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Did Bush Lose the Election? by Margie Burns
As things
stand right now, it seems unlikely that Mr. Bush won the election.
There are two major categories of problems. One affects the electoral vote. Release of the final exit polls conducted in all states shows a pattern that cannot be explained away. The exit polls were released (not to the general public) at 4:00 p.m. on Election Day by polling consultants Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.
These are the genuine exit polls for all 50 states
and the District of Columbia, taken before the outcome was known in any
particular state. These are not the "exit polls" that
organizations including CNN went back and retroactively changed after
the election, making them conform more to vote tallies.
The exit poll results are laid out
straightforwardly in a very clear list (tabulation). Compared to the
vote tallies given the public, they seem amazing. Contrary to results in
every election for the past twenty years, the variance between exit
polls the published vote tally was more than two points--in other words
a swing of 4% or 5% or more to Bush, in 33 of 51 jurisdictions.
Regardless of which candidate won in those states, a big variance,
always in the same direction, allegedly occurred in every single exit
poll in all of them.
Exit polls from the next nine states down the list
were also reversed by a smaller swing toward Bush in the published vote
tally, including in the District of Columbia and Maryland. Thus, to sum
up, a four-out-five-state swing to Bush is alleged in an election where
every indication showed new voters, independent voters, and younger
voters trending toward Kerry and/or away from Bush, and in an election
where turnout increased, even though increased voter turnout generally
favors the challenger against the incumbent.
Furthermore, this crucial swing occurred in all
the close states: Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New
Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa all allegedly had the
same "red shift." Most seemingly shifted more than two points,
in other words a swing of 4% or 5%, regardless of the size or region of
the state, or whether it went for Bush or Kerry.
A paper titled "The Unexplained Exit Poll
Discrepancy" has been published by Dr. Steven F. Freeman, whose
Ph.D. in organizational studies came from MIT and who holds
professorships at the University of Pennsylvania and at an international
MBA program founded by Harvard. According to Professor Freeman, the
swing between exit poll and vote tally is an anomaly even if you take
just the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida.
"The likelihood of any two of these statistical anomalies occurring
together is on the order of one-in-a-million," he says. "The
odds against all three occurring together are 250 million to one."
Disclaimer:
I distrust opinion polls and much other polling. I
have long worried that incessant polling can weaken the individual's
reliance on his/her own judgment, can plant suggestions, can intimidate
reporters, and can manipulate public acceptance of the unacceptable.
Following this election, an opinion poll has already been published
suggesting that most people are relieved that the outcome was clear.
All well and good, if it was clear. But the
integrity of counting votes is essential to our nation's survival as a
democracy. Obsession about who is ahead before the election, the
"horse race" question, is often silly. But after the election,
the question of who won is fundamental. No other question is nearly as
important.
Exit polls are not just polls. They are polls of
people who actually showed up to vote, taken just after the voting, and
weighted to take into account any preponderance of one group. Professor
Freeman's paper points out that exit polls are used to check and verify
the validity of elections in countries including Germany and Mexico;
when exit polls contradicted the claim that Eduard Shevardnadze had won
election in the former Soviet country of Georgia, he was forced to
resign under pressure from the US among others.
Immediate investigation is most urgent in four
states that the swing from exit poll to published vote tally also swung
from Kerry to Bush: Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa. The many
problems already reported from counties and precincts in all four states
more than corroborate the suggestion raised by the exit poll tabulation.
These four states also add up to 59 electoral votes, more than enough to
have tilted the election outcome.
The Electoral College is not the whole story.
Questions have arisen that affect the popular vote count even in
"safe" states. Stay tuned.
Margie Burns is a journalist in the Washington, DC-area. She can be reached at margie.burns@verizon.net. This article was compiled from direct observation by the poll monitor in email and telephone interviews. Add your comments below |
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