How to Run an Exit Poll Part 2

Here are more instructions with links to help people who want to run an exit poll.  This is all pre-election day stuff to do but doesn’t include developing your sample survey form.  I’m going to devote a separate post to that.  I’ll link to it when it’s up.  I’m also planning an excel template that people can download, input their exit poll results and official polling location results to get an output of the probability of the difference between the occurring by chance alone.

Training:  I highly recommend running a short training session with your volunteers.  I think 30 minutes is sufficient, an hour if it’s a large group.   Go over the  instructions,  let them see the supplies (ballot box, survey forms, etc.), and have each participant go through some practice interactions with their fellow students.  It also gives everyone a chance to get acquainted prior to election day.

Schedule:  You’ll need to prepare a schedule in advance and co-ordinate with the volunteers to make sure they can and will be there for their appointed hours.   Here is the example-volunteer-schedule I used in my August primary exit poll.  Notice that some volunteers are tasked with bringing in fresh supplies.  Everyone got a copy of this ahead of time, so they knew when they were working and with whom.  Always have at least two volunteers manning the exit poll.  This is a basic safety precaution.  If one volunteer has a heart attack, the other will notice and call 911.

Tally Sheet:  You need a form for volunteers to record the number of refusals. Here is what I used in my August primary exit poll.  The time categories related to the hours different volunteers worked.  I taped a copy of this to the table and had the volunteers record their refusals.  Some volunteers kept separate tallies for themselves when it was busy and then later recorded them onto that page, which is also fine.

Supplies:  You’ll need to arrange for all supplies to be on site, including refreshments.  I had different volunteers bring refreshments through out the day. Suggested Supply List

Costs:   While many of the supplies are things you may already own or can be borrowed at no cost, printing hundreds of survey copies to be filled out will cost money.  I am estimating costs for the sites I am coordinating at $50 – $100 per site, including refreshments.

Another option is an electronic app.   I’m not using it for my sites because the advantage of voter marked hand-counted paper surveys is the same as for paper ballots.  On the other hand, I have donations sufficient to fund the needed supplies for exit polls I am coordinating, so my out-of-pocket costs are minimal.  If costs are a constraint, this is an acceptable alternative for the 2016 election.

 Permission Slip:  It’s not strictly required, but in addition to notifying the appropriate person regarding setting up your exit poll at their location, having documentation of permission by that person isn’t a bad idea.  I phoned and introduced myself, sent the person an email, and picked up the permission-slip in person weeks ahead of time.  I kept it on site at the exit poll.  No one confronted me about my right to be there, so it wasn’t needed.  But if someone does, it’s nice to have it.

How to run an Election Exit Poll

I’m working to set up multiple exit polls here in Kansas in November.  I thought that people in other areas might be interested in setting one up themselves. You need just one dedicated individual along with a few additional volunteers working a few hours apiece can pull this off.  You may also need to expend from $50 to $150 on supplies like making copies of your surveys and refreshments to offer voters.

The dedicated individual is the exit poll site manager.  The additional volunteers only need to spend a few hours on election day soliciting voters to complete surveys.  Two people should be manning the exit poll booth at all times, just in case any emergency situations arise.  This post outlines what an exit poll site manager needs to do to run a successful exit poll.

The approach I recommend is called cluster sampling.  Each site provides an independent check on the accuracy of the official counts at that polling station. If we combine information from multiple sites, the data can provide excellent precision for determining whether the discrepancies found are reasonable and evenly distributed or if they show evidence of systemic bias, which would indicate problems with our votes having been counted accurately.

This approach means that you need to try to contact all voters at that location to request they complete an exit poll survey.  The reason for this is that the purpose of this exit poll is to validate the official results at that location.   It is not to make predictions prior to the close of polls.  It is not to analyze for demographic information afterwards.  It is to validate the official results.  By concentrating our efforts at relatively few polling stations, we can attain a higher level of confidence that the results of our survey are representative of the polling location.

The first thing to ask is method they voted.  In my location, there are three options – by machine, by a scanner paper ballot, or by provisional ballot.  At the end of the day, I get the counts of votes cast for each candidate by machine and my scanned paper ballot.  Provisional votes are not counted until a determination is made of whether that person was allowed to cast the ballot. The exit poll results for provisional ballots can be compared to the accepted ballots.  If significant deviations occur, that is a measure of the impact of voter suppression attempts, such as voter ID laws.

Before finalizing your design of the exit poll survey, you will need to select a location.  Contact your local elections office and get a list of all the polling locations.  Let them know you are planning a citizens exit poll and ask if they have any regulations or laws that would affect that.  In Sedgwick County, the only significant rule was that we could only approach people after they voted, not before.   There is also a law regarding distance for any electioneering, but as long as we only approach exiting voters, this would not be a concern.

