Former Gallup Pollster: Bush 2000 win due to media calling race

[seafan]

Pollster: Bush 2000 win due to media calling race

September 28, 2006

CONCORD, N.H. --A former national pollster argues in his new book that Al Gore really won the 2000 presidential election, but premature calls by the media for George Bush took Gore's victory away.

David Moore's book, "How to Steal an Election," argues Al Gore rightfully won the presidency.

Moore, a former University of New Hampshire professor, said he knows his premise is a "hard sell" and insists the book is not partisan.
His former bosses -- the Gallup Poll -- disagreed and fired him after he told them about the book last spring, he said.
Gallup General Counsel Steve O'Brien told the Concord Monitor on Wednesday that writing the book was a "colossally stupid" thing for Moore to do given the polling firm's nonpartisan mission. O'Brien scoffed at the idea that any book with such a title could be impartial.

Moore disagrees and believes he was being "as objective as you can be about what really happened."
"All I do is present evidence about how an election was stolen," he said.
Moore founded the University of New Hampshire Survey Center in the 1970s but left in 1993 to take a job with the Gallup Poll.

His book focuses on the people who analyzed the votes for network television in 2000. He argues that the networks too quickly put Florida in Bush's win column -- effectively giving him the electoral votes needed for victory and influencing the ultimate outcome when the fight over who won Florida went to court.

Moore said even though the networks rescinded the call within hours, Gore looked like a sore loser for seeking a recount in Florida.
That impression influenced not only public opinion but also judicial outlook, making it possible for the U.S. Supreme Court to shut down the recount, Moore argues.

Fox called the race for Bush at 2:15 a.m. NBC followed, then CBS/CNN's joint team and finally ABC. Two hours later, they all retracted that projection.
Moore also noted Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is Bush's brother and a cousin, John Ellis, was on Fox's team that called the race. Ellis said he made the call by looking at the vote tallies and making back-of-the-envelope calculations.

snip

[stepnw1f]

1. Media Bought and Paid for Coup

Yes, there was a grand conspiracy...

[Jawja]

6. Yes, he is correct.

The story is that Jack Welch of NBC pressured his election team to call the election for Bush; and John Ellis (Bush cousin) at Faux news called the election for Bush on that network.

So yes, the impression was given that Bush did indeed win Florida and the election and the challenge by Gore was an attempt to steal it.

[Ignacio Upton]

2. I wonder if he can spill the beans on Gallup as well

Didn't they have a tracking poll that showed Bush ahead by double digits only two weeks before the election?

[unschooler]

3. Sounds like required reading.

The real story of the last six years is the betrayal of trust perpetrated by the American national media.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

4. Tinfoil

Why would the "liberal" media give it to the conservative?

Unless.....the media's not.......Noooooooooo. That's impossible.

[unschooler]

7. That's "librul" media. Can't cha spell? n/t

[grasswire]

5. yep, Bush cousin Ellis was the catalyst for the coup

The freepers took up the chase, with the sore loserman meme.

[Ignacio Upton]

8. Question: Why didn't Gore ask for a state-wide recount?

The fact that he only asked for a recount in the contested counties was a tactically stupid decision. Was there any constraint on being able to do a statewide recount?

[seafan]

24. Judge Terry Lewis in Leon County was within about 2-3 hours of his

ruling, that would have called for a complete statewide recount, so as to be fair to all voters' balloting method. That was why the Republicans were furiously trying to get a rapid court ruling in their favor, so they could preempt this ruling by Lewis.


I agree, not calling for a statewide recount in the first place was bad, bad strategy.

Even a count of the overvotes would have shown that the majority were both punched AND handwritten in "Gore." But when the Republicans seized on that favorable ruling that afternoon, everything ground to a halt.


And James A. Baker, III smiled.

[Awsi Dooger]

27. The majority of overvotes were also handwritten for Gore?

Wow. Talk about fuzzy math. I could bet under 1% and have so much the best of it it would be laughable. There were tens of thousands of overvotes. The vast, vast majority had no idea they had overvoted. It was a vote on page one then a vote for a different office, or so they thought, on page two since Florida had 10 candidates on the presidential ballot, most of them extremely obscure.

[seafan]

32. Detail re the presidential overvotes

Paper: Florida "overvotes" cost Gore the election

May 11, 2001

USA Today, however, concluded that Al Gore probably lost between 15,000 to 25,000 votes -- enough to have decisively won Florida and the White House -- through mistakes made by Democratic voters that legally disqualified their ballots. The papers found Gore's name was marked on overvotes far more often than Bush's name.

