back to the election

* TruthIsAll thinks he(?) has ' incontrovertible proof' that the exit polls were broken:
"In the FINAL NATIONAL EXIT POLL of 13660 RESPONDENTS, POSTED ON CNN at 2:05pm on 11/3, 43% of voters claimed to have voted for Bush in 2000 while only 37% said they voted for Gore.
BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR 43% OF 122.26 million 2004 VOTERS TO HAVE VOTED FOR BUSH IN 2000 BECAUSE 43% of 122.26 = 52.57 MILLION VOTERS.
AND THE BUSH 2000 VOTE WAS JUST 50.5 MILLION."

which seems like a pretty good, if startlingly obvious, point - and it would also point to the theft of the 04 election. the exit polls reckon blinky got 4% more votes than the *conceivable maximum*. on top of that u can add in the dead 2000 voters, and those who changed sides, and those who didnt vote in 04 etc etc.

of course, he is using the 13660 NEP respondents, which doesnt affect his analysis but it gives me a chance to point out that it was yours truly who discovered and here/proved that this number was out by 2000. cnn are still using it, and i dont think that the NEP even realised that they had made the mistake until i pointed it out - and they apparently still havent told their subscribers.

joseph makes another point. al gore won the popular vote in 2000 - so its kinda odd that 04 voters went 43% for blinky and 37% for gore. joseph then points out that the whole hypothesis behind the error in the exitpolls was that bush voters ignored exitpollsters because either:
1) didnt like telling anyone that theyd voted for blinky - or
2) the exitpollsters looked smart - or
3) the fauxnews logo wasnt sufficiently recognisable on the pollsters badge (or that it was unrecognisable!)

the fact that there was a bush-over-gore premium of 17% seems to undermine that logic.

possible counterpoints to TruthIsAll's logic:
1. lots of people lied about who they voted for in 2000
2. blinky's 43% 2000 numbers arent absolute numbers but have been put through some 'legitimate' reweighting

i imagine there will be more on this story... i havent really thought about this issue recently - more to come when my brain switches back on.