Best Campaign Ad Ever
suffice to say, the exit polls in those states were statistically significantly off from the final vote percentages. People can decide to cherry pick a rationale for it, but those are very real anomalies that should have an explanation.
Possible explanations could include:
- Methodological bias
- Respondent bias
- The vote totals were in fact wrong (e.g., non-counting of provisional ballots)
- Chance variation
ml1 said:
it's a different calculation, so it would not work the way you applied it in this instance. I don't know this off the top of my head, but the MoE around one of those numbers with a sample of almost 3500 taken from a population of about 4.5 million votes cast would be very small, probably about 1.5%.
That seems low for a non-randomized exit poll.
Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error than regular polls. This is because of what are known as cluster sampling techniques.
But I defer.
DaveSchmidt said:
But I defer.
I didn't run the professors numbers, so maybe he made errors, or maybe he even faked his numbers. But those are the numbers he reported, and if they are correct he applied them properly.
ml1 said:
I didn't run the professors numbers, so maybe he made errors, or maybe he even faked his numbers.
As a matter of fact, Theodore de Macedo Soares is not a professor.
Now my cherry bag is full.
DaveSchmidt said:
As a matter of fact, Theodore de Macedo Soares is not a professor.
Now my cherry bag is full.
that's your "he forgot Poland!" moment.
ml1 said:
suffice to say, the exit polls in those states were statistically significantly off from the final vote percentages. People can decide to cherry pick a rationale for it, but those are very real anomalies that should have an explanation.
Possible explanations could include:
- Methodological bias
- Respondent bias
- The vote totals were in fact wrong (e.g., non-counting of provisional ballots)
- Chance variation
Looking at the TDMS chart again, I see New Jersey is the state with the second-highest gap in favor of Trump. If I were arguing against rigging (per Palast) under possibility No. 3, that’d probably be my Exhibit A.
drummerboy said:
... it's my understanding that the way they do exit polls in the U.S. is different from how they're done in UN monitored elections, so it's not really comparable. Unfortunately I don't have a link for where I first saw that. I'll take another look.
The Heavy article that ml1 linked to contains this passage:
While exit polling in other countries is often used as a method to check the accuracy of final totals and to detect fraud, those polls differ in significant respects from methods used in American election exit polls. For example, Holland explained, exit polls in other countries consist of only two questions in many cases, rather than the cumbersome list of 20 questions — or more — on U.S. exit polls.
The shorter polls lead to significantly higher rates of response, creating a larger sample size which gives a much better indicator of what the final result will be.
DaveSchmidt said:
it could be any, all, or a combination of those factors.
And I'll repeat that it would be negligent on the part of Democrats to discount the possibility of voter suppression affecting the 2020 outcome.
I don't think responsible Democrats discount the possibility of voter suppression having affected the 2016 outcome.
nohero said:
I don't think responsible Democrats discount the possibility of voter suppression having affected the 2016 outcome.
I believe that to be true overall. But I feel like I'm getting serious pushback here that it can't have contributed to the exit poll discrepancies. it's almost as if it's a "nan" issue, some people can't believe it isn't a wild conspiracy theory pushed by kooks.
here's more on provisional ballots:
Provisional Ballots Protect Voting Rights — When They Are Counted
and on voter registration purges:
Voter Purge Rates Remain High, Analysis Finds Facebook Twitter Share
Smedley said:
I love it. Great ad. Very unorthodox, but it works. I don’t expect voters to listen to Lindsey graham, but the ad should remind people how some Republicans really saw trump when they were free to say what they wanted about him, ie when their political careers didn’t depend on Trump’s approval.
Since you are far more "moderate" than most of us the fact you love is evidence that it is a good ad and aimed at people who think as you do or are slightly to the Right of you and might be tempted to sit out the Election because while they don't like Trump they not want to vote for the "liberal" Biden.
nohero said:
I don't think responsible Democrats discount the possibility of voter suppression having affected the 2016 outcome.
Agreed, and you can add Russian interference to that too
ml1 said:
To win this year, Biden is going to need huge turnout to get past the institutional roadblocks thrown in front of voters in several states.
What he will need is teams of poll watchers and people monitoring the counting of mail-in ballots and lots of lawyers available by phone to any voter who runs into a problem.
ml1 said:
I believe that to be true overall. But I feel like I'm getting serious pushback here that it can't have contributed to the exit poll discrepancies. it's almost as if it's a "nan" issue, some people can't believe it isn't a wild conspiracy theory pushed by kooks.
