FOR DISTRIBUTION: Executive Summary of The Urban Legend of 2004

Kindly prepared for use as an Election Reform activism resource by Eridani

From: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0706/S00206.htm

Executive Summary of The Urban Legend of 2004

Prepared by DU Poster Eridani
The following is an executive summary of:
Election 2004: The Urban Legend
&
Sludge Report #177 - Bigger Than Watergate II

DOWNLOAD AS WORD .DOC – 2 PAGES - FOR DISTRIBUTION TO YOUR COUNTY/CONGRESS/SENATE REPS/PRINTING ETC.

Over the past few months America has been exposed to a seemingly never-ending cascade of evidence concerning Karl Rove's efforts to suppress minority and working class vote.

On election night 2004 TV screens across the world bore testimony to the results of his meddling.

The huge queues to vote in some minority and inner city precincts saw people waiting 10 hours or more to vote - Ohio was particularly bad - but it happened in many key urban areas. It was accompanied throughout the country by race-based voter suppression and voter disenfranchisement. In Florida nearly 700,000 ex-felons are barred from voting, in Virginia 200,000; simply for having a felony on their record.

The "Urban Legend" uncovered by Michael Collins and detailed in his report is simply this.

According to the official election night results and the official exit polls (the most extensive ever conducted in the history of elections) it was these queuing voters from the core of America's largest cities who elected George W. Bush.

The full article is at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0706/S00165.htm

Excerpts from the Collins report -

The Bush campaign focused its efforts heavily, almost exclusively, on the rural areas and suburbs in order to counter the anticipated big city Democratic margins. But then the miracle occurred just when it was needed. White ghosts never seen before emerged from parking lots, alleys and perhaps even graveyards in big cities across the country to give George W. Bush a stunning victory in the presidential election of 2004. It had to be this way, otherwise the vote count was wrong and who would tolerate such a notion, despite the clear signs on the ground and in the National Exit Poll? But the convenient and wide spread Red versus Blue story of election eve was maintained through inertia. For those with nagging questions, that story was replaced by the Urban Legend of 2004: Bush won the 2004 Presidential election in big cities.

So please ask yourself - if Karl Rove, Bush and the US Attorney Generals were so busy disenfranchising urban minorities as fast as they could, how can the above "official story of Election 2004" be remotely possible?

Where then did the Bush swing in the urban wave come from? The simple answer is that it was weighted into existence. The act of reconciling the exit polls to the official vote count created it. The Bush urban voters came into existence because they had to - otherwise the official vote count would be wrong.

Weighting is a practice used by the US Census, political consultants, public health officials and others who conduct large scale survey research. If you collect data on a population, Latino voting patterns in the 2004 election for example, and your data is unrepresentative of a subset of that population, you can weight certain responses by a multiplier greater or less than one to make your poll consistent with the population measured. The problem though is when weighting is used to reconcile polling data with a known fact that may not be known at all. The NEP assumes that the official vote total must be accurate and weights accordingly.

Curiouser and curiouser -

Generating the Bush urban wave was effortless. Only 10% of urban voters required a call. They were not required to attend rallies or watch television ads. In fact, many of them didn't even need to vote. That was taken care of by the weighting process conducted when the national exit poll was found to be inconsistent with the announced vote tallies. After all, how could the unintentionally released Election Day NEP be right in showing a 3% Kerry overall victory margin when the vote tabulators showed a 3% Bush win? Rural Americans didn't produce that margin. Neither did the small towns or the suburbs. Even the improvement in the smaller cities wasn't enough. The big cities, according to announced totals, delivered the vote for Bush.

For this study, we chose the less controversial approach of using the final, revised exit poll with a focus on the stated purposes of the exit poll, who were the voters and where did they cast their ballots. Why not take the numbers the pollsters finalized the day after the election? Yet after careful scrutiny, we've shown that the NEP's urban demographic data just don't add up to even a remotely convincing explanation for a Bush victory. The data is clearly inconsistent, incompatible, and results in a conundrum rather than clarity about what happened on Nov. 2 2004. Doubt leads to disbelief.

And then there's one more problem that casts doubt on the entire process. The NEP reports a 66% increase in voter turnout in the big cities, from 9 million votes in 2000 to 15 million in 2006. This provides foundation for the increases in Bush urban votes and percentages, even though there is no common sense or historical reason to believe such an increase in Bush votes ever took place, as we've demonstrated.

