Greetings from
The Publisher . . .
Bush Wins! What are the odds? Well, 250 million to one, actually
Did you hear the news? Someone in Vegas flipped a coin a thousand times and the same side of the coin came up 1000 times in a row! What are the odds of that?
Well, actually, that didn't happen in Vegas. They wouldn't allow that there-too incredible, unless your coin is weighted. On Election Day, however, it did happen and was allowed; but, I'm getting ahead of myself.
After spending some time on the couch and in bewilderment after the election, I started to study what happened.
After the pre-election polls and even hearing the conservative, bow-tied host of CrossFire, Tucker XXXXXXX, say the night before that he expected a Kerry landslide, the results was surprising, for a lot of us.
The exit polls on Election Day indicated the same result. That evening, however, it didn't look that good for Kerry. And the rest is history, as well as history making. It's hard to believe that we could have two elections in a row with suspect vote counting. Could President Bush be the first two-term President never elected?
Then again, former President Jimmy Carter called it a few months ago. If he was called in to monitor the election process in Florida using the same standards he applies to foreign elections, he said he could not declare the Florida election legitimate.
Scanning the web and going through what are called “conspiracy theories” by the network and media conglomerates, one thing was clear: there were not isolated instances of voting irregularities-it was everywhere. People were concerned about the accuracy of voting machines and no paper trails. A national exit poll showed 65% of voters were concerned that their vote would not be accuracy counted.
In San Diego, it's obvious that more San Diegans wanted Donna Frye as mayor. But like in Florida in 2000, it wasn't done properly. When it comes to crimes, though, I think they take into consideration intent. You know, like 1st degree murder, premeditated crimes, etc. are different than accidents, and so on. Voting and the voters intent must be less important to some.
Diebold voting machines were considered unreliable and not used in San Diego County this election. Instead we marked ballots with pens. Did you feel more confident about your vote being counted accurately when told a Diebold scanner would count the votes instead?
We heard about local irregularities because they were reported locally. The national media though, did not put it together and give us a broader perspective. According to sources at CBS, a media “lockdown” stopped national reporting of any real problems with voting.
You'd think it would be a hot topic, but it was determined that this was a good time for a push on Fallujah. Only Keith Olbermann on MSNBC has brought irregularities up and there is talk he may be fired. He speaks out freely on his website. Instead, Olbermann is being called the “voice of paranoia” by conservative talk shows. Yes, by the same paranoids who said Sadham was about to unleash WMDs on us/US.
The day after the election, Peter Jennings declared invalid any claims about irregularities. He “proved” that by showing how one county in Florida that was heavily Democratic voted for Bush or the Republican candidate in the last four elections. He ignored the 38 other counties in Florida that voted for Bush, but were registered Democratic.
After the Dan Rather “incident” his analysis came rather quickly. Jennings was not criticized however, and Rather is stepping down.
The air-news exceptions to all this is Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, Bill Maher on HBO and Air America Radio that you can hear in San Diego on KLSD-1360AM. The segment hosted by Randi Rhodes from 3-7pm is now the top rated show in its time slot in “conservative” San Diego!
In case you haven't noticed there is now an incredible difference between what is being reported on the evening news and in the press on the one hand and what is being reported by web sources on the other. I'm not talking about wild-eyed “bloggers” either. The European media, such as the UK Guardian and UK Mirror, for instance, regularly report news consistent with American news sites found on the web. Just don't listen for it on the evening news. There are few independent newspapers still looking, but few.
On the web, instead of a quick dismissal of the Democratic counties in Florida, you'll find a bit more. At. www.USCountVotes.org you'll find this: How closely people in Florida voted along party lines depended on which machines counted their votes, opti-scan or e-touch machines. Those questionable Democratic counties that went for Bush used the same type of machine. In those counties using the other system, cross-party voting did not exist. In the US at large, 90% of us voted along party lines.
The USCountVotes site is run by a mathematician, Kathy Dopp in Utah. She is seeking donations to do more research. Bob Harris at www.bobharris.com has a good article about the odds.
