----- Original Message -----

----- Original Message -----

Lynn

AND MORE ABOUT & from KATHY

 

----- Original Message -----

 

To: lynn Landes

Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 5:54 PM

Subject: FYI - discussion about your views on exit poll reality

 

Lynn Landes,

I was involved in the planning of the Feb. 26 Oakland Teach-in, and I spoke with you toward the end of the after-party, about your ideas for building more audience questions into events like this.

I am passing along the following post sent out by Kathy Dopp to an e-list of election activists that she has.

I've included a reply I sent back to Kathy, quoting from one of your earlier articles on the suspect nature of the exit polls.

My intent is not to stir up trouble, but to just let you know that this letter is in circulation.

I wish there were clear, reliable answers to the questions you raise.  Until there are, I think your questions are entirely valid and the prospect of wholesale electoral illusion that you raise, needs to be regarded as a real possibility.

--DA

Kathy Dopp wrote:
 

Dear Voting Rights Leaders,

Please read this article by Lynn Landes.
http://www.ecotalk.org/ExitPollMadness.htm

Lynn is attacking the character of Steven Freeman and attacking the credibility of the exit pollsters without even bothering to read the Edison/Mitofsky report or any analysis of it, and without knowing anything about exit poll science.

(The E/M exit pollsters showed enough integrity to reveal enough data in their report to show that the election results are suspect, more than the exit polls, despite their verbal mea culpa. USCountVotes will soon release an amazing final revision of our statisticians' analysis of the Edison/Mitofsky report - within a week or so.)  We hope it will garner more press than our first discussion of the exit polls and will be very fascinating to those who it will mathematically show how absurd the reluctant Bush responder hypothesis is, as an explanation, in a way that a high school math student could easily understand.

Lynn's article is very destructive to our efforts to restore democratic elections by Nov 2006 because Lynn is debunking, without even reading it, the best most scientifically irrefutable (if one understands the science of exit polls) evidence that we have that the Nov 04 election results were corrupted.  
Perhaps Lynn is just math phobic and that is why she is refusing to even read the Edison/Mitofsky report before attacking our mathematical efforts to prove that the election was corrupted, but unfortunately all her readers who may be also math phobic will not know that Lynn has not bothered to even read the report or research this issue before writing her articles.

USCountVotes' mathematical analysis of the Nov 04 and all prior and future elections is essential to providing the evidence and proof, not only that the Nov 04 election was corrupted, but also to setting up the systems to provide statistical court-worthy evidence to prevent the 2006 election from being likewise corrupted.
Does anyone have any advice on what to do about Lynn Landes efforts to debunk something wrongly like this that is critical to our effort? Lynn's article is very destructive to our effort because she apparently has wide readership among progressives.

Any advice?  I've tried to speak with Lynn Landes but she has made it clear that her reputation is better than mine, and that she is not listening to me.  I really think it is important to stop this attempt from the left to destroy our best scientific evidence (other than a mountain of anecdotal evidence of course).

http://www.ecotalk.org/ExitPollMadness.htm

Thank you very much,

Kathy Dopp
http://uscountvotes.org

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DA replied:

I don't think Lynn is attacking the character of Freeman.
She is asking  the exit pollsters to show us the proof that they conducted the polls in the manner they allege they did.
Whether any subsequent calculations or conclusions drawn from those assumed poll results are valid, depends on the answers to Landes' questions.

So far, Edison/Mitofsky has refused to provide any proof about the basis for their exit poll reports.

As Zogby points out in the passage quoted from a Landes article (below) this withholding is counter to accepted professional practice among exit pollers.

I find this refusal in itself highly suspect, and I support Landes in asking the questions.

Landes is not questioning the calculations of Freeman, USCV, or anybody else.

She's asking the preceding question:  is the claimed basis for the exit poll data truthful?

Seems reasonable to me.