An undervote is a ballot on which no mark or punch for president registered; an overvote is a ballot on which more than one mark or punch registered.

"Ultimately, the lesson is the system we had in place caused so many people to misvote that the real result of the election isn't known," said Doug Pardue, projects editor for USA Today.

USA Today, the Herald, Knight Ridder newspapers, The Tampa Tribune and five other Florida papers -- the Tallahassee Democrat, The Bradenton Herald, Florida Today, The News-Press of Fort Myers and the Pensacola News Journal -- reviewed the state's uncounted votes.

The papers agreed there were 111,261 overvotes,...

In the latest review, the papers relied on reporters to examine the overvotes and found 97 percent were marked so badly that no clear intent could be discerned.

Most of the remaining 3 percent, or 3,146 ballots, bore markings that made it clear who the voter preferred. Generally, this occurred when voters chose a candidate and then cast a write-in vote for that same candidate.

Most of those recoverable overvotes -- 1,871 -- were for Gore. Bush received 1,189 such votes, and 86 went to other candidates.

Gore wound up with a net gain of 682 votes from overvotes, leaving the outcome of any review up to the standards used when examining punchcard ballots with their infamous hanging chads.

With the strictest standard, the papers said, Bush would have won with 407 votes, fewer than the official 537-vote margin that gave him Florida's 25 electoral votes and the presidency.

With the most lenient standard -- one that counted any dimpled ballot as a vote -- Gore would have won by 332 votes, the newspapers reported.

"So what has changed?" said former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, a Republican. "The only count that really counts is the one conducted under the rule of law."

For Democrats, the results confirmed their suspicions.

"These numbers certainly back up our feeling that more people turned out to vote for Gore than for Bush," said Doug Hattaway, a former Gore campaign spokesman. "It's hard not to cringe when you think about the possibilities."

Though the USA Today and Herald study found Gore might have won a narrow victory if lenient standards had been used, it also showed Gore could not have won without a hand count of overvote ballots throughout the state.

Early in the post-election struggle, Gore chose not to ask for an official statewide review of every rejected ballot -- both undervotes and overvotes. Instead, he requested a recount only in four counties.

But if Florida's new election law had existed last November, Gore would have been entitled to a statewide review -- automatically.

[AlGore-08.com]

26. There was a statewide recount, and Gore asked Bush to agree to another 2 x

Immediately after the election there was a statewide recount, as mandated by Florida law.

Since there was no provision in Florida law for his campaign to ask for an additional statewide recount, his legal team asked for manual recounts in counties that were shown (by the first statewide recount) to have major flaws, and then argued their way up to the Florida State Supreme court that the whole state needed to be recounted.

While the various court cases were going on, Gore twice asked Bush to agree to a statewide recount in exchange for an agreement (by both of them) not to challenge the results. Bush turned him down twice.

But even if there had been a way for Gore to get a statewide recount, how would that have prevented Bush from taking office? From the moment that Faux News called Florida for Bush, the GOP started a disinformation campaign designed to keep that impression foremost in the voter's mind: Bush Won. A second statewide recount wouldn't have prevented the GOP from claiming that recount was "flawed" and "partisan". It wouldn't have prevented Kathrine Harris from "interpreting" the florida election laws in a way that would have kept Bush ahead. It wouldn't have stopped the Florida GOP from forging ballots. It wouldn't have stopped the Bush/Cheney camp from flying in Republican Congressional aides to Miami-Dade to shut down that recount by rioting (assaulting an election official live, on national TV). It wouldn't have stopped the Republican controlled Florida state legislature from threatening to send pro-Bush electors to Congress. It wouldn't have stopped the Supreme Court from disgracing itself its Bush v. Gore ruling. It wouldn't have stopped Bush from his stated goal of contesting the election all the way through Gore's Presidency, demanding impeachment for stealing the Florida election.

[Senator]

34. No Recount Ever Happened - Not even the "mandated"

Even in the touted "mandated" (machine) recount, one third of the ballots were never touched again.

The minions simply resubmitted their original tally-tape numbers.

Harris told them that was legal. It wasn't.

--

[PCIntern]

9. ...and you know what?

This country got everything it deserved. I know I know...I'm not ever supposed to say that for all kinds of humanistic reasons,

BUT: the majority went along with the supposed rule-of-law and annointed this guy President. In return for their passivity, they got unwinnable wars, lousy economy for many in Red States, Katrina Aftermath, increased inaccessibility to health care, reduced constitutional rights, impossible travel restrictions, terrorist bombings and continuous threatenings, fear fear fear, unsafe air and water, especially East of Battery Park in Manhattan...the list goes on and on.

