Author: Steven D

Booman Tribune members have two Yahoo Fantasy Football leagues going. Frog Marchers VIII. and Also Frog Marchers. I’ve been pressed back into service to be commissioner for the former. The latter has a separate commissioner who played last year.

UPDATE: The Also Frog Marchers League Commissioner tells he he has two (2) slots available if anyone is still interested. Contact me at stevendbt [at] yahoo [dot] com and I will pass along your names and emails to him to send you an invite to join.

Steve

My wife has been discharged from the hospital. There is a small issue that will require her to follow-up with specialists, but nothing serious enough to require continued hospitalization at this time.

Thank you to everyone who commented in my previous diary, and offered your support. I am very grateful to know that so many in this community still have my back. May you all have the best Holiday season you can, and keep in your thoughts all those who are in pain or suffering right now, whether members of the Frog Pond or people we don’t know, but who are just as deserving of help.

Thanks again,

Steve

About What’s Wrong With America

Clara, my wife of 30 years, was hospitalized Wed. night. My son and I took her to hospital ER at 11 pm, after she was found coughing up blood and had a blood sugar level over 900, an extremely high and potentially fatal condition.

Clara had been fighting a bad respiratory infection complicated by asthma for two weeks prior to this crisis. I finally convinced her to go to the doctor on Monday, Dec. 12th. He prescribed an antibiotic and a steroidal asthma inhaler. She began having chest pain Wed. night. What we didn’t know was she had stopped taking her insulin and eating because she felt so sick and nauseated. Her weight dropped to only 95 pounds, dangerously low for a Type 1 diabetic. Once she started vomiting up blood we contacted the on call doctor who said to take her immediately to the ER.

When I admitted my wife to the hospital at 11 pm that night, we experienced expressions of contempt from several members of the hospital’s intake staff, including nurses. They did not understand why my wife, who was screaming and incoherent and having a panic attack due to her chemo-induced brain injury was in no state to answer their barrage of rapid fire questions about why she needed their help.

She was overwhelmed by all the stimuli an ER Room generates: loud beeping noises, people shouting and running about, loud TVs playing and caregivers asking rapid-fire questions too fast for her to process during her long night of pain, terror and sensory overload. They just assumed she was bad news, possibly a junkie (she certainly looked the part due to her weight loss) and that I, as her husband, was terrible person, as well, for not being able to give them what they needed off the top of my head to complete their intake procedure before they would admit her and treat her.

To them, we were a waste of space, and a waste of their valuable time, time that could be better spent on other patients. They demonstrated this contemptuous attitude in many ways, but the effect was to make us feel that that they considered themselves our superiors, people who were beneath them. Needless to say, certain individuals did not treat my wife well during that required intake process.

I know that the intake people were having a busy night, but if they had taken the time to hear me out and let me explain why all the lights, noise, and general insanity of an ER room made it impossible for her to answer their barrage of questions and demands, it would have made a big difference.

Thereafter, I made a point to explain to every nurse, technician, doctor and other member of the hospital’s staff who saw or dealt with her that night of (1) the brain trauma Clara had suffered, (2) the cognitive issues she deals with because of it, and (3) what they, as medical professionals needed to do to help her. To be specific, I asked them to please talk slowly, repeat themselves if necessary and don’t make assumptions that just because she is acting out in response to loud noises, bright lights or their interactions with her that it meant she was some drug-addled crazy person.

I also made it very clear that her brain trauma resulted from her chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer (5-FU was the medicinal culprit), so that also got people to turn up their empathy meters a little higher. It’s strange, or maybe not so strange, but using the “cancer card” usually helps a lot with getting people to listen to me when I explain why Clara has unique needs that require a different approach to her treatment for medical issues than someone else who does not have such a severe cognitive disorder.

Recently, as I reflected upon that nightmarish experience only a few days ago, I had an epiphany.

Contempt is perhaps the worst emotion one person can feel toward another. It is the one that most increases divisiveness in personal relationships. We know this to be true based on studies of marital couples and other close relationships.

And an outbreak of contempt for others has broken out in our society over the last few decades; one that I contend is exacerbating divisions among the many peoples of our country. Many of us express contempt for others daily in part because politicians propagate this attitude with the assistance of our traditional media. Such negative memes are then spread through social media, often by people paid to generate and stir up these powerful negative emotions online. It leads many of us to hide out in our own little bubbles, dismiss the opinions and beliefs of others, and hold people we know next to nothing about in contempt.

And why do we that? Because of the lies and disinformation that reinforce lazy thinking and the easy acceptance of stereotypes with which we have been inculcated from birth, lies and false narratives we have all been told about “those people,” lies fostered and spread by the people in power who wish to keep us divided.

One can forgive anger, even hate, even murder, as the families of the victims of the Dylann Roof massacre have shown.

However, contempt – the expression of disdain, disgust, revulsion and for lack of a better term, that “holier than thou attitude” by those who express it openly toward those they find unacceptable – causes tremendous emotional pain.

It is the one act that is often hardest to forget and forgive, because it is so demeaning to those who are being reviled and relegated to sub-human status. Contempt, even more than hate, contributes to the willingness of so many Americans to cheer the suffering of others, even the outright murder and abuse of innocents, because that suffering is happening to someone else they despise, i.e., “one of those people.”