(DA)
 

What follows is an excerpt from an earlier Landes article that explains why Landes questions the reality of the exit polls. 

Maybe there are  answers to these questions.  But I haven't seen 'em-- have you?  Don't you think these questions ought to have provable answers published in public?

For the full text that the following passage is drawn from,   see original at:  http://www.ecotalk.org/NEP.htm

Landes writes:
 

Nothing about the 2004 election makes sense.  The numbers don't add up.  The surveys don't match up.  But, the networks have clamed up.  Despite mounting questions and controversy, the networks continue to stonewall.  Citing proprietary claims (something the voting machine companies like to do), the NEP won't release the raw exit poll data.  Okay.  Maybe they have a point.  However, they also won't release any logistical information either, particularly where and when the exit polling was conducted.  And that's definitely not cricket.

 

John Zogby, President of Zogby International, a well-known polling company, said that such complete non-transparency is a "violation of polling ethics".  Under the American Association for Public Opinion Research code, Section III, Standard for Minimal Disclosure: "Good professional practice imposes the obligation upon all public opinion researchers to include, in any report of research results, or to make available when that report is released, certain essential information about how the research was conducted. At a minimum, the following items should be disclosed, Part 8 - Method, location, and dates of data collection."

 

When looking at the data that the networks do provide, things don't check out.  According to the NEP website, 5000 people were hired for Election Day,  69,731 interviews were conducted at 1,480 voting precincts.  However, NEP's raw exit poll data has just been released on the Internet by the alternative news magazine, Scoop, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/pdfs/Mitofsky4zonedata/.  It seems legit.  It indicates that on November 2nd, the results of 16,085 exit poll interviews were published by 3:59 pm, 21,250 interviews by 7:33 pm, and 26,309 by 1:24 pm on Nov 3 (which doesn't make sense, maybe they meant 1:24 am).  Anyway, that grand total comes to  63,664 interviews.  But, that number may not be right, either.  Edie Emery, spokesperson for the NEP, wrote an email to this journalist stating, "On Election Day, 113,885 voters filled out questionnaires as they left the polling places."  Where did that number come from, I asked?  No answer from Edie. She said that the networks would make more information available in their "archives" sometime in the first quarter of this year.  That's not very timely.  Perhaps, that's the idea.

 

At any rate, it appears that nearly a third of the results of the exit polls were not available until after midnight!  Whoa, Nellie!  What happened to the stampede to "project the winner" right after the polls closed, like the networks used to do?  What went wrong this time? 

 

And that's not the only mystery.  It looks like Mitofsky/Edison used two very different forms for their exit poll surveys.  One survey is about what you would expect - http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/natepoll.pdf - a double-sided single sheet of paper that the voter is supposed to fill out.  However, the other form, which matches the Scoop data, is several pages long; it is huge - http://election.cbsnews.com/election2004/poll/poll_p____u_s__all_us0.shtml.  It is impossible to believe that anyone would take the time or trouble to answer all those questions on Election Day.

 

And then there's the second half of NEP's role on Election Day 2004.  The NEP website states that vote totals were "collected" from 2,995 "quick count precincts".  I don't know what that means either, because the NEP spokesperson refused to answer my questions.  So, I'll theorize.  Does that mean that nearly 3,000 mainframe tabulating computers were accessed directly by the AP?  Although, the AP admits it was the sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain to this journalist how the AP received that information.  They refused to confirm or deny that the AP received direct feed from central vote tabulating computers across the country. 

 

DA

Well, Ms. Landes, Right On All Counts, you are; in my opinion, albeit
one which is also based on Realism and Sound common sense.


Please note that the rest of this is a little long, so it's suggested
that you first examine the length for scheduling purposes; and that's if
you choose to finish reading this email.  Also, this is in first-draft
form, but care was taken during the writing and there'll, hopefully, be
either no typographical errors, or relatively very few of them; please
accept my apology for those, if there are any, anyway.


You're going to wonder at time what it is I'm writing about, however I
believe that it's all quite related to what your article is about; and
if you read the whole of this, then I believe that you'll at the very
least understand that all of this is variously interrelated.  There's
some socio-psychological or -intellectual matter, and then the rest is
all or at least about politics -- particularly in the context of
so-called democracies; and some of the latter includes tangential
reference to war and lack of adherence to sound, essential law(s).  It's
all interrelated, in my opinion; because, and on the same basis, it's
all realted to "power corrupts", "politics is full of hypocrisy", etc.;
and "there's a cause to everything that exists".

Many people moronically confuse "common sense" with what they really
mean to be "common way"; "way" bears no meaning in terms of sense, even
when qualified with "common"; whereas "sense" rather essentially implies
reason.  Of course a far too common reality is that people too regularly
lack sound sense, reason, and when this population beomes large enough
to be considered common, then we have people misunderstand "common way"
for "common sense".

 Also of course though, we have far too many people in positions of
power who demonstate -- certainly don't say or admit but nevertheless
demonstrate -- that they really want the common way to make absolutely
no sound sense, to be extremely senseless, and these people certainly
don't mind others, then, counfouding common way for common sense.  They
don't mind "leading" that way, because: they demonstrate that they want
to rule over a population of human lemmings, so that the latter will
support and promote that which is common sensically absurd,
hypocritical, etc.; and this is either to PROFIT -- like, for example,
PM Paul Martin has been long doing with his offshored oceanic shipping
company, for income tax evasion, to avoid paying taxes to his own
country, of which he's now PM, and formerly Finance Minister -- or
because they are truly [immature] and don't have a clue about what
they're doing, only knowing that they want to be [bosses].

Now, PM Paul Martin certainly is not anywhere near the worst criminal
politician in the world, but will nevertheless continue on his case.  I
knew that income tax evasion has long been a crime, but recently learned
that it's also an international crime according to international laws of
which Canada is a co-signatory and has been for several decades. 
"Conflict of interest" controversy came, because he could not legally be
permitted to become PM, if he maintained ownership of this shipping
company; therefore he -- questionably -- transitioned at least "title
ownership" of the company, to his sons, who have since continued to
racketeeringly and criminal profit from income tax evasion.  He removed
that controversy about himself and shifted "title ownership" of a
criminally operating company to his sons, who maintain "dad's way"; not
"dad's sense", for he demonstrates an awful absence of sense; better
than the Conservative party leaders who concretely have proven
themselves to be incompetent and warmongers, to a criminal extent, for
having tried to incite Canada into join in an entirely unjustifiable war
in Iraq; however, Paul Martin, while maybe a little better, nevertheless
has more crimes than this on his record; not a legally committed record,
not yet anyway, but nonetheless an actual record.  He's now a war
criminal for partaking in the entirely unjustifiable and criminal coup
d'etat in Haiti last Febuary, 2004; however, and while that is an AWFUL,
Horrible crime, one of huge scale, and one basically involving genocide,
I doubt that he really intented to be partaking in a coup d'etat or war
assault as criminal as the case in Haiti has turned out to be; thinking
that he's at least possibly just awfully moronic, moronically incompetent.

They're nevertheless all crimes that Paul Martin should be required to
stand trial for, however I think that the Conservative Party leaders are
more criminally inclined in terms of witting deliberation to incite
their country to war and only for the sake of profiteering; both, from
continued contracts with the USA and for Canadian defence industry
contrators, like CAE, as well as from the trade between the two
countries.  I think that Paul Martin is conerned about the trade between
the two countries, but not with as much criminal intent as the
Conservative Party.

Former PM Jean Chretien is also a war criminal, as well as a criminal in
at least one other way, but will only refer to the war crime, here. 
How's he a war criminal?  From what I recall, I accepted to send
Canadian military forces joining in the Bill Clinton gangsterism war of
aggression in Kosovo; joined Canadian troops in G.W. Bush's war of
criminal aggression against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, 2001 and
onward; and did not join in the war on and in Iraq, but made Canada the
greatest contributor to the USA's buildup for launching this war.  The
latter is what I particularly wanted to refer to, but all three cases
are also criminal.  None of these cases was justifiable, not even
remotely.  Clinton et al. ensured that they would provide former
president Milosevic with an accord that would certainly and
pre-obviously be rejected by him, which in turn would give Clinton et
al. puportedly just -- but obviously unjust and thus criminal -- grounds
for launching that war of aggression.  As for attcking the Taliban, they
had not been proven to have been at all culpable for or in the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks in the USA; actually, they had been rather proven to have
not been involved, and this prior to the assault launched against them. 
Although they had ties with Usama Bin Ladin and some other Al-Qaeda,
this was only with respect to the context of Afghanistan.  And not only
was participating in assaulting the Taliban criminal, Afghanistan is now
worse off than before; and none of the foreign forces and leaders
invovlved in causing this, any and all aspects of this situation being
held to Account.  And helping the USA to militarily prepare for
launching a war on and in -- already devsated -- Iraq which was [far]
from justifiable is criminal.

What does all of that have to do with your article?  FRAUD, criminal
fraud and worse.

They, in all of these cases, [obviously] refuse to be held to Account. 
And that is what your article is about, LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY, and thus
criminality; rather extremely high crimes.

Obviously, those of us who think we live in real democracies have
adopted the common way of thinking, but not common sense.  After all,
there's no reason for us to sensibly believe that we live in real
democracies; au contraire, we have a flood of evidence that indicates
that we do not live in authentic demoracies, and that they're really and
very despotic, as well as corporatist fascist governments.

In that kind of context, it's only ever more crucial to count the actual
ballots that are cast and to not rely on highly questionable and
unverifiable exit polls and vote reports.  The ballots needs to be
counted and exactly as you state.

And I wish to thank you for this article, for while it's been very
obvious that all of the ballots, nationwide, for the Nov. 2, 2004, U.S.
presidential election should be counted, or else the election should be
considered a non-election, and un- as well as anti-Constitutional, well,
you provided with a refreshing, welcome and at least educational "take
on" exit polls.

I should have earlier realised what you say about exit polls, but have
been suffering from some information overload and had not thought of
what you say.

The world [needs] Accountability and it's very distressing that we are
not being granted this; only worse now that it's a legal obligation. 
It's all the more distressing when people who are not in positions of
temporal power but have and demonstrate far more sound sense than those
who are.  Does a person who is not blind ask a blind person to lead? 
Well, maybe in a philosophical context in which outlooks are being
discussed and the blind individual is a better thinker, or when a person
wants to gain some insight into what a blind idividual perceives within
the context of optical blindness; however, not in any other context.

The whole cursable mess of affairs is only more sickening when we can
soundly perceive the problems and how they can be soundly addressed, but
we're overpowered by:  morons who think that they're brilliant or at
least more than an average individual -- many of whom are more brilliant
than those who pretend that they're competent and honest enough to lead;
corporatist leaning "leaders" of so-called democracies; war criminals
and mongers; hypocrites, hegemons, etc.  They can't even bring
themselves to abide by the sound laws we have and force unsound laws
upon peoples.

What a world; awfully sickening.  It's greatly appreciated to be aware
that there are sound people in this world; only unforatunate that
they/we are not the ones leading.

Excellent argumentation, thoroughly, and thank you for providing the
education on exit polls really being unreliable and, so far anyway, at
least obviously unverifiable.  Even if they're reliable, if they can't
be verified, then that is the critical matter; in terms of whether or
not we can soundly believe these poll results.  I didn't learn from the
other arguments you present on the topic of ballots needing to be
counted, for that was realised long enough ago; however, you at least
rendered the article of greater, broader educational value by incuding
both of these election or electoral topics.


Sincerely,

MC


P.S.  I don't desire this to be so, but realise that "all human
institutions will fail" -- Jesus Christ -- is indeed reality.  It's so
bad, our circumstances, that "why on earth would Al-Qaeda treat the UNSC
as a legimate entity of and over law?" is a [pertinent] question to
carefully understand the bases of and to realise is realistically
valid.  I'm even a little upset with the EU and its present manner of
addressing Iran; it's of course better than idly sitting back and
letting the USA launch a war of unjustifiable and criminal aggression,
without making any attempt to prevent that; however, the Big Problem is
that the U.S. government is not being addressed for its far worse crimes
against the world, its [enormous] nuclear weapons arsenal, more than all
other countries combined, its refusal to allow the IAEA to inspect the
USA's nuclear armaments, etc., and that the U.S. government continues to
be granted its member status -- only worse, with also maintaining veto
power -- in the UNSC.

We cannot realistically expect to have Peace without Justice, and yet
all or many of the temporal, human legal authorities are doing the
contrary of what they're legally obliged to do.

They are the worst terrorists of all, and get away with as well as
supported in their labeling of "freedom fighters", aggression resisters,
rights defenders as the real terrorists.  A new example that I just
learned about for the very first time, today, is the following article.

"US Bars Nicaragua Heroine as 'Terrorist'", Guardian/UK, March 4, 2005,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0304-02.htm

We're on a hell-bent course of madness; not only with respect to exit
polls.  "No wonder" we have faulty exit polls; they're"just" a symptom
of the greater madness we have been dragged along into, and oppressed by
or with.  If we can't justly address the worst aspects of this MADNESS,
then faulty exit polls are of course awful, but definitely to be
expected; and among the least of the related problems.  Intentionally
skewed exit polls are LOUSY and reflect the maliciousness too many
humans like to exercise, to maliciously try to deceive others.  Of
course it is to be contested behaviour; however, it happens because we
do not have honourable governments; if we did, then they'd honourably
see to their duty to make sure that lies, deceitful propaganda are or
would be legally addressed as matters of criminal conduct.  To lie  like
that is criminal and -- as far as I'm aware -- illegal.  [Charlatanry]
is illegal, I believe anyway.

Without Soundly Accountable government, "The People" are "screwed"; and
that or this is, both, what we obviously have, as well as very distressing.

And this provides a closing for or on the early-on mention that all of
this is variously but certainly interrelated; very.  False exit polls,
news media censorhip and lies, these are all crimes; at least when done
or provided, committed by people who authoratively, professionally
should or do know better and flagrantly pretend that they do, to others
and/or "The People".  Someone who is not educated on the topic of how to
accurately poll, well, their false reporting could be justly addressed
with a mild reprimand and an instruction to take a competent course on
how to honestly perform polls; however, news media workers and the
professor you refer to in your article, Freeman I believe you said, have
NO excuse and are criminal charlatans; at least part-time anyway.

Like you, I also don't believe that G.W. Bush really won the election. 
I wouldn't want John Kerry, neither, but nevertheless do not believe
Bush won; basically can't, with all of the information about [despotic]
and criminal voter suppression, disenfranchisement, the wicked long
waits in Democratic Party districts, and so on.  It's a rather extremely
fraudulent election, in my opinion; G.W. Bush et al's second literal and
criminal hijacking of the presidency.  150 or 200 years ago, this
situation might have already evolved into a Civil War II.

 

I really enjoyed your points.  However, my experience with
Steve Freeman was very different.  He was open and
collaborative, sharing his data.  He was also curious and
insightful about my ongoing study.

Your points are well-taken.  The pollsters are a business,
about as trustworthy as Enron.  Exit polling is a job for
scientists with transparent and peer-reviewed methods.
Such would befit a true democracy.

Your article stands out.  Thank you and keep up the
critical reasoning."

JQ