...and no one should ever assume that anything will be different this time around.

They dug a real deep hole for themselves and then jumped in. We're all stuck at the bottom and can't climb out...like the Twilight Zone which took place in the smooth-walled room with the clown, the ballerina, and a couple of other disparate characters. Anyone besides me remember that one?

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

10. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I distinctly remember both CBS and

NBC calling Florida for Gore about 8:00pm CDT on Election Day 2000.

I remember it because Mr. Wonderful had already gone to bed and I went in and told him it was looking really good for Al. However about 15 minutes later, KKKarl was on Faux and began disputing that call.

I didn't even know who Rove was that night, I remember talking to a friend and saying "Who is this dweeb on Fox", she didn't know who he was either.

Needless to say, I switched back to NBC and they started to backpedal calling Florida for Gore as did CBS. I called my friend back and told her "they're gonna steal this, this is payback for Nixon in 1960."

IMO, that began the nightmare that we're living through right now.

[rinsd]

14. You're not wrong there were two premature calls that night. (nt)

[seafan]

22. Gore led FL until 16,000 votes for Gore *disappeared* after 10 pm(Volusia)

"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."

- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0310/S00211.htm

[INdemo]

25. Well before that though Russert had called it for Gore explaining that

in order for Bush to win he had to take Arz.Missouri,and so on.
Well shortly after that Bush made the phone call to his brother and told him,"Hey you told I would win Florida" then the dumpsters were filled with thousands of votes.Thats what happen..

[Uncle Joe]

11. I would go a step further and say the mass corporate media

called the race beginning in March of 1999 when they started slandering Al Gore just to make it close enough for the corrupt incompetent one to steal the election. This includes turning a 180, backtracking on their own reporting and focus groups' judgment over night as to who won the debates and spinning them in Bush's favor in such a manner as to make any ballerina envious.

To put it simply, they betrayed their trust to the American People and the direct result of this treason is 9/11 and the war in Iraq of which many of these same pseudo journalists would cheer lead and mislead the American People again.

[KansDem]

12. And a man named Roger Ailes helped call the election for Bush...

Later he "admitted" FOX had done it prematurely, but Bush stayed in the White House...

The same Roger Ailes that only today described Bill Clinton's interview with FOX as "an assault on all journalists."

[Uncle Joe]

16. I was thinking about that too KansDem,

I don't think Roger Ailes knows what a journalist is.

[rinsd]

13. Huh? The networks(CBS I believe) called it for Gore first

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLES/ElectionNight/pe2000elecnighttime.php

I agree that the RW was able to use the sore loser meme quite effectively but how did one network call at 8pm for Gore have no effect but a call at 2:15 am that was also rescinded have such a tremendous effect as to influence judicial decisions?

[Ignacio Upton]

19. Because they ended up saying that Bush "won" the election

CNN and the other networks featured "Bush Wins" in big graphics until they found out that the margain was too small. When Florida was initially called for Gore, the votes had only been counted in two times zones, and a lot of the country was still voting. Thus, Bush had the appearance of legitimacy because of how the media called it, when in reallity he lost Florida.

[rinsd]

23. But who saw that shit post midnight? It was 2am EST, 11pm PST?

Seriously how many people stayed up for it beyond the political junkies?

Here's an article on the ratings that week, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E4DE173BF936A25752C1A9669C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fP%2fPresidential%20Election%20of%202000

I found another that said 65 million people turned into at least one minute of election coverage but I'm not sure how much you can grab from that.

It wasn't the erroneous election call, it was the tactics the rw immediately afterward from Sore Loserman to the fake riot. It was the rw talking heads already in place from Monica and the emergence of FoxNews giving out the meme incessantly.

[AtomicKitten]

15. the coup de grace

was leveled by the Supreme Court decision

[Beetwasher]

17. "...given the polling firm's nonpartisan mission..."

:rofl:

Oh, that's rich.

[Ignacio Upton]

20. Tracking poll: Bush holds on to advantage

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/27/tracking.poll/

Bush is gonna win in a landslide for sure!:eyes:

[PATRICK]

18. That forgotten abuse of polling

The overwhelming penchant for the big news media to "scoop" the election results make them born carriers of the disease of poll abuse. As before, during and after, polling itself is used AGAINST the actual vote of the voter. Only exit polling reluctantly gives deference to the actual decision of the electorate after all the damage has been done.

