Vote Fraud?

November 9, 2004October 1, 2019 Mark Blumenthal21 Comments

I am hoping to spend the next week or so looking at what the elections have told us about the various issues we discussed here in the weeks before the election: likely voter models, weighting by party, the incumbent rule, etc. But first, one last thought about exit polls.

Many readers have emailed about various summaries of exit poll results collected at different times on election night. Many are looking for evidence of fraud (or looking to debunk claims of fraud) in the apparent discrepancies between the vote count and the “early” results of the exit polls.

Exit polls are certainly a powerful tool in uncovering vote fraud, when it exists. If, as some allege, a particular type of voting equipment was used to perpetuate a wide scale deception last week, the raw exit poll data could help reveal it. I’m dubious about these claims, to say the least, but that’s my opinion. Those who disagree are right to press the exit pollsters for more answers.

Unfortunately, the various exit poll results that were captured online on election night are not much help. First, a lot of the speculation classifies the type of voting equipment used at the state level. Most states use a combination of different types of counting equipment. In Illinois, for example, equipment varies by county (as this web site shows). Some variation may occur within counties or even individual precincts. My precinct in Washington DC, for example, allowed voters to choose between an optical scan ballot and an experimental touch screen voting machine.

Second, regarding the exit poll results captured at various times of the evening: We may know the time they appeared on a given website, but we do not know how old those tabulations were when they were posted, and more important, we do not know the extent to which any given sample was corrected to conform with the actual vote.

That last point is important and not well understood. Remember two things: First, the weighting of exit polls to match actual results is not new, but a standard procedure used since the early days of exit polls. Second, the weighting to actual returns does not occur all at once but continuously, precinct by precinct, over the course of election night. The exit pollsters weight their sample to match incoming actual results for each sampled precinct as actual returns become available. Thus, the exit poll results get continuously updated in what bloggers might call “real time.” Some of the online postings may reflect that updating; some may not. We have no way of knowing. There is also one more step: The sampled precincts are still just a sample, so even when all the sampled precincts have been weighted to the actual result, sampling error may cause the survey to differ from the statewide result. At that point, near the end of vote counting, the exit pollsters will apply another overall weight so that the vote on the survey matches the actual statewide result.

Although the data now in the public domain is not much help, the raw data puts the exit pollster in a strong position to evaluate some of the speculation about vote fraud. If, for example, someone tampered with tabulations from touch screen voting machines that lacked a paper trail, then an analysis of the poll data should show a greater discrepancy in precincts with such machines.

A New York Times article that appeared last Friday implies that such an analysis has already occurred. The National Election Pool (NEP) officials that conducted the exit polls wrote a report to debrief their clients on the apparent mishap. The Times article said their report “debunked” the theory of a fraudulent vote count, but did not elaborate. As far as I know, that report has not been made public.

Skeptics are certainly right to want to see the data behind that conclusion. As should be obvious, the raw data is under the control of the organizations — ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC and the Associated Press – that collectively own it. In past years they have deposited the raw data at the archives of the Roper Center, where it is available for analysis to the general public. Mr. Kaus is right: It would be relatively easy for a major network or newspaper to use the raw exit poll data to debunk – or at least explore – the claims of voter fraud. I’m all for it.

One last thought: I said I am dubious that this data will show evidence of vote tampering. Why? No pollster ever wants to be wrong, to have their numbers called into question. Yet, fair or not, that is exactly what people are saying about last week’s exit polls.

The NEP officials who ran this year’s exit polling, Warren Mitofsky and Joe Lenski, are people I greatly respect. They are not partisans, but extraordinarily skilled survey methodologists. Mitofsky, along with a small team of colleagues at CBS, helped invent the exit poll almost 40 years ago, along with many other methods and models still in use by survey researchers today. Although no one is infallible, Mitofsky is deservedly a legend in the field of survey research. Yet despite that stellar standing, last week’s perceived glitch still threatens his reputation and the continuing livelihood of his collegues.

So apply a bit of common sense: If Mitofsky has evidence that his exit poll was right but the vote tally was wrong, do you believe for a minute that he would suppress it? I certainly do not.

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.