It all turns out fine... when you own the machines

This is how bonkers rightwhinging liars (and their fellow-travelling "moderate" pals in the Democratic Party, who are now urging a rightward turn to try to appeal to the Neanderthal South) can be:

"If (as is usually the case) the polling places are operating below their capacity, then this technique will pick up two important aspects of the final total. First, it will accurately capture the relative vote for Bush and Kerry in each targeted precinct. Second, if turnout is higher than the past standard for that precinct, the poll will also show a higher count for that precinct, which gives the pollster a fighting chance to identify a turnout surge in one part of the state or another.

But suppose voting is much higher than expected. And suppose further that (for reasons to be discussed below), precincts are operating at their capacity--or, even worse, that their capacity has been reduced, relative to previous elections, because of a complicated ballot or shortage of machines. In that case, the exit pollster will not see the full increase in turnout during any fixed period of time. Instead, there will be a queue of voters, many of whom will actually vote only later, after the time window for the exit poll has closed. That element in the increased turnout will be missed. Since turnout did surge more in Florida's red than blue counties, this is a sufficient explanation for the failure of the exit polls there, unless something further and heinous comes to light. Don't count on it."

Did you read that carefully? The exit polls got it wrong because all the Republicans were still queueing!

That's what the guy is saying. The polls did not capture the increased turnout (all Republican) because they only worked for five hours. What Galbraith ignores, of course, is that the sample polled by the exit pollers is no more or less likely to be representative than the people in the queue!

His argument would only hold up if two things were true: first, that exit polls claim to poll everyone who votes all day long (they do not, of course; they claim to poll a sample) and that Republicans don't vote before midday (perhaps they are all late sleepers).

I note also that Galbraith's sharing of increased turnout is all done ex post facto! Hello? He says that Bush improved his share but he is basing this on the vote that we say is flawed! Of course he improved his share. We're saying his share was improved by Diebold. It's exactly because there was no corresponding increase in Republican registrations that Hartmann and others suggest that the increase was, erm, virtual.

What about his suggestion of vote by mail? It works in Oregon.

Well yes, but isn't Oregon blue? How long before red state election supervisors are accused of "losing" ballots. They have to retain them for some time in this kind of system, store them, etc.

Maybe it would work. So long as Diebold don't make the scanners...

posted by Dr Zen @ 10:24 am