Now that is merely the vulnerability. Anyone with extra intention to manipulate this vice has a simple task before them, in this case merely pulling the "scoop" trigger in a close race, Easy as pie and NO consequences in spite of full transparency concerning who and why. Like a long list of election abuse, NO accountability, less enforcement, ever raises its head even after whoppers like these. Republicans whine very loud when they are the victims of scoop fever and their discouraged voters turn their SUV's around and coast home. They even take action to carefully protect themselves by bullying already suspect polling firms with their clear message.

All Dems had to do after 2000, almost to the exclusion of every other issue, was to protect the vote. They surrendered the initiative and the argumentation every time to the GOP who turned HAVA into the Project for the New American Corruption. Postured naivete was ACTUAL vincible ignorance and the signal to the judicial system was that the guideline to adjudicating fixed elections was weak and hypocritical legislation, so much so that judges despite real evidence repeat the talking points, the horrible joke of reducing democracy to cost effectiveness (ruined in advance like Iraq transformed into a new hotbed of terror) by expensive e-cheat machines ingrained into the laws they must utilize.

It has only been the people who have confronted, studied and exposed the obvious and mainly them who have taken the boldest legal steps to simply protect the cornerstone of American democracy. The decades of sweet surrender by the leaders of popular myth have been exposed constantly as well, always blaming
the people and unbelievably whining that the people must lead(as they try against immense institutional barriers). The leaders rarely follow and leadership is defined as following an obvious path to defeat.

It is not just the egregious boldness of the new GOP fraud machinery. The light cast back by this abominable failure reveals simple measures and strict enforcement that would simply allow ANY genuine people's party to win honestly and sometimes easily given the lack of competition. The introduction of a genuine news network(s) would do the same for the national consciousness forum. People volunteer, contribute, contrary as well to the incompetent, excuse-making party establishment. If the GOP is creating a whole cloth neo-royalist fantasy world in order to rule by the Lie, then the Dems have been descending into some Pollyanna form of campaigning unknown in the real world of hardball politics, writing admirably crafted literature like Montaigne in his tower for a world to dark to appreciate any of it.

The compendium of "things we suspected and knew" that occasionally leaks back into the foreground- briefly, impotently- grows every day. Perhaps our buying the books makes defeat by coup a new cottage industry for enslaved Americans like ominous popular conspiracy movies did in the seventies. Do the democrats read? Between a Chavez(Chomsky) and a Bush(Class Comics for Dummies) where do they rank and what would they like to share concerning the impact of facts and ideas crying to heaven for action?

We have whistleblowers, Cindy Sheehan, new advocacy groups, local muckrakers, Internet Second Columnists(the first being the self-entitled minions of Corporate Pravda). In the seventies we had MLK and RFK and institutional leaders against the evils of the day. Today the party's a$$ is grass, heavily sat on from above, and we have a rump democracy studiously avoided by most disserving establishments and dignitaries.

[DavidDvorkin]

21. 226,880 on Amazon at the moment

It'll be interesting to see which way that sales rank goes.

[gasperc]

28. strategy was to influence court of public opinion & stuff ballots

Bush's team also worked to control the re-count and when the last county was counted-Seminole-Bush suddenly got more votes than he ever recieved and was able to stay in the lead. Go to to the Seminole county website and look at the precinct data closely, you'll see that the number of voters jumps between the congressional count and the presidential count in 3 or 4 precincts by hundreds of votes. It's impossible to tell who got which votes but since Bush AND Gore gained in the county the republicans smeared the line of validity. The election was stolen, this is known and a stupid argument at this time. We must focus all of our energies on retaking both chamber's of congress.

look for yourself folks

http://www.semcoelections.org/en-us/news/election_results.php

notice how the total votes counted in Precinct 28 jumps from 1015 in the congressional count to 1444 in the presidential count. This was the last county counted. There is another precinct that had a huge jump in total votes counted, go and find it. The reason this is important is that the votes weren't just re-counted but the total number of actual votes suddenly increased in a few precincts.

[gasperc]

29. kick

[AX10]

30. This was a "coup de grace".

The media is complicit in all of this.

[Guaranteed]

31. ABSOLUTELY. It solidified it in the public's mind.

At that point, it was Bush on top with Gore trying to weasel his way in.

Calling the race was probably the most irresponsible thing the media have ever done.

.....Except for maybe in the run up to invading Iraq....

[Doctor_J]

33. Duh

I hope this doofus didn't get paid too much for figuring this out.