Whether fostered and nurtured through factional strife, spiteful political discourse, absurd and dangerous assumptions about others based on someone’s race, religion, class or any of the many categories people use to label other people and place them in nasty little boxes where the worst thoughts and prejudices about entire communities and groups may be taken as God’s own truth, it is a great evil.

The all too frequent public expressions of contempt, revulsion, disgust and disdain for those with whom we disagree, and who in like manner may hold us in contempt, as well, is devastating our nation. The spread of this poisonous emotion, along with its attendant behaviors, throughout our society is frequently based on a single characteristic or “deplorable” political opinion. It keeps many Americans, who otherwise have so much in common, from uniting and fighting together against the powerful elites who hold the real power over us all. Wealthy elites, regardless of party affiliation, would like nothing more than to see all of us at each others throats, rather than unite in solidarity to make this a better country and a better world.

If we are to salvage this country after the disaster of 2016, this is one of the most important things that we need to eliminate from our public and private discourse. For how can you ally with other individuals and communities to achieve outcomes that are mutually beneficial to all, if so many people’s default position is to be contemptuous of the ideas, experiences and cultures of communities and individuals of whom they know nothing but what the distorted lens of prejudice and propaganda shows?

For contempt shuts off any chance of dialogue and finding common ground. It keeps us all in bondage to a greater or lesser extent. Contempt serves the interests of the rich and powerful, not the rest of us. We need to reach out to those who are different from us in any way, and not demean and despise them. We should not dismiss out of hand their grievances because we are so certain of our rightness, our moral superiority or simply our self-perceived greater knowledge and intelligence regarding the proper course of action needed to fix our country’s many, many seemingly intractable problems.

To refuse to put aside our own feelings of righteousness, and our belief that those who disagree with us are worthless, ignorant and possibly immoral idiots that deserve only our scorn, is to accept the continuation of the war of all against all. It will inevitably take us down a path that will result in furthering the pervasive corrosion and decay of society, and dash any hope for a better, more equitable and sustainable world.

For if we fail to change these inimical attitudes, fail to stop scapegoating others for the flaws inherent in our culture, and our financial and political systems, we shall surely end up living under a tyrannical and repressive government, suffering from ever worsening economic hardships, and watching our world descends into ecological and environmental collapse.

Count on it.

Last night, Martin and I, after a number of email exchanges, mutually agreed that I will no longer post to the front page here at Booman Tribune. The reasons for why we arrived at that decision are not important or particularly relevant to anyone either than the two of us, and I feel no need to go into them in any further detail.

At this time, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Martin for the opportunity to post here since 2005 as a front pager. I owe a great deal to him for that, and will always consider him my friend. During the time I spent here, I also greatly enjoyed this community’s input, criticism and support for my work. So, I am deeply grateful to all of you, as well, for all you have given me.

For those of you who feel so inclined, I still will be posting at the blog caucus99percent, and my blog posts can be read there on their front page. I welcome anyone to drop in and take a gander at the site. c99 (shorthand name) was originally created about a year prior to Kos’ “Ides of March” decree (google if the reference is not known to you) at Daily Kos, which led to the banning or exodus of a number of Bernie Sanders supporters, many of them who found a new online home and a welcoming community of like minded progressives. At c99, there is no community moderation as exists at Daily Kos and no censorship of what may be posted other than the obvious right wing crap, etc.. It possesses an active community who post what are referred to as “essays” (i.e., diaries). Indeed a number of the most popular posts are found in what is call their “Community Content” section.” The only real rule is DBAD.

I also have a YouTube channel Steven D Talks, which I started as an alternative to written blog posts when my illness took a turn for the worse this last year. It has little to recommend it other than the chance to listen to me ramble on, unfiltered as it were, in a slow-paced, monotonous tone that my daughter claims is perfect for curing insomnia. Well, that and it’s ad free and I am not asking anyone for donations.

Well that is all for now. I won’t say “Goodbye Cruel World” here, but merely farewell for now. After all, I am terrible at predicting the future. I even predicted an easy victory for Hillary Clinton, which like a lot of other people shows how smart we all are when it comes to making political prognostications. Go figure.

All my best to each and everyone of you,

Steve

The argument is being made by many prominent people in the media that Clinton’s loss is the fault of third party voters. So, for your consideration, I reviewed up a number of sources that relate to the votes cast in Tuesday’s election.

Total Registered Voters

Let’s start with the number of Americans who were registered to vote this year. From Politico on October 19th, entitled “America hits new landmark: 200 million registered voters.”

Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, said national registration now stands at 200,081,377 voters.

According to the author, Shane Goldmacher, this represented “a symptom of the fast-growing and demographically shifting electorate that is expected to redound to the benefit of the Democratic Party in the coming years.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center report on the 2012 election shows that registered voters in 2008 were higher at an estimated 153,100,000 registered voters, and slightly higher in 2012 at an estimated 153,271,300. Nonetheless, the number jumped significantly over the last four years.

2016 Turnout and Major Party Presidential Votes cast 2008-2016

Now lets look at turnout in the 2016 election and election results between the two major party candidates versus turnout and results in the 2008 and 2012 elections, when Obama ran against McCain and Romney, respectively.

In 2016, the latest numbers I could find came from CNN. They show the following numbers:

Trump received 59,793,902 votes or 47.5% of national total.
Clinton received 60,082,556 or 47.7% of national total.
Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump won enough states to win the Electoral College vote.