Physically attempting to check ballots and compare them to machines is Bev Harris. Her work can be found at www.BlackBoxVoting.org.
At one point I was really encouraged. I walked into the room and heard Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. He was citing the disturbing fact that official results diverged sharply from a range of surveys of voters at polling places, he said there had been “a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities.'' He called on the President “to view all of this and take decisive action in the best interests of the country.''
Then I discovered he was talking about President Leonid Kuchma of the Ukraine. Was I disappointed. There thousands of people were in the streets in freezing weather protesting the election results. Some reports went as high as 200,000 people. Recently journalists joined them saying they were tired of telling the government's lies. Imagine that.
Republican leaders stated again later that they were sure ballots were not counted correctly based on the exit polls. Our president agreed.
The national media used to take stock in exit polls too. Then a network called Florida for candidate Gore in the 2000 election based on exit polls, and was “wrong.” They were embarrassed and apologized.
I was embarrassed they were embarrassed. Have the polls been wrong since picking Dewey in 1948? Only here, now. In 1948 they were embarrassed. They tightened their methods.
The best report I've read so far is by Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D. (interesting name) a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. (If you can't find it we can send you a pdf.) He is an expert in research methods and his report is titled The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy. He addresses and counters the common arguments that trash the recent exit polls.
He states that exit polls showed Kerry ahead “in nearly every battleground state, in many cases by sizable margins.” Then when the votes were tallied in 10 of 11 battleground states, “the tallied margin differs from the predicted margin, and in every case, the shift favors Bush.”
What are the odds of that? Leaving out most of the report, all of his careful arguments and getting to the bottom line, the chances that all of these exit polls could be wrong in the same direction-Bush's-are 250 million to one. It's truly miraculous.
Should we trust exit polls? Freeman gives several examples of how well they are regarded. In Germany, where people mark ballots by hand, it takes a week to count the votes by hand. Civil servants do it monitored by volunteers from the political parties. They don't have to wait that long to know who won however, the results are announced on election night-based on the exit polls. Thom Hartmann of CommonDreams states “the news media's exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of a percent off.”
Republican consultant Dick Morris, a regular on Fair and Balanced Fox News, states “Exit polls are almost never wrong.” He goes on to say they are often used to insure the honesty of elections in Third World counties. He has even hired them himself to do so.
As any careful researcher would at this point, Dr. Freeman is not yelling fraud. He does say it “is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies and the public to investigate.”
I go the other direction. Show me you can do the mathematical equivalent of rolling the dice or flipping a coin the same way 1000 times in a row and I'll take you to Vegas with me. What proof do we need? If we do the math, it's simply too incredible. They know that in the Ukraine.
I'll check with my sources in Vegas. Maybe it happens all the time. Though I have to think any casino manager would not get away with explaining to his boss that somehow someone miraculously flipped a coin the same way a thousand times in a row. The Election Day casino boss- the American voter-is silent, or is supposed to be.
Don't we have to ask ourselves about the irregularities? Especially when we are entering a whole new era of counting votes electronically? Don't we need to feel confident that we have a system in place that is accurate and cannot be manipulated? Shouldn't we be able to verify that voting machines are accurate?
Doesn't it benefit all of us/US to have a system that we can trust? Why not bend over backwards to prove it is accurate and beyond questioning rather than attack those who wonder and question?
If we are to continue with the idea that we can choose how we are governed, these questions need to be resolved-for all of us, on both sides. Or we should give up the charade that we make a difference.
What's next? If those researching it are funded and continue, and people keep the question alive, little by little the fraud will come out or it will be proved wrong. Either way we all benefit. If not, we know the result-more wars in the Middle East, the environment and the shrinking middle class. I didn't realize that when they said they were for exporting democracy that it was like a commodity that we would lose-that it would go somewhere else.
We're all busy. It's a pain in the butt keeping up and participating, but the media no longer offers an independent system of checks and balances as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. It's up to us to keep the conversation alive. It won't be easy, but I like the odds.
Have a great month,
Steve Hays
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