This post is in response to this article at Nation.com.
Reminder: Exit-Poll Conspiracy Theories Are Totally Baseless Voters have good reason to lack confidence in our election systems. But claims of widespread fraud aren’t going to fix anything
Sadly, this author does not understand the math well enough to realize that, despite the protests of the professional pollster interviewed, claims of widespread fraud are not baseless. Exit poll results for the democratic presidential primary provide not one but two solid pieces of evidence in the case for widespread election fraud.
We have a voting system, as he acknowledges, that gives us no cause for confidence that our voting results are accurately assessed. Despite this, he claims that there is no cause for concern. I disagree as I find multiple independent paths of analyses give evidence that consistently points to massive widespread election fraud across our country.
My specialty is statistics and I’ve pulled down publicly available data independently, analyzed it myself, and corroborated analyses which points to massive widespread election fraud. Mr. Holland disparages the mathematical work of Richard Charnin*, but I have not found an error in any of the analyses of his that I have repeated.
In particular, his assessment of the binomial probability regarding the likelihood of the exit poll results, is both accurate and appropriate. I have verified it myself. This binomial analysis was ignored by Mr. Holland in favor of criticizing a different approach that was also used. That approach is also sound, but I have not reproduced those calculations. That both models show results that are consistent with the hypothesis of election fraud is more than doubly damning.
If we assume no election fraud, then the two different types of analysis of the exit poll errors are unrelated because one analysis looks at the size of the error while the other is based on whether it benefited Hillary versus Bernie. That they are both consistent with fraud could be considered a third piece of evidence in support of that hypothesis.
The excuses Mr. Lenski, Edison’s executive vice president is quoted as providing are specious with regard to the magnitude of the anomalies we are seeing. Yes, there are issues that can lead to inherent problems due the different ways they performed the surveys. No, those reasons are not sufficient to explain the anomalies we are seeing across the country.
There are only two possibilities – a) Bernie supporters are more likely to respond to the poll or b) there is widespread election fraud altering election results in favor of Hillary across the U.S.
While we can never completely eliminate reason a, Mr. Lenski’s excuse is no more than a restatement of that first hypothesis while he notes that there is a a lower response rate (how much lower?) for the more detailed surveys conducted in the U.S. While it’s easy for the mathematically naive to infer causality from his statement, that isn’t automatically the case. Further, it’s not an assumption that should be made without explicitly stating it**.
So which do you think is more likely across the U.S.: Are Bernie voters just more civic-minded and willing to participate in exit polls than Hillary voters or is some well-organized group of wealthy individuals able to successfully conspire to fix voting machines across the nation or are multiple independent local political actors across the country taking advantage of the non-transparent hackable voting systems?
While you contemplate those options and estimate the probability of the first hypothesis with respect to the last two, let me review some of the additional evidence in support of the hypothesis of fraud.
Cumulative Vote Share (CVS) analysis pioneered by Francis Choquette shows problems across the nation for the past decade or more. Interestingly enough, places that use hand counted ballots do not show the same trends and within a state, analyzing by machine can show sharply different trends for different equipment. Such analysis shows trends that are indicative of rigging that favors Hillary
The apparent ease of hacking electronic voting machines combined with the prevalence of election rigging through-out the world and human history.
Lack of basic quality control procedures: In most locations in the U.S., no one – not officials and not citizens – actually verify the official vote counts. Canvassing becomes a sham that involves verifying that yes, the machine produced outcomes all add up to the machine produced totals. In those places where the count was supposed to be publicly verified, citizens watching report blatant miscounting to force a match to the “official results”. Their testimony to election commissioners about such actions were met with a blank stare followed by dismissal of their testimony.
I live in Kansas, home of Koch Industries and currently the reddest of red states with all public schools across the state on the verge of closing the end of this month. IMO these problems are due to election fraud. I believe the Governor, Senator Roberts, and most of the KS legislature would not have won in 2014 if a fair and honest vote count had been done.
I do not make that statement lightly. I hold a Ph.D. in statistics and have been certified as a Quality Engineer for nearly 30 years. I’ve gone to the extreme of filing a lawsuit requesting access to the voting machine records to verify those election results. So far, I haven’t been allowed access.
A few questions for Mr. Holland: Did you spontaneously decide to write about this? A reaction to a disparaging blog regarding a previous piece saying “don’t worry, the theater is NOT on fire” vis-a-vis election fraud. Or was it suggested? Assigned? Did your publisher encourage you to disparage these claims, despite your lack of expertise to regarding either surveys or statistics. Would a favorable opinion piece regarding such claims have been published?
Mr Holland, you have not done the analysis for yourself. You base your opinion of its significance on the expert opinion you trust – Mr. Lenski, an executive of the polling company. My response is that I have looked into this deeply and I trust my own expert opinion on this matter. It is a justifiable conclusion that widespread election fraud is going on in this country. The Theater is on fire. We need to take care of this problem now!
The fix, btw, is both easy and impossible. All we have to do is demand a transparent and accurate vote count from our election officials.
*He disparages him for writing about the murder of JFK. Is it really foolish to think that someone besides Lee Harvey Oswald was involved in that?
**It’s also a testable assumption, but Mr. Lenski’s firm is the only entity with access to the data to do the test.