_______________________________________________________
Note: The two major third parties combined for about 4.02% of the total votes cast. [Source]

If we compare the 2008 and 2012 elections to the 2016 election, we immediately see that turnout was down dramatically from just over four years ago, despite an increase of newly registered voters of approximately 36 million people. Neither Clinton nor Trump came close to the number of votes Obama received in 2012 (nearly 66 million) much less the 69.5 million Obama received in 2008. Instead both received roughly the same number of votes cast for McCain and Romney, the losers in those two elections.

What is also apparent is that Republican vote totals over this time period remained remarkably consistent at roughly 60 million, plus or minus a few hundred thousand, regardless of turnout. The major drop in votes cast has all occurred on the Democratic side. Clinton barely surpassed 60 million this year. A brief comparison with Obama’s totals in 2008 and 2012 is instructive:

2008 comparison
Obama (2008) – 69,498,516
Clinton (2016) – 60,082,556
Difference is 9,415,960 votes less for Clinton in 2016 than for Obama in 2008

2012 Comparison
Obama (2008) – 65,919,795
Clinton (2016) – 60,082,556
Difference is 5,837,239 votes less for Clinton in 2016 vs. Obama in 2012

In short, since 2008, Democrats have lost about 9.5 million votes cast for their Presidential nominee, while the voter totals for the Republican candidates stayed roughly the same. As for more specific information, Clinton did worse than Obama among African-Americans (88% vs. 93%), Hispanics (65% v. 71%) and Young People 18-29 (54% vs. 60%), though she still managed to win a majority of those votes. She received roughly the same percentage as Obama among women voters (about 54%).

It’s impossible to know all the myriad reasons the Democratic turnout has fallen over the last eight years, or why Clinton was unable to reassemble the Obama coalition that defeated to mainstream Republican candidates handily in the prior two presidential elections, to defeat a candidate that many (myself included) considered a buffoon, a liar, a fraud, a repeated failure at a number businesses (mostly to the detriment of his investors, not himself), a sexual predator and an utterly contemptible human being. Scholars, historians and political analysts of every stripe will be reviewing the history of this election for years to come.

However, I would like to look at the numbers that relate to one claim that is being bounced around the internet and the mainstream media. in the wake of the Trump electoral (if not popular vote) victory over Clinton. Namely, that third party voters are to blame.

[Full Disclosure: I voted for Jill Stein on New York state. My main reason was that I saw her values and policies as more consistent with mine than Clinton or Trump. However, I would be a prevaricator if I did not add that I knew Clinton would win New York easily (she did) thus making it easier for me to cast a “protest” vote against the people the major parties had nominated this year. Had I lived in a swing state, I cannot tell you how I would have voted. I really don’t know, other than to say it would have been a much harder decision not to vote for Clinton.]

Third Party Impact on the Election

A shown previously, third parties did much better in this election than in 2012. Specifically, the two largest third parties, the Greens and Libertarians combined for a total of 5,205,215 votes broken down by party as follows:

Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, received 4,012,871 votes, or 3.23 percent of the national total.

Jill Stein of the Green Party received 1,192,344 votes, or about .96 percent of the national total. [Source]

Combined percentage of the Green and Libertarian parties vote totals represented 4.02% of the national total. This is an increase from 2012 when these two parties received only 1,536,246 votes or 1.2% of the total [Source]

Though both the Greens and the Libertarian candidates failed to receive the numbers that pre-election polls suggested was within the realm of possibility, they did increase their vote totals from 2012 significantly. Many have attributed that gain to a general dislike for both of the two party candidates. However, quite a number of Democrats are specifically blaming third party voters for costing Clinton the victory that they expected of her.

The major basis for the claim that third party voters cost Clinton the election (and that therefore third party voters “are to blame” for making Trump President) are set forth far better than I could present them in this article, “How Did Donald Trump Get Elected? How Third Parties Cost America Dearly,” by Jason Reynolds in the Inquisitor:

[I]n a few key states, such as Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the margin for victory for Donald Trump was less than one percent. Let’s be frank. In every single state that was close, Trump won. These three states had a voter margin of less than one percent.

So what does that mean? Well, let’s break down how the votes fell in Florida, for example. With 100 percent of all the precincts reporting, Donald Trump took 49 percent of the popular vote with 4,591,156 to Hillary Clinton’s 48 percent with 4,462,338 votes. That’s a difference of 128,818 votes. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate took two percent of the popular vote with 204,818 votes. Jill Stein got 63,658 votes. According to party ideals and polls, Libertarians will vote Democrat if there is no Libertarian candidate available. What does this tell you? Without the third party, Hillary Clinton takes Florida and those 29 electoral votes. […]

That’s just one example. Consider the election results in Michigan. With 96 percent of the districts reporting, the popular vote fell in familiar lines. Donald Trump took 48 percent with 2,166,071 votes and Hillary Clinton took 2,106,512. That’s a margin of 59,559 votes. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate took 165,416 votes. Michigan carries 16 electoral votes. [Note though not stated, Stein had 46,946 votes in Michigan] …

Hillary Clinton was never able to overcome the distrust and suspicion that many fringe voters had for her. When WikiLeaks released the allegations that the DNC had maneuvered and forced their favorite candidate Bernie Sanders out in favor of the more political Clinton, that distrust flared. That showed up in droves at the voting booths.

Does this mean that we should abolish third party voting? No. There is a fundamental right to being able to vote for whoever you want to. But maybe the third party candidates can look at their chances to be elected with a cold and unwavering eye. And in elections such as this one, where the stakes are entirely too high, make the decision to bow out for the greater good.