Site Manager Duties:

The site manager is the point person for everything to do with an exit poll at polling place.  They will be there in the morning to set everything up and they will wait at the polling location to get the official results when the machines have finished printing out the records.  They will not need to be there the entire day, but they do need to be available if any problems arise.

Prior to Election Day:

  1. Select polling location:  Site managers need to consider the polling places available near their home, perhaps even scout the locations to make a determination about which they would prefer to exit poll.  You will need to contact the owner/manager of that location and inform them of what you will be doing.  Find out if they have any concerns and address them or refer them back to me.  Obtain written permission to be on their premises to conduct this survey when appropriate.
  2.  Finalize Survey:  While there will be three races applicable to all of Sedgwick County, because site managers decide what locations they will monitor, they have the option to add additional questions specific to their polling place such as state legislators or judges.
  3. Prepare Supplies:  The site manager will decide on and arrange for all supplies to be there.  Tables, Chairs, Refreshments, survey forms, ballot box, etc. Suggested Supply List
  4. Schedule volunteers:  We’ll need to meet together to accomplish this. I’ll keep a list of volunteers and we can discuss where volunteers are needed and when.  I’m also going to see if I can get some student help for the times before and after school, which is often the busy times at polling locations as well.

Election Day – It’s a long day, but this could be split up between two people, say a morning manager and an evening manager.   

  1. Set up:  The site manager arrives half an hour before the polling station opens.  They set up the exit poll booth, making sure everything is ready for the first voter of the day.
  2. Maintain:  The site manager is the person on call for any issues that arise.  But they should be close by, available to take care of whatever issue might arise.  Run out of survey forms?  The site manager will bring more.  Volunteer calls in that they can’t make it after all? The site manager either fills in or finds someone there who can.
  3. Close down:  The site manager will be responsible for securing the completed survey forms and counting them.  The site manager will ensure the booth area is cleaned up and all borrowed equipment is returned.
  4. Official Results:  The site manager will need to remain on the premises to collect the official results for that polling location.  Meet with election officials for your location sometime in the morning, letting them know you will doing this.  They should allow you to examine the results tape for yourself.  However, if they object, you can ask them to fill out your survey form for the machine results and the scanned paper ballots results from the printouts.  In addition, ask them to give you the total number of provisional ballots turned in for that location.

 

 

After Election Day:

  1. Count your results
  2. Publicly post both the official results and your exit poll results for your polling location or email me your results and I’ll post them on my site

 

Exit poll went well; no significant signs of election fraud.

With help from nearly a dozen volunteers, I conducted an exit poll on one polling location during this primary. It even made the local newspaper.  I am quite pleased with the results; everything went smoothly.

It was primarily meant to be trial run for the Nov. election, making sure that I will be able to collect the data necessary then to identify problems with our machine counts.  While some mistakes were made (all by me – the volunteers were fantastic!), I feel confident that we will be able to accomplish that task in Nov.

I know that many people are interested in the results of this survey.  Overall, things looked good.  There were a couple of yellow flags, but nothing I would recommend taking action on.

Data Collected: The primary question I asked was how the individual had voted, by machine, with a scanned paper ballot, or with a paper provisional ballot: Aug 2 Exit Poll Ballot

The exit poll was conducted at one polling location with survey responses being compared to the machine tabulated results at the polling location. Respondents were asked how they voted, by machine, or a scanned paper ballot or a provisional paper ballot. Results are shown below. Due to the small number of paper ballots, both scanned and provisional, analysis results are shown for the machine tallies and for the totals for the polling location, but not for the paper ballots separately.  The count of votes counted and survey collected is shown below in table 1.

Table 1:

Analysis Table 1

 

There is a discrepancy between the official count for provision ballots (1) and the exit poll count (3).  This is likely due to errors in marking the exit poll, so I am not concerned about this discrepancy.

There were an additional 47 surveys collected that were unusable due to problems that ranged from being completely blank to responses filled in for all races, both Dem and Rep

We asked about six races with two candidates, three races in each party.  However, only three of those races were applicable to everyone who voted at that location.  There were multiple (5) precincts voting at the polling location. Three of the races asked about were limited to voters in only one or two of those precincts.  As a result, survey takers could indicate a choice in those three races even if they did not actually vote on them.  For that reason, I have labeled the data collected on those three races  as ‘questionable’.   Caution should be used in drawing conclusions from the exit poll data for those races.

The results for the six races are as follows with the winners names bolded in table 2.