I can’t help how you feel. What I can do is look at the TDMS data, do some math and ask questions about it. I can also distinguish, at least for myself, between voter suppression and claims of vote rigging. (And just in case: My wisniak comment wasn’t serious.)
I'm sorry I raised nan's name in this. She's not the point.
The reason I'm pushing back is that the evidence, such as it is, is very weak.
I just find it very hard to believe that it's possible, in this day and age, to pull off the actual stealing of votes on the order of tens of thousands of votes. And by vote stealing, I mean the criminal mishandling of votes that have been cast. And that's what is being claimed here by the exit poll discrepancies.
But that is not "voter suppression". Voter suppression is preventing people from getting to the ballot box. Of course that has happened, and may have been critical in the three states in question. But all the voter suppression that occurs is LEGAL. It's above board. On the table. Voter purges. Fewer polling places. All that stuff.
drummerboy said:
I'm sorry I raised nan's name in this. She's not the point.
The reason I'm pushing back is that the evidence, such as it is, is very weak.
I just find it very hard to believe that it's possible, in this day and age, to pull off the actual stealing of votes on the order of tens of thousands of votes. And by vote stealing, I mean the criminal mishandling of votes that have been cast. And that's what is being claimed here by the exit poll discrepancies.
But that is not "voter suppression". Voter suppression is preventing people from getting to the ballot box. Of course that has happened, and may have been critical in the three states in question. But all the voter suppression that occurs is LEGAL. It's above board. On the table. Voter purges. Fewer polling places. All that stuff.
if you read the articles, it's not criminal mishandling of votes. It's all perfectly legal, and it's been done systematically. First a state purges its voter registration rolls and uses criteria that they know will likely remove more young minority voters than older and white voters. One way of doing that is defining "active voters" strictly as having voted in the last two elections. Another way is to purge people if they moved to a state but did not actively have themselves removed in their previous state. And when these people show up and cast a provisional ballot, it's never counted. Why -- because they were improperly removed during the registration purge. All perfectly legal. And something that will definitely affect exit polls. I think I voted, but my vote was never counted.
DaveSchmidt said:
I can’t help how you feel. What I can do is look at the TDMS data, do some math and ask questions about it. I can also distinguish, at least for myself, between voter suppression and claims of vote rigging. (And just in case: My wisniak comment wasn’t serious.)
the Pew article indicated that one-quarter of provisional ballots are never counted. Depending on the jurisdiction, it can be higher than that. And the studies indicate provisional ballots are more likely to be cast in certain precincts, specifically those with higher proportions of minority voters. You don't think that's sufficient to cause a measurable difference in exit polls? These are the people who show up on Election Day, cast a ballot, and then those ballots don't count.
ml1 said:
the Pew article indicated that one-quarter of provisional ballots are never counted. Depending on the jurisdiction, it can be higher than that. And the studies indicate provisional ballots are more likely to be cast in certain precincts, specifically those with higher proportions of minority voters. You don't think that's sufficient to cause a measurable difference in exit polls? These are the people who show up on Election Day, cast a ballot, and then those ballots don't count.
I haven’t read the Pew article yet. I had read the Palast claim of rigging and the data that TDMS suggested showed a measurable difference between exit polls and reported results; those were where my thoughts and questions were directed. So, no, I wasn’t pushing back on the idea that provisional ballots go uncounted. When I do get around to reading the Pew link later and considering your question (granting, as you wish, that there is a measurable difference between exit polls and reported results), I’ll be interested in seeing what one-quarter of the provisional-ballot fraction of the total vote means in numerical terms.
DaveSchmidt said:
I haven’t read the Pew article yet. I had read the Palast claim of rigging and the data that TDMS suggested showed a measurable difference between exit polls and reported results; those were where my thoughts and questions were directed. So, no, I wasn’t pushing back on the idea that provisional ballots go uncounted. When I do get around to reading the Pew link later and considering your question (granting, as you wish, that there is a measurable difference between exit polls and reported results), I’ll be interested in seeing what one-quarter of the provisional-ballot fraction of the total vote means in numerical terms.
that probably just means Palast is a bad writer, or guilty of hyperbole. Because when I've read his work, he is really focused on voter roll purges and provisional ballots with regard to exit poll discrepancies. He also cites other voter suppression tactics that wouldn't be apparent in exit polls. I think his interviews in particular sound like he is conflating the non-counting of provisionals with other undetectable vote suppression.