Others were more blunt with their accusation that third parties are to blame for Clinton’s loss.

Steve Benen of The Maddow Blog did the math to show how Hillary Clinton got Nadered in 2016:

In Florida, Hillary Clinton lost by about 1.4% of the vote – but if Jill Stein’s supporters and half of Gary Johnson’s backers had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

Similarly, in Pennsylvania, Clinton lost by about 1.1% of the vote – but if Jill Stein’s supporters and half of Gary Johnson’s backers had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

In Wisconsin, Clinton lost by about 1% of the vote – but if Stein’s supporters had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state.

In Michigan, Clinton appears to be on track to lose by about 0.3% of the vote – but if half of Stein’s supporters had voted Democratic, Trump would have lost the state. […]

… Congratulations, third-party voters who thought they were protesting system, you just got Donald Trump elected. Please enjoy the four years of your worst nightmares that you brought to life through your own arrogant and self-righteous stupidity.

It turns out that Clinton and the Democrats did not run an effective campaign, but those who are directly responsible for her loss are the voters who went to the polls and cast a vote for Donald Trump when they chose Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.

I think you get the picture. Here’s the problem I have with it. It assumes that all Green voters and at least half of Libertarian voters would have chosen Hillary if those parties were not on the ballot. The authors in question cite no evidence for this assumption, however. Let me present my argument as to why I believe they are wrong.

First, we have always had third party candidates in recent American elections, the most famous of which were George Wallace and Ross Perot. In the case of Perot one could certainly make a valid argument that he did cost George H.W. Bush (Bush 1) the 1992 election in which Clinton one. Perot, a fiscal conservative, captured 19% of the vote, votes that otherwise likely would have gone primarily to Mr. Bush. However, in this election we have nothing close to the Perot phenomenon at play. Polls showed a decreasing decline in third party support as the election neared. This year, there is no solid evidence that all of the Green party voters, or a significant number of Libertarian voters would have voted for Clinton.

Consider the 2012 election results. In 2012, Jill Stein captured “396,684 votes, representing 0.3% of the popular vote,” and Gary Johnson … received 1,139,562 votes which represents 0.9% of the popular vote.” It’s safe to say that these are the core, diehard supporters for these parties. They were unlikely to vote for either of the major party candidates in this election.

Stein improved her vote total by only .6% in 2012, or 742,878 votes. These are the new Green supporters who the authors claim might have voted for Hillary if they hadn’t voted Green. However I’ve seen nothing that shows this to be the case. Perhaps some of them would have done so, as indeed many must have done, as her 2-3% polling numbers melted away as the election drew closer. However, we have no reason to assume that is the case. Perhaps, like many former Democratic supporters, they would have chosen not to vote at all, as stated in this Washington Post article, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign was crippled by voters who stayed home.”

[A map that shows Donald Trump outperformed Mitt Romney in the Midwest] obscures Clinton’s deeper problem: She received far fewer votes than Barack Obama in an election that was supposed to see a big increase in turnout. Ballots are still being counted, so these numbers will shift, but the Democratic candidate for the presidency received fewer votes in 2016 than 2012 in 46 states. Trump got more votes than Romney in 28 states. […]

Why? One likely reason is that Hillary Clinton’s get-out-the-vote effort faltered, perhaps in part because she lacked a fervent base of support outside of major metropolitan areas who would volunteer. Another possible (but iffy) reason is that the Trump campaign explicitly tried to suppress turnout among Clinton’s base of support. Another is that Obama was successful in inspiring infrequent voters to go to the polls in a way that Clinton wasn’t — and in the way that Obama wasn’t in 2010 and 2014 when he wasn’t on the ballot. […]

Increase Clinton’s current vote totals 2 percent and Clinton wins Michigan, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Boost her support 3 percent and she adds Florida and Pennsylvania — and wins the presidency. Three percentage points is precisely the sort of difference that a get-out-the-vote effort is supposed to make. Part of that difference could and should have come from big cities in those states, but it didn’t.

So blaming Stein’s paltry number of voters for Clinton’s loss seems more like “hippy punching” to me than a legitimate reason for her failure to carry critical swing states. She was supposed to have the best GOTV effort ever. In fact, a pair of Clinton GOTV folks came to my house to ask if my daughter (away at school) had voted yet, and I live in a red neighborhood in a state Hillary was going to win anyway.

But what about Gary Johnson, you might ask, the Libertarian candidate, who supposedly had a number of Democratic leaning and Independent voters among his supporters? Why weren’t they the spoilers? Well, again, much of Johnson’s support, which peaked at 13% around the time of the GOP convention, also began to rapidly melt away as the election got nearer.

In an ABC tracking poll in late October, Johnson’s support was shown to be at 8% of all Independents, 2% of all Republicans and 2% of all Democrats. This poll was supported by a CNN/ORC poll that showed John’s support – then at 3% nationally – was comprised of less than one percent Democrats, as opposed to 2% Republicans and 8% Independents.

Independents are a catchall category who may lean either conservative or liberal despite lack of party affiliation, and the Libertarian party is generally aligned with many basic conservative principles. I think the better assumption is that Johnson’s supporters, if they had chosen to vote for the major candidates would have been more likely to vote for Trump than Clinton. This was born out in the CNN/ORC poll where only 1% of self described liberals claimed they supported him.

In fact, Reason magazine posted an article on November 5th, “If Hillary Clinton Wins Nevada, Florida, North Carolina and Other Close States, She Can Thank Gary Johnson,” in which they claimed Johnson supporters were pulling votes away from Trump by a significant margin to the benefit of Clinton. All things considered, I suspect they have the better argument than Clinton supporters as to how much Libertarian voters impacted the votes cast for their respective candidates.

I am, of course, welcome to hear other viewpoints on the alleged damage third parties did to Clinton, and the “blame” they bear for her loss, but in all fairness I think it’s an easy excuse to make for a deeply flawed candidate who ran a poor campaign in a year when she should have wiped the floor with a person as odious as Trump. To blame voters for her failure to connect with their issues and their concerns, i.e., to earn their votes rather than expect them just to show up and deliver the presidency for her, was her and her advisors biggest mistake.

The large numbers of people who sat out this election is more than proof that the blame for her loss belongs to Hillary Clinton, her campaign, the DNC and the Democratic establishment that went along with ensuring she became the candidate no matter the cost. It’s an insult to suggest that the voters, any group of voters, are to blame for why she couldn’t defeat Donald Trump.

I’ll leave you with this quote from a speech by Bernie Sanders from back in 2015, long before he was considered a serious rival to Clinton and long before Trump’s nominations was considered likely.

“Let me be very clear. In my view, Democrats will not retain the White House, will not regain the Senate, will not gain the House and will not be successful in dozens of governor’s races unless we run a campaign which generates excitement and momentum and which produces a huge voter turnout.

With all due respect, and I do not mean to insult anyone here, that will not happen with politics as usual. The same old, same old will not be successful.

The people of our country understand that — given the collapse of the American middle class and the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality we are experiencing — we do not need more establishment politics or establishment economics.

We need a political movement which is prepared to take on the billionaire class and create a government which represents all Americans, and not just corporate America and wealthy campaign donors.

In other words, we need a movement which takes on the economic and political establishment, not one which is part of it.”

~ Bernie Sanders August 28th, 2015

Prophetic to say the least.

I have four available slots for teams in the two Frog Pond Leagues. If you are interested, email me at stevendbt at yahoo dot com.

Thanks,

Steve

Bumping this up …

I have renewed the two Frog Pond leagues at Yahoo, Frog Marchers VIII and Also Frog Marchers.

This year, Yahoo chose to auto-renew everyone who played last year. If you played last year you are signed up for the league in which you played, and no further action is necessary, just check your email and click on the link to make certain you’re all set to go.

However, I need to know if we will have a full roster of players back this year or not, so I can invite other players if need be. There are already folks on a waiting list so please respond ASAP as to whether or not you intend to play again this year.

You can contact me by email (stevendbt @ yahoo dot com) or by posting a message to the comment board at the league site indicating whether or not you intend to participate.

Thanks

Steve

Ps. If you have an interest in being added to the waiting list, please let me know, as well. Every year there is usually some turnover in players.

If you have no interest in Fantasy Football, that’s fine and dandy, but please know that these leagues have been a part of this community for many years. Any comment that is off topic, or violates the DBAD rule will be deleted. Thank you for your consideration.

Even in exit polls with the NY Times seal of approval.

According to a Capitol Weekly early-voter exit poll, Hillary Clinton was leading Bernie Sanders by less than 10% in the Los Angeles area vote-by-mail balloting ahead of last Tuesday. According to results posted to the Los Angeles County website, Clinton was winning vote-by-mail ballots by 66.6-33.4%, for a discrepancy of more than 23%.

The discrepancy cannot be easily explained by demographic factors: the results of the Capitol Weekly exit poll were weighted by age and race. Moreover, the exit poll had 21,000 respondents, and was praised–prior to election night–by mainstream elections journalists, including Nate Cohn of the New York Times.

Twenty-one thousand respondents. That’s a very respectable size for the absentee ballots, even for California, if the Washington Post is to be believed. It truly is an astounding coincidence how an exit poll with a sample size that large could be off by 23 percentage points. And one that was specifically weighted to take into consideration age and race, factors that were known to benefit Hillary more than Bernie.

A poll that surveyed absentee voters by sending emails to people known to have returned their June 7th ballot as of June 4, 2016. Not guessed at, not presumed, but people they knew had voted,”weighted by geography, party registration, age, ethnicity and gender to match the voters who have already cast ballots…” Using such weighting eliminated the effect that younger, male Sanders voters were over-represented in the poll. In other words, they had already adjusted their raw data to account for that.

Indeed, this was the most Clinton-favorable poll of the many that were conducted. All the rest had Clinton leading by only two percent (2%) with margins of error ranging from 4-5 percent. So how could this most-favorable Clinton poll still screw it up that badly? Such a respected polling company, too. I mean I could understand it being off by say 10%, even though that figure would still likely far exceed the poll’s margin of error, but 23 percent? That’s simply astounding to me.

Exit polls this year really do suck. At least in the Democratic primaries, anyway.

As promised, I contacted the authors of the study, “Are we witnessing a dishonest election? A between state comparison based on the used voting procedures of the 2016 Democratic Party Primary for the Presidency of the United States of America,” for their response to the criticism to their work posted in the comments to this post. In that email, I included critical comments from my Booman Tribune post regarding the study in their entirety.

Today, I received an email response to the authors’ critics here at Booman Tribune from one of the authors, Axel Geijsel of Tilburgen University in the Netherlands (a.geijsel@tilburguniversity.edu). Here is what Axel sent me in that email:

Dear Steven,

In regards to your earlier email. The criticism that you forwarded to us can be divided in two parts. The first is that we should add additional data in our appendix (most of which we have available), the second is that we shouldn’t have used the exit poll data. The former we have no qualms with and will be more than happy to include, the latter is based on faulty information, and considering the vigor with which they mention it. We could not help but feel it was drivel. Especially given the fact that they linked to a website which was authored by someone who doesn’t know absolute basics of statistics.

Some of the sources coming from media-outlets, from which most of the writers in question knowing very little about statistics (certain articles kind of shocked me). An interesting one of the mentioned sources being from Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight), where he wrote a 10-part critique about exit polling: For which he did not go unscrutinized: [source].

He has received earlier criticism as well from different analysts. [[source]; [source]. And from anecdotal reference, he has been criticized many times more before too.

In short, exit polling works using a margin of error, you will always expect it to be somewhat off the final result. This is often mentioned as being the margin of error, often put at 95%, it indicates that there’s a 95% chance that the final result will lie within this margin. In exit polling this is often calculated as lying around 3%. The bigger the difference, the smaller the chance that the result is legitimate. This is because although those exit polls are not 100% accurate, they’re accurate enough to use them as a reference point. In contrast to the idea that probably 1 out of 20 results will differ. Our results showed that (relatively) a huge amount of states differed. This would lead to two possibilities, a) the Sanders supporters are FAR more willing to take the exit polls, or b) there is election fraud at play.

Considering the context of these particular elections, we believe it’s the latter. Though that’s our personal opinion, and others may differ in that, we believe we can successfully argue for that in a private setting considering the weight of our own study, the beliefs of other statisticians who have both looked at our own study (and who have conducted corroborating studies), and the fact that the internet is littered with hard evidence of both voter suppression and election fraud having taken place.

Corroborating studies and links being: [source] (also a criticism on some of the above mentioned)[source]; [source]; [source]; [source]; [source]; [source]; [source]; [source]

I hope to have provided you with enough ammunition to feel somewhat at ease.

Kind regards,

Axel Geijsel

ps. I have included an attachment, I would advise to look at page 14 and 15.

If anyone has any concerns or questions at this point, I suggest that you email the the authors of the study.

Axel Geijsel email: a.geijsel@tilburguniversity.edu

Rodolfo Cortes email: cortes@stanford.edu

The attachment, due to its length is below the fold. You are, of course free to say whatever you like in the comments, but I suggest that if you have sincere issues with the report, the proper place to begin is contacting the authors.

For myself, I have nothing further to add to their response, or to my father’s comment about the study previously posted here at Booman Tribune.

(Study authors’ attachment follows below fold)

Attachment

Page 1

This report summarizes the results of our review of the GEMS election management system, which counts approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. The results of this study demonstrate that a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers, even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds.

They allow “weighting” of races. Weighting a race removes the principle of “one person-one vote” to allow some votes to be counted as less than one or more than one. Regardless of what the real votes are, candidates can receive a set percentage of votes. Results can be controlled. For example, Candidate A can be assigned 44% of the votes, Candidate B 51%, and Candidate C the rest.

Instead of “1” the vote is allowed to be 1/2, or 1+7/8, or any other value that is not a whole number.
Fractions in results reports are not visible.Votes containing decimals are reported as whole numbers unless specifically instructed to reveal decimals (which is not the default setting). All evidence that fractional values ever existed can be removed instantly even from the underlying database using a setting in the GEMS data tables, in which case even instructing GEMS to show the decimals will fail to reveal they were used. – from http://blackboxvoting.org/fraction-magic-1/

The amount of support Clinton receives among blacks is far higher in states without a paper trail, than the states with a paper trail.

Page 2

Even when adjusting for the proportion of black voters in a state, the amount that votes for Clinton is still disproportionally higher.

[note from the writer, this might indicate that if tampering with the votes has occurred, it would be reasonable to assume that they are added to subgroups which are claimed to heavily favor Hillary Clinton, i.e. black and female voters (for the latter I have not found the time yet)]

Retrieved from: https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2016/06/08/democratic-primary-approval-ratings-matching-pre-election-and-exit-polls-indicate-fraud/

Page 3

http://www.gallup.com/poll/190571/sanders-oldest-candidate-looks-best-young-americans.aspx?g_source=&g_medium=&g_campaign=tiles

http://www.gallup.com/poll/191465/millennials-sanders-dislike-election-process.aspx?g_source=&g_medium=&g_campaign=tiles

Page 4

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/192362/clinton-negatives-among-dems-sanders.aspx?g_source=ELECTION_2016&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles

retrieved from: http://www.people-press.org/2016/03/31/4-perceptions-of-the-presidential-candidates-and-primary-preferences/

Page 5

Retrieved from: http://www.people-press.org/2016/03/31/4-perceptions-of-the-presidential-candidates-and-primary-preferences/

Page 6

In the above polls done by Gallup and Pew research center Sanders scores a higher favorability ratings than Clinton. In all the ratings, conducted by these renowned institutes, they found that the favorability ratings for Sanders consistently outperformed Hillary Clinton, with mixed results in the subgroup of African American voters. The last being one of the biggest claimed subgroups which would favor Hillary Clinton. This is in stark contrast with the results in the non paper-trail states, where Clinton won the African American vote with 83%. In the paper-trail states, she only won them with 74% of the votes. The latter lying far closer to the polling results.

Not just that, Sanders outperforms Clinton in almost all the groups and subgroups in these polls, which is in stark contrast with the end results from the primaries. These results in earlier elections often lied very closely to the actual final results.

* * *

In the following pages, graphs are shown containing the cumulative placed votes over time. In sampling, polling, or any other form of statistical analysis. The general rule is that the higher the amount of trials that one does, the more you would get closer to the actual ‘true’ number. Meaning, the more votes that are placed, the more chance that the number that is given is correct.

Because of this, at the start of the polling, the numbers might fluctuate heavily, after which they will stabilize over time. Similar to an 1/x graph. On the following three pages, you will find numerous examples in which the graphs will indeed smoothe out. These are examples of graphs as you would normally find them.

On the three pages thereafter, you will find abnormal curves. Incidentally, all of these changes favored Hillary Clinton. Below the graphs, you will find the p-value as we found through our own proportional analysis. Meaning, the smaller the p-value, the higher the discrepancy between the exit-polls and the final results (i.e. indicating the chance of such an occurrence; e.g. p=0,07 is a 7% chance). These are indications of election fraud taking place.
Most of the normal curves are retrieved from the New York Times website. The abnormal curves have been retrieved from the website of – https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/category/2016-election/ . The reason for this is because the abnormal graphs have been removed from the mainstream media websites.

“One can also search for trends to check for fraud. One of the most revealing methods, the Cumulative Vote Share Analysis, searches for a correlation between the size of a discrepancy (between recorded vote and exit polls) and the size of a precinct. When no fraud has taken place the trend tends to be quite regular. When the discrepancy tends to manifest as the size of the precinct becomes larger than a certain value, it is a strong indication of fraud, according to Richard Charnin. Roughly speaking the reason for this behavior is that electronic rigging is implemented strategically in order not to become obvious. The discrepancy caused by the rigging is “better” distributed between those precincts that are big enough to be worth the effort.”

– http://www.democracyintegrity.org/ElectoralFraud/just-doing-the-math.html

Page 7

Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/west-virginia

retrieved from : http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/indiana

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

P = 0,309 ; Favoring Clinton (not significant).
P = 0,00001 ; Favoring Clinton

P = 0,00001 ; Favoring Clinton

Page 11

P = not available

P = 0,247 ; Favoring Clinton (not significant).

Page 12

P = 0,01116 ; Favoring Clinton

P = 0,00012 ; Favoring Clinton

Page 13

– retrieved from: http://showmethevotes.org/2016/03/05/an-open-letter-to-bernie-sanders/
P = 0,000341 ; favoring Sanders

Page 14

Looking at the discrepancies between the exit polls and the final tally, nearly all are in favor of Hillary Clinton by a huge margin. This is statistically impossible (“The probability P of this happening is 1 in 77 billion”).

“A discrepancy between the declared vote (recorded vote) and the vote extrapolated from the exit polls is an indication of fraud when it is above a margin of error of 2% within a confidence level of 95%.
Here is how it works. When statisticians try to measure the ‘real vote’ they not only estimate the final vote count but they also analyze the entire distribution of the data they gathered from the exit poll voter sampling in order to determine the reliability of their final determination. When fluctuations in the data are due to randomness they will follow a statistical distribution that follows the shape of a bell curve, the Gaussian curve. The reliability or unreliability of the sample data doesn’t depend so much on the trustworthiness of those who collect the exit poll voter sampling, but it’s rather intrinsic to the shape of the distribution. From this shape an ‘interval of confidence’ is determined within which we can unquestionably claim our confidence that we got it right with a probability of 95%–always 95%. This interval of confidence is also called ‘margin of error’ (MoE).

Poorly informed ‘experts’ frequently argue that the statistical analysis of exit polls can be misleading because it assumes that real life data is randomly distributed (as in the Gaussian curve) when that’s not always the case. And here is where they are missing a central point. The expectation that sample data will be randomly distributed ALREADY takes into account all possible relevant factors in a practical observation in real life. When extraneous factors intervene, a discrepancy will make the recorded value fall outside of the interval of confidence signaling only one possibility: a systematic error. When this occurs statisticians make further analysis to determine the causes, and either remove the cause or include it into the ‘margin of error’. After 59 years of fine-tuning this process in countless elections around the world statisticians have reached a point where exit polls have become extremely reliable. If the final ‘Recorded Vote’ falls outside the interval of confidence one can assume with a high degree of certainty that the systematic error is intentional. This is why we say that we have a high probability of fraud.”
Retrieved from : http://www.democracyintegrity.org/ElectoralFraud/just-doing-the-math.html

– by Giovanni and Marcello Pietrobon; Berkeley, June 3rd, 2016

Page 15

“My specialty is statistics and I’ve pulled down publicly available data independently, analyzed it myself, and corroborated analyses which points to massive widespread election fraud. Mr. Holland disparages the mathematical work of Richard Charnin*, but I have not found an error in any of the analyses of his that I have repeated.

In particular, his assessment of the binomial probability regarding the likelihood of the exit poll results, is both accurate and appropriate. I have verified it myself. This binomial analysis was ignored by Mr. Holland in favor of criticizing a different approach that was also used. That approach is also sound, but I have not reproduced those calculations. That both models show results that are consistent with the hypothesis of election fraud is more than doubly damning.

