I am likely to be on ABC’s Nightline tonight. This evening’s broadcast, barring other "breaking news," will examine the various questions raised about the accuracy of the vote count, including the exit poll controversy. Chris Bury interviewed me for the broadcast, so a soundbite is likely. MP’s immediate family will want to set their VCRs and DVRs appropriately.
In news of more import beyond MP, I am told that Warren Mitofsky has been interviewed for the program as well and will likely discuss findings from the report released today.
*Thanks to Dan Drezner for inspiring the subject line and recommending MP to the folks at Nightline.
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.
5 thoughts on ““Media Whore” Alert*”
“I am likely to be on ABC’s Nightline tonight.”
Congrats.
And considering that you are the true go-to-guy on the issue, it’s well deserved.
Let’s hope they don’t pull a Michael Moore on you and splice together your comments! 🙂
Congrats!
Just posted this at DU.. would be very interested in your take on this aspect of the report.
regards
Alastaur Thompson
Scoop
MY PRELIMINARY VIEWS…
It is my opinion that there is a remarkably large amount in that report that could be of use to those looking at the vote fraud issue.
Specifically:
“Within Precinct Error (WPE)
Within Precinct Error (WPE) is an average of the difference between the percentage
margin between the leading candidates in the exit poll and the actual vote for all sample
precincts in a state. The signed WPE gives the direction of this error; in this report a
negative WPE represents a Democratic overstatement in the exit poll and a positive WPE
represents a Republican overstatement in the exit poll. The absolute WPE represents the
total error.”
This seems to be in effect a measure that of error in each individual precinct. This is exactly what is needed to isolate the hot spots for vote fraud.
A great deal of the report deals with analysing the wherefores and why’s of the WPE’s with respect to the characteristics of the interviewer (gender, age, distance from polling booth etc.)
In addition they also analysed the WPE with respect to the type of voting machine’s used. And compared swing states with non-swing states.
In both of these later analyses there is a hint which is worth digging further into. Specifically… there is quite a range in WPE’s by voting technology – Paper Ballots are spectacularly more accurate…. plus…. Swing states showed higher levels of WPEs than non swing states.
HOWEVER AND THIS IS A BIG HOWEVER
What is noticeably missing from this at first glance.
1. Analysis of the WPE by state.
WHY NOT PROVIDE A WPE NUMBER BY STATE.. they have charts with completion rates by state – but WPE by state is missing.
2. Analysis of the WPE outliers – and a discription of the distribution of WPE errors.
What this report does in all instances is provide median and means for different types of precinct.
It is probably reasonable to assume that if fraud occurred – then it is likely to have occurred in some places and not others. I.e. in some fraction of the 1400 precincts surveyed rather than in all of them. If so then what we really want is some sense of what the raw WPE data looks like both in distribution terms… and in terms of where specifically the highest WPE’s occurred… did they for example occur in precincts that for some other reason we have suspicions.
THEREFORE IN MY OPINION JOHN CONYERS SHOULD NOW ASK MITOFSKY FOR…
1. A full list of the WPE numbers by precinct.
2. A median and mean WPE for each state.
Umm… I think that if you treated each precinct as its own poll, you would find a +/-10% margin of error (n~100). It’s not supposed to be looked at that way… Just my ill-informed opinion anyway 🙂
Alastair wrote:
“there is quite a range in WPE’s by voting technology – Paper Ballots are spectacularly more accurate”
If this is the case, how does the report conclude no evidence of fraud through machine type analysis? Haven’t read the report, but this statement does seem contradictory to the executive summary.
Thanks.
“I am likely to be on ABC’s Nightline tonight.”
Congrats.
And considering that you are the true go-to-guy on the issue, it’s well deserved.
Let’s hope they don’t pull a Michael Moore on you and splice together your comments! 🙂
Congrats!
Just posted this at DU.. would be very interested in your take on this aspect of the report.
regards
Alastaur Thompson
Scoop
MY PRELIMINARY VIEWS…
It is my opinion that there is a remarkably large amount in that report that could be of use to those looking at the vote fraud issue.
Specifically:
“Within Precinct Error (WPE)
Within Precinct Error (WPE) is an average of the difference between the percentage
margin between the leading candidates in the exit poll and the actual vote for all sample
precincts in a state. The signed WPE gives the direction of this error; in this report a
negative WPE represents a Democratic overstatement in the exit poll and a positive WPE
represents a Republican overstatement in the exit poll. The absolute WPE represents the
total error.”
This seems to be in effect a measure that of error in each individual precinct. This is exactly what is needed to isolate the hot spots for vote fraud.
A great deal of the report deals with analysing the wherefores and why’s of the WPE’s with respect to the characteristics of the interviewer (gender, age, distance from polling booth etc.)
In addition they also analysed the WPE with respect to the type of voting machine’s used. And compared swing states with non-swing states.
In both of these later analyses there is a hint which is worth digging further into. Specifically… there is quite a range in WPE’s by voting technology – Paper Ballots are spectacularly more accurate…. plus…. Swing states showed higher levels of WPEs than non swing states.
HOWEVER AND THIS IS A BIG HOWEVER
What is noticeably missing from this at first glance.
1. Analysis of the WPE by state.
WHY NOT PROVIDE A WPE NUMBER BY STATE.. they have charts with completion rates by state – but WPE by state is missing.
2. Analysis of the WPE outliers – and a discription of the distribution of WPE errors.
What this report does in all instances is provide median and means for different types of precinct.
It is probably reasonable to assume that if fraud occurred – then it is likely to have occurred in some places and not others. I.e. in some fraction of the 1400 precincts surveyed rather than in all of them. If so then what we really want is some sense of what the raw WPE data looks like both in distribution terms… and in terms of where specifically the highest WPE’s occurred… did they for example occur in precincts that for some other reason we have suspicions.
THEREFORE IN MY OPINION JOHN CONYERS SHOULD NOW ASK MITOFSKY FOR…
1. A full list of the WPE numbers by precinct.
2. A median and mean WPE for each state.
Umm… I think that if you treated each precinct as its own poll, you would find a +/-10% margin of error (n~100). It’s not supposed to be looked at that way… Just my ill-informed opinion anyway 🙂
Alastair wrote:
“there is quite a range in WPE’s by voting technology – Paper Ballots are spectacularly more accurate”
If this is the case, how does the report conclude no evidence of fraud through machine type analysis? Haven’t read the report, but this statement does seem contradictory to the executive summary.
Thanks.