At AAPOR, ESI says Ohio exit polls do not necessarily indicate fraud

[eomer]

2004 Ohio Exit Polls and Election Results

State: Ohio County:

Author(s): Dr. Fritz Scheuren Date: 05-14-2005

Summary: The attached presentation was delivered during the American Association of Public Opinion Researchers Plenary session on Saturday May 14, 2005 as part of a larger session on the 2004 exit polls, with Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky Int'l and Kathy Frankovic of CBS News. Dr. Scheuren's analysis confirms pollster Warren Mitofsky’s assertion that the exit polls that put John Kerry ahead of George Bush in Ohio on Election Day 2004 do not necessarily indicate that there was fraud in the Ohio election.

Slide delivering ESI conclusion that Ohio exit polls don't indicate fraud:

Where Are We Now?
• No Evidence that Ohio Exit Polls
• Predict Anything Unusual in Actuals
• Hence Unable to Sustain Fraud Verdict
• But What about Other Evidence?
• How about Election Results Themselves?
• Just Single Ohio County Example Given

http://www.electionscience.org/Members/StevenHertzberg/report.2005-05-14.4978140903/view?searchterm=None

[eomer]

1. ESI's Hertzberg gets the final word in AP story about AAPOR and exit polls

Better Interviews Said Key to Exit Polls

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer Sat May 14, 6:39 PM ET

-snip-

Exit polls on Election Day 2004 overstated support for Democrat
John Kerry overall and in many key states, which led to widespread confusion that day about the election eventually won by
President Bush.

The exit polls contacted more supporters of Kerry than of Bush because of "the failure of interviewers to follow the selection rate," said Warren Mitofsky, who conducted the exit polls along with Joe Lenski of Edison Media Research.

-snip-

Ron Baiman, a research professor from the University of Illinois at Chicago, questioned whether the difference between the exit polls and vote count had been adequately explained and called for further investigation.

But Steven Hertzberg, a nonpartisan researcher investigating election results in Ohio, said "we're not seeing significant shifts in one direction or another" that one have changed the outcome of the election in that state.

-end of article-

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050514/ap_on_el_pr/exit_polls

[Melissa G]

8. Thanks eomer! Now we can be clear about Steven cubed's agenda

"But Steven Hertzberg, a nonpartisan researcher investigating election results in Ohio, said "we're not seeing significant shifts in one direction or another" that one have changed the outcome of the election in that state."

Scientific?????
Non-Partisan?????
Hummm.......

[mod mom]

2. I was hoping that Steven Hertzberg would attend the CASE Ohio Teach-In so

that those whose work he ignores as part of a "witch hunt", such as Bob Fitrakis, Richard Hayes Phillips, and Jonathan Simon could de-bunk ESI's
agenda.

Here Steven addresses questions posed by Gary Beckwith:

"Specifically, you say: "Are you saying that anyone who questions the integrity of the Ohio election and wants to investigate the stickers on the ballots and things like that is on a witch hunt?" My response: are you working on determining how voters for Bush may have been disenfranchised, or how votes for Bush may have been lost or recorded incorrectly? If you are not, it seems to me that your agenda is not election reform, but to support a particular election outcome."

The investigation in Ohio followed PUBLIC HEARINGS. These hearings produced affidavits that repeatedly told similiar stories: long lines, vote switching, challenging, etc. We in Ohio witnessed a blatant attempt to disenfranchise low income African American voters (among other misdeeds). Is it a witch-hunt to follow-up on the affidavits? Is it a witch-hunt to look into the allocation of machines when inner city neighborhoods experienced 5 hour lines while suburban precincts in the same county did not? The public hearings indicated an overwhelmingly one sided multitude of problems in voting. Since the list of infractions were overwhelmingly one sided, should we ignore them?

What better way for ESI to get attention/publicity than to dismiss the work of those who cry fraud. I would love to hear SH de-bunk the investigative work on merit rather than generalized dismissal.

[mod mom]

3. Hertzberg bio: What gives him the right to de-bunk the investigation?

Directly from Steve Hertzberg's bio on the ESI web site