Now here's the shocker. In addition to the analysis above, the 66% vote increase in the urban areas simply can't be true on the basis of actual reports of big city vote totals. Why hasn't this been widely discussed?

Well now, many Democrats might say - why go on about 2004 when we retook the House and the Senate in 2006? If the election system is crooked, how could we have done that? An obvious answer was that the Republicans failed to suppress and/or steal enough votes to stop that outcome. If that is the case, the Democratic victory ought to have been even larger than it was, and there is some evidence that it may well have been.

http://www.electiondefensealliance.org/landslide_denied_exit_polls_vs_vote_count_2006

There is an unfortunate tendency of Democratic officeholders, particularly those in comfortably majority Democratic districts, to think that if they got elected what could possibly be wrong with the process? Leave well enough alone. However, Republicans have absolutely no inhibitions about being "sore losers" or even sore winners. The US Attorney General scandal now unfolding will absolutely not stop them from their efforts to suppress the votes of Democrats.

It is more than past time for grassroots Democrats to insist that Democratic officeholders stop being WEAK ON DEFENSE - defense of their own voters and of the integrity of the election process. There must be an end to secret, unauditable software and the very notion that any private company has the right to own any data about election process whatsoever, now!

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IMPORTANT NOTE: Publication of this story marks a watershed in American political history. It is offered freely for publication in full or part on any and all internet forums, blogs and noticeboards. All other media are also encouraged to utilise material. Readers are encouraged to forward this to friends and acquaintances in the United States and elsewhere.

Download Word Doc. Version - Bigger Than Watergate II

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From: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0706/S00206.htm

Thanks al for getting this and everything else organized and thanks Eridani for putting this together. I remember seeing it on the original thead. Eridani made an excellent point in commenting on this approach:

"It isn't last year's argument any more."

We don't have to prove that the election was stolen. There are so many questions and so much obvious chdeating.

The Bush administration and their supporters need to prove that they won it in light of the many quesitons raised.

"Urban Legend" raises a number of questions:


Did you know Bush had 2 million less votes in the rural sector in 2004 than 2000?

Did you know that rural America contributed 16% of total votes in 2004 but 23% in 2000?

Surely you knew that the "big city" voting segment was up 66% in turnout in 2004 and that Bush went from 26% in 2000 to 39% share in 2004?

Bet you didn't know Bush took election 2004 on the basis of gains in the "big cities" (over 500,000)?

All based on public data, no math degree required -- a true "urban legend."

If this democracy is to be saved, it will be through efforts such as this.

thanks

:)

What good is this Democratic Republic is the votes are meaningless? Might as well just let Halliburton run the damn thing.

an investigation? Namely, where did the phony numbers come from, specifically? I take it this does not necessarily mean that massive cheating went on only in big cities. Vote suppression actually did and was highly visible. I take it that the implication is that weighting cities was important because those are the last places tallied completely and the dumping ground for creative editing in order to carry specific states. It is sort of like the breathless waiting for California or Hawaii because of the time zones except if the GOP did that they would lose the battleground states. The likely evildoers here can be immediately linked to Rove's DC control room modelled after his Nixon war room of long ago.

So I take it that step two, the methodology and the origin of the fake tallies is still scattered or invisible or both?

Another thing mentioned by other cautionary statisticians better suited than I am to raise the point is the circular confusion of using weighted or non weighted exit polls versus the actual vote count- which needs to be done rigorously to find the exact same thing. An audit versus the exit polls. I know people are trying to come at this from different directions but in the end exit polls are an aid insofar as they are justified by outward evidence and blatant determination to both defraud the election system on multiple levels AND sacrifice any attempts at legitimizing the "victory" other than media spin. That is weighted enough to raise suspicions and begin looking at the numbers. because polls, vote counts and statistics have been muddled, this difficult, deliberate mess won't be untangled by the more than reluctant media and the people have no smoking gun, or easily imagined "grassy knoll" to latch onto the thesis.

Of course, if one looks at the equally ignored, gamed, forgotten and lied about evidence of fraud we know(so dismissed out of hand that the DOJ can openly persist in blatant plans for future electoral theft) one can see confirmation here. I also fear confirmation that this "new" evidence, in its own right or in combination with the known means of theft will mysteriously gain no traction at all by the esteemed institutional patriots who squat on law, information and power like decadent orgiasts.