Purging of voters from the rolls and the use of provisional ballots are intertwined. Someone who believes that he or she is registered to vote shows up at the poll site on election day. Voter's name is not found in the poll book because he/she has been purged. Voter uses a provisional ballot that is not counted. Voter exits the poll site and is polled and reports how he/she voted.
I don't know what "provisional ballots" are in other jurisdictions, but here in Wis, if a person comes to the polling place missing certain i.d., their ballot is held aside as provisional and is not counted immediately. The voter is required to come back with the missing info, either back to the polling place on election day or to the town clerk's office by Friday of the election week. I would imagine a non-negligible percentage don't come back, and therefore their ballots wind up not counted. No idea whether 25% is high or low....
Steve said:
Purging of voters from the rolls and the use of provisional ballots are intertwined. Someone who believes that he or she is registered to vote shows up at the poll site on election day. Voter's name is not found in the poll book because he/she has been purged. Voter uses a provisional ballot that is not counted. Voter exits the poll site and is polled and reports how he/she voted.
Yeah, but would a provisional voter, in an exit poll, respond that they had voted for "x", knowing that their vote was provisional?
Actually, one would hope that the people conducting the poll would allow for provisional voters, somehow. Not doing so is a pretty bad methodology, I would think.
In November 2016, 1.8 percent of all ballots cast were provisional, meaning roughly 0.5 percent (one-quarter of 1.8 percent) of all votes weren’t counted. Half of all provisional ballots were cast in California; add New York, Ohio and Arizona and you’ve got three-quarters of all provisional ballots cast. None of those states were among the four that Theodore de Macedo Soares spotlighted as swinging from Clinton in exit polls to Trump in reported results.
https://www.eac.gov/documents/2018/06/07/eavs-deep-dive-provisional-ballots
Given all that, and acknowledging that none of it rules out state and district pockets of high provisional ballot use and rejection rates, I’m not convinced that uncounted provisional ballots are to blame when exit polls miss the mark.
drummerboy said:
Yeah, but would a provisional voter, in an exit poll, respond that they had voted for "x", knowing that their vote was provisional?
I would.
DaveSchmidt said:
..Given all that, and acknowledging that none of it rules out state and district pockets of high provisional ballot use and rejection rates, I’m not convinced that uncounted provisional ballots are to blame when exit polls miss the mark.
I'm not saying they are. I just think that if there is the possibility of a provisional vote not being counted, it's kind of incumbent on the poller to account for that. If they don't already. Wouldn't you think so?
drummerboy said:
I'm not saying they are.
That part of my comment was addressed to the void, not to you. Sorry for the ambiguity.
This is fascinating.
I’m aghast that you’ve got people who could vote but don’t bother. (We have few people who don’t bother to enrol, although that number is beginning to grow). Once you’re enrolled there are few reasons you’re not required to have your name checked off as having attended a polling place; if you’ve attended, or got your name checked, you’re fine. Only a low percentage waste the opportunity to tell us how they feel re government - either formally (voting) or informally (crude doodles etc; invalid voting). So reading about deliberate vote-rigging going unchecked on top of dubious vote-weighting etc has me just shaking my head.
DaveSchmidt said:
I would.
above I suggested it's one of a few factors contrubting to exit poll errors. Not the only one. But it is the only one that could theoretically be avoided by laws disallowing partisan led voter roll purges. I think there's enough evidence to suggest uncounted provisional ballots could have been enough to tip PA and WI.
mjc said:
I don't know what "provisional ballots" are in other jurisdictions, but here in Wis, if a person comes to the polling place missing certain i.d., their ballot is held aside as provisional and is not counted immediately. The voter is required to come back with the missing info, either back to the polling place on election day or to the town clerk's office by Friday of the election week. I would imagine a non-negligible percentage don't come back, and therefore their ballots wind up not counted. No idea whether 25% is high or low....
WI has been one of the most aggressive states in removing people from the registration lists. A lot of the people who cast provisionals don't have proof of registration because they were improperly removed from the list.
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it's a different calculation, so it would not work the way you applied it in this instance. I don't know this off the top of my head, but the MoE around one of those numbers with a sample of almost 3500 taken from a population of about 4.5 million votes cast would be very small, probably about 1.5%.