I was wondering how long it would take for this to come up. Will someone have the resources to start suing - and would the courts do anything?
I do note a touching faith in exit polls in several of the articles. Our general election in 1992 should mean they don't trust them so much - a combination of shame reluctance to admit to voting for The Evil One and bad sampling (so much easier to do your exit polls where there are more voters, rather than in the countryside) can easily mean you get the result 5% wrong.
No, it will vary. There's no shame in voting TEO in Redneck County, Nevada: it's what all your neighbours are doing. But in somewhere more split, people will fib to pollsters.
I'm not disputing Diebold may be evil enough to do it, but they'd also have to be spectacularly stupid to just say 'add 5% to the evil vote everywhere we think we can get away with it...'
It will vary, of course, but wechsler specifically mentioned correlations.
And I think we will find
1) that the evidence suggests that Diebold has done exactly that, and
2) that they will not have been spectacularly stupid, but that they correctly predict that any effort to interest the voting public in what will seem like "another hanging chad incident" will fail, and thus that they will totally get away with the fraud they've perpetrated.
The bad guys are often more blatant than you'd ever imagine in your worst nightmares, and they get away with it all the time. Shit, if Bush can get away with blatantly lying to start a war, what can't they get away with?
Being incredibly blatant is one of their core tactics. When accused of something, their response is generally along the lines of "No-one in their right mind would do anything that stupid/blatant/unethical."
And there's an argument that they were here, up until 1992. Having been on a campaign that was on the wrong end of a 2% win (exit poll) becoming a 0.1% real loss, I've never been entirely happy with them.
Everyone who's been canvassing knows people lie to you. It's why it's stupid to ask 'can I count on your support' or similar (and ghod knows why the Tories I've seen in action still seem to do so!) Doubly so when there's an element of shame in admitting your vote.
If you went and asked Americans how they voted now, you'd find that on the surface Bush is missing votes in many places all across the 'Jesusland' bits, because people who didn't, in fact, vote for him will tell you - now he's won - that they did. Equally, in more Democratic places, you'll find more Kerry voters than actually did so.
I'd be very interested to see if the exit pollers this time asked people how they voted in 2000.
Which also brings us to a conversation about why on earth you find people who will vote for someone because he thinks that person will win, rather than because he wants that person. Don't get that one at all.
Wasn't it the prospective polls that were wrong in '92 rather than the exit polls?
From this page: On the actual day of the election, exit polls carried out by the BBC and ITN both showed there would be a hung parliament, although both of them had the Conservatives slightly ahead. They were both not far from the actual Conservative 43%, and Labour 35%, and if they had predicted using a uniform swing assumption, they would have been very close to the real result. But they adjusted the figures as they were suspicious of the results being so far out of line with the mornings polls.
Mandelson's been known to talk about a 'get your champagne out' call from the late great Vincent Hannah on election night 1992, based on the latter's knowledge of the exit polling.
In any case, you're contradicting yourself. By saying that not even the exit polls provide a guide for what vote we might have expected, you're saying that there's no possible way of catching Diebold at it if they did the thing that you said would be "spectacularly stupid" for them to do.
Mandelson's been known to talk about a 'get your champagne out' call from the late great Vincent Hannah on election night 1992, based on the latter's knowledge of the exit polling.
Yes, presumably based on the polls tweaked to match the prospective ones, if that essay's correct.
The site's an essay bank, isn't it?
Yes, but it matches what I remember. This article (google cache) states that the error in the BBC '92 exit poll was 2%, which is well within the stated margin of error. The problem wasn't the raw result.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:17 am (UTC)I do note a touching faith in exit polls in several of the articles. Our general election in 1992 should mean they don't trust them so much - a combination of
shamereluctance to admit to voting for The Evil One and bad sampling (so much easier to do your exit polls where there are more voters, rather than in the countryside) can easily mean you get the result 5% wrong.no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:48 am (UTC)I'm not disputing Diebold may be evil enough to do it, but they'd also have to be spectacularly stupid to just say 'add 5% to the evil vote everywhere we think we can get away with it...'
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:54 am (UTC)And I think we will find
1) that the evidence suggests that Diebold has done exactly that, and
2) that they will not have been spectacularly stupid, but that they correctly predict that any effort to interest the voting public in what will seem like "another hanging chad incident" will fail, and thus that they will totally get away with the fraud they've perpetrated.
The bad guys are often more blatant than you'd ever imagine in your worst nightmares, and they get away with it all the time. Shit, if Bush can get away with blatantly lying to start a war, what can't they get away with?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 07:06 am (UTC)And it works, because people believe that.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 08:37 am (UTC)-Hitler, Mein Kampf
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 08:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 08:11 am (UTC)I posted a link to this post, though.
It wouldn't be so much 'add 5% wherever we can find it ' as 'tally the votes normally until vote #x, and then flip one to Bush every Y votes.
Dunno. It's all very disheartening, and the fact that it was this close indicates some major change needed in the Dem message anyway.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 07:01 am (UTC)Everyone who's been canvassing knows people lie to you. It's why it's stupid to ask 'can I count on your support' or similar (and ghod knows why the Tories I've seen in action still seem to do so!) Doubly so when there's an element of shame in admitting your vote.
If you went and asked Americans how they voted now, you'd find that on the surface Bush is missing votes in many places all across the 'Jesusland' bits, because people who didn't, in fact, vote for him will tell you - now he's won - that they did. Equally, in more Democratic places, you'll find more Kerry voters than actually did so.
I'd be very interested to see if the exit pollers this time asked people how they voted in 2000.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 06:53 am (UTC)From this page:
On the actual day of the election, exit polls carried out by the BBC and ITN both showed there would be a hung parliament, although both of them had the Conservatives slightly ahead. They were both not far from the actual Conservative 43%, and Labour 35%, and if they had predicted using a uniform swing assumption, they would have been very close to the real result. But they adjusted the figures as they were suspicious of the results being so far out of line with the mornings polls.
Funny site that's from, though.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 07:14 am (UTC)The site's an essay bank, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 07:21 am (UTC)In any case, you're contradicting yourself. By saying that not even the exit polls provide a guide for what vote we might have expected, you're saying that there's no possible way of catching Diebold at it if they did the thing that you said would be "spectacularly stupid" for them to do.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-05 07:22 am (UTC)Yes, presumably based on the polls tweaked to match the prospective ones, if that essay's correct.
The site's an essay bank, isn't it?
Yes, but it matches what I remember. This article (google cache) states that the error in the BBC '92 exit poll was 2%, which is well within the stated margin of error. The problem wasn't the raw result.