Table 2:

Analysis Table 2

Assuming that the official results were accurate, I computed the probability of our exit poll results using the binomial distribution.  I rated those results as being Green (looks good), Yellow (suspicious but not conclusive) or Red (definitely something wrong).  The usual threshold for statistical significance is below 5%. There were no red flags, but two of the six races got a yellow caution rating.   These results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3:

Analysis Table 3

Races that all survey respondents voted on were the U.S. Senate (Dem and Rep) and the U.S. Rep (Dem).  Results for the losing candidates are shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1:

Analysis Figure 2

The Senate Race for Dem candidates is given a yellow warning because the probability of the differences between the official results and our exit poll is only 3%.  This is not considered a red flag because we are making 12 different comparisons, which needs to be included in assessing the results. For example, if 12 comparisons are made using a 5% threshold, there is a 45.96% probability of at least one of them falling below that threshold by random chance.  There’s a whole set of statistical techniques designed to account for multiple comparisons if I wanted to get really precise about it.  In addition, while the official votes skewed towards Ms. Singh, she lost the statewide election so even if there was manipulation, it would not have affected the outcome of the race.

We had no method to identify what precinct people were in, so for the Kansas House and Senate races, survey takers could vote for someone who was not on their precinct’s ballot.  For this reason, the exit poll data must be considered questionable.   On the Republican side, since no precinct voted on both the house and senate races, the 38 surveys with both those races marked were not included in the totals for those two races.  Results for the losing candidates of these races are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2:

Analysis Figure 1

The official results for Kansas Rep. Dist. 87 race get a yellow rating.  The results were skewed towards Mr. Alessi with only around a 1% chance of occurring by random chance.  This is not rated as red because the exit poll data was questionable.  However, since Mr. Alessi lost the election, even if there was manipulation, it would not have affected the outcome of the race.

Voting Equipment on the Agenda: The Sedgwick County Bid Board Meeting July 7, 2016

After hearing nothing from the elections office regarding the purchase of new voting equipment since their demonstration of the equipment in February, yesterday afternoon I got notice of a bid board meeting this morning at 10:00. As it happened, I was able to take time off work and attend.

The Voting System RFP (15-0078) was only agenda item. It was perfunctory except for my presence – I asked inappropriate questions. Despite my previous requests to the elections office, I was never notified of any of committee meetings when the responses to the RFP were evaluated. I did not know that they were recommending Election Systems & Software until I attended this meeting. There was a handout listing the various vendors and costs associated with them with and their indicated which they recommended.

One commissioner asked about why not “Everyone Counts, Inc.” which had a lower total cost indicated on the information hand-out they had provided. Tabitha answered saying that system did not meet their basic security requirements and was eliminated for that reason. Their final recommendation was based on an overall score, but neither the scoring criteria nor the relative scores of the competing company were included in the handout.

She was asked about the numbers on the handout, which were not self-explanatory with regard to the totals. Additional information on the number of machines to be purchased was needed to make sense of the totals. She mentioned that one reason they choice ES&S was they willing to buy back our current voting machines. Otherwise, the elections office would have to pay to have them removed because there are security concerns regarding their disposal.

I asked what the cost of using voter marked hand counted paper ballots would be. Ms. Lehman laughed at my question and said she had no idea, they had not bothered to even compute the cost for a comparison. [I had requested that she consider that option when I wrote her months ago offering my services and expertise for that committee.] She indicated that she did not consider hand counting acceptable due to how long it would take, saying that CA was still counting their primary from June 7th. [The Brexit vote was hand counted using voter marked paper ballots and results were available by the next morning.]

I then asked Ms. Lehman why I wasn’t informed of the committee meeting where the recommendations were decided. I was told that was an inappropriate place to ask such questions. I could ask next Wed. at County Commissioner meeting. Personally, I don’t think that would be an appropriate venue either and not the best use of whatever time I will be allowed. I’ll just conclude that she didn’t want me on her committee and was not required to allow the public to attend those meetings.

A commissioner then complimented her on the analysis and the combined expertise of people on committee. [There are no members of that committee listed as having expertise in Quality Assurance, one of my specialties.] The meeting was over at 10:15. The recommendation was accepted and it will be on the agenda for the next county commissioner meeting. I will be there. I’ve requested a copy of the scoring criteria and results. Hopefully, I will be able to ask better questions at the meeting next week.

I would encourage anyone in Wichita free next Wednesday to attend the meeting and let our county commissioners know how dissatisfied we are with our current equipment and how concerned we are about the security and reliability of the proposed new voting equipment.

THE THEATER IS ON FIRE!

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.