So at the least it is another uncovering of the methodology of the bald-faced, desperate fraud. Would someone like to add up ALL the numbers- minus the damage already done by the GOP influenced slime media
as a too generous throwaway- and estimate what Kerry would have received had all the votes been counted and the tallies not tampered with and those kept from voting had been allowed? I am guessing a pretty large margin and electoral landslide also factoring in the actual announced "desire" of Bush to achieve a huge mandate- which did not happen and/or fearful vote pumping once the Rubicon of outrageous theft was crossed.

When Bush tossed Rove out of the airplane was the time he was told he was a dead duck for November. The day he appeared relaxed and calm was the day the fix was in. The margin of already weighted or biased polls allows for cheating in close races only and for "surprises" that have to be justified by those mysterious "reason" questions. The fact we have to rely on exit polls or cheaters to stumble all over their burglary tools and that most people from the top down desire not to know unpleasantness explains why we are only making progress where we hope it still counts- among the majority that supported in the actual election. If a poll were taken of all the Kerry voters, a sort of exit poll with any shot of happening fairly, people would look around and see Kerry heads outnumbered the Bush heads. The high probability of that continues to be supported by broad evidence that is kept from acting as proof or grounds for more discovery.

No decent impeachment trial should be without a grilling of probable Rove fingermen, precinct captains, touchscreen personnel because there is no legitimacy upon which the imperial claims of the "war" president can be based. Deceit nullifies the SCOTUS decision and our oath of office is NOT the immutable holy oil of anointing.

I am writing from the great state of Maryland, I saw my vote switch to Bush 5 times when I tried to vote for Kerry in Baltimore, MD.
I also know that despite having to wait in line for 2 hours to vote that the vote total for my precinct was only 944 votes all
day. I estimate that there was at least 400 people there voting while I waited to vote. I also heard from my neighbors that the
polls were jammed all day. Now, for me the problem is twofold. One the "other guy" somehow was installed in office without
the consent of the American people. As a citizen and taxpayer of a democratic superpower, I do have a real problem with that.
Secondly, without accountability this will not change. America has become diverse, she is now comprised of many peoples all striving
to make the American Dream theirs. There is a way that small minded men will "freeze" the political process to allow power
only to those of a very small privileged elite. If this process continues, the real America will starve from neglect while
the special interests continue to gorge themselves at the public trough.

Certainly that is what I would think from what I have heard.

cheers
al

he remains an inspiration, he said that the AG firings were part of an attempt to suppress the Democratic vote and that
Gonzalez should not still be AG. I admire Dr. Dean a great deal, I hope he continues to be Chair of DNC, he said that
if people want US out of Iraq, vote for a Democratic president. He talked about the internet and how the American people
aka the bloggers want 2 way communication with the candidates, not just communication as an "ATM" machine.

By the Way, I still have my Democracy Bond, every month I give a little to the Dems to put this country back on the right track.

:-)

And part of what this paper does is indicate where that inquiry should focus some of its efforts.

You clearly put a great deal of thought into that post.

Cheers
Al

and eridani did it.

Fabulous work, and kudos all around.

Eridani, althecat, and autorank: :toast:

And here are further acknowledgments by Collins from the article:

"Acknowledgments: Special thanks and appreciation are offered to Jonathan Simon, Jill Hayroot and others who reviewed this material and provided valuable comments. Also very special thanks to “Scoop” Independent News and Alastair Thompson for the ongoing leadership in their coverage of election and voting rights issues. A special debt is owed to the voting rights activists of the United States throughout its history. They give their time freely and risk hardship, injury, and sometimes death for our right to vote."

K&R.

Bear in mind that Febble and other fraud skeptics were right in last year's debate. If the issue is only the discrepancy betweem raw and weighted data, then fraud and sample bias work equally well as explanations and you can't really choose between them.

The current argument really is different--assuming that the weighted data is correct and demonstrating that it leads to a conclusion that is preposterous according to all common sense political knowledge, which is of course separate and external to the statistics.

You really must look outside of the statistics for real insight. Looking only at statistical data is like looking at data from sensors in freeway pavement, noting that they indicate no motion on the Friday before the 4th of July and concluding that there are no cars there. You have to combine your knowledge of how the sensors and their programming work with common sense external knowledge about holiday weekends to reach the obvious conclusion that there is so much traffic that the cars have all stopped.

:yourock:

:kick:

did TIA somehow have his digits in this?

:kick: and R!

dp

for all you all do.

:thumbsup:

dp

:kick: