissed as, well, yeah maybe that happened but it wasn’t enough votes to change the outcome, so who cares?
Oh course it may have been a grand coordinated conspiracy. I wouldn’t put it past them. That’s why I’d like to have some solid proof. Because I’d really like to see some people in jail for this, whether they stole 50 votes or 5 million. Or all of the above.
Check out Georgia10’s Armando’s Challenge over at Dkos. It is a big Doc. Not proof that it was stolen, but a pretty amazing read.
This is just anecdotal too, but I have a really hard time believing that Bush’s additional votes came from the new voters/didn’t vote last time voters. When you talked to people who usually don’t vote or had never voted but were planning to in Nov, there was certainly no great enthusiasm for Bush. I never heard anyone say, “Well, I didn’t vote for Bush last time, but he’s doing such a great job I feel like I have to get myself off to the polling place this time to show how much I like how things are going.”
A lot of them weren’t thrilled with Kerry, but they were scared to death of 4 more years of Bush, and that’s what motivated them to make the effort. ABB was real, and not just among the politically active folks. I’m surprised that the split was only 54%-46%.
Actually, THIS is the group most likely to not want to take the time to fill out the questionnaires. I wonder if the true percentages in this group aren’t actually higher for Kerry.
in 2004, Bush got those voters who voted for other candidates in 2000.
Like Jews for Buchanan.