If we assume no election fraud, then the two different types of analysis of the exit poll errors are unrelated because one analysis looks at the size of the error while the other is based on whether it benefited Hillary versus Bernie. That they are both consistent with fraud could be considered a third piece of evidence in support of that hypothesis.
There are only two possibilities – a) Bernie supporters are more likely to respond to the poll or b) there is widespread election fraud altering election results in favor of Hillary across the U.S.
Cumulative Vote Share (CVS) analysis pioneered by Francis Choquette shows problems across the nation for the past decade or more. Interestingly enough, places that use hand counted ballots do not show the same trends and within a state, analyzing by machine can show sharply different trends for different equipment. Such analysis shows trends that are indicative of rigging that favors Hillary.

The apparent ease of hacking electronic voting machines combined with the prevalence of election rigging through-out the world and human history.
Lack of basic quality control procedures: In most locations in the U.S., no one – not officials and not citizens – actually verify the official vote counts. Canvassing becomes a sham that involves verifying that yes, the machine produced outcomes all add up to the machine produced totals. In those places where the count was supposed to be publicly verified,citizens watching report blatant miscounting to force a match to the “official results”. Their testimony to election commissioners about such actions were met with a blank stare followed by dismissal of their testimony.

I do not make that statement lightly. I hold a Ph.D. in statistics and have been certified as a Quality Engineer for nearly 30 years. I’ve gone to the extreme of filing a lawsuit requesting access to the voting machine records to verify those election results. So far, I haven’t been allowed access.

[Steven D editorial note: Statement of Beth Clarkson]

– http://showmethevotes.org/2016/06/10/the-theater-is-on-fire/

– http://bethclarkson.com/

Yesterday, I posted about a study by Rodolfo Cortes Barragan and Axel Geijsel, regarding potential election fraud in the 2016 Democratic primaries. Certain people in the comments were critical of the study, its authors and their conclusions. In fact, I believe the most common sentiment related to me in those comments was that the study was “a joke” and “an embarrassment,” and that I should not have posted about it because it lacked any semblance of validity.

I stated at that time I would contact the study’s authors to respond to those objections. I emailed them, and they responded confirming receipt of my email, along with numerous others regarding their study. They informed me that they would do their best to respond to the comments I sent to them from this blog as soon as possible.

I also stated that I had sent the study to my father, Donald T. Searls, a statistician for his entire professional career, for his review.

My dad received his Ph.,D in statistics in 1962. He worked in in both private corporations and quasi-governmental organizations, before becoming a professor of Mathematics and Applied Statistics in the mid-80’s at the University of North Colorado until his retirement in 1996. A more complete bio of his professional career follows:

Donald T. Searls is a retired Professor Emeritus in Mathematics and Applied Statistics at the University of Northern Colorado.

During the course of his career he was Vice President of WESTAT Research in its formative years (now Westat Inc.) working for corporate clients such as Budweiser; Director of Statistics for the Education Commission of the States and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); and as a Professor at UNC.

He received his Ph.,D from North Carolina State University, where he worked with a number of prominent mathematicians and statisticians at the Research Triangle Institute back in the late 50’s and early 60’s.

He frequently had the opportunity to collaborate with such luminaries in the field as John Tukey, Getrude Cox and Frederick Mosteller.

He’s been a member of the American Statistical Association for over 50 years. His last published paper was “THROW AWAY ZONES FOR PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS,” presented at the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association, August 5-9, 2001. My brother, Trace W. Searls, who also holds a Ph.D in statistics was his co-author. He still maintains a consulting business at the age of 85.

I literally do not know how many papers, monographs, comments to journal articles, etc. my father has authored and published in his lifetime but the number exceeds 100.

I sent him the study regarding potential election fraud in the Democratic primaries in 2016, without telling him why I was interested in it, or that I had posted about it online.

I simply asked him to review it in full and send me his comments as to its methodology and his view as to its validity. For the record, he has been a Republican for as long as I can recall and has no interest in voting for the Democratic nominee, whoever that might be. I received his response via e-mail today. Here is what he wrote:

I like the analysis very much up to the point of applying probability theory. I think the data speak for itself (themselves). It is always problematic to apply probability theory to empirical data. Theoretically unknown confounding factors could be present.

The raw data is in my mind very powerful and clear on its own.

My personal opinion is that the whole process has been rigged against Bernie at every level and that is devastating even though I don’t agree with him.

Dad

I called him after receiving his response to clarify his remarks on the application of probability theory to the data. His comment to me was that he did not believe it was necessary for the authors to take that step. If he had done the study himself, he would not have bothered with doing so. As he said, the data speaks for itself.

I will provide a report on the authors response to the criticism received here when I receive it.

Say whatever you like. I am going to let my father’s words speak for themselves.

UPDATE: FWIW, I am adding the following comment at a reddit site to this post as it relates to the issue of why the study’s authors likely included probability theory (the “P value”) in the study, and reflects upon my father’s own comment in the email and to me on the phone re: that issue.

I have a long history (Almost 50 years) with statistics as well. And I also agree with your father. The data speaks for itself. However, I disagree with him that the authors of the study should not have brought in probability theory. The reasons for that are entirely political. This is because reporting statistics has been bastardized in the media over the last few decades. every reported study needs a “P value” even though people reading it do not really understand what the p-value really is. However, this “p-value” has become dominant in the mind of the public. So you give the probability values just because in the minds of the reading public that is what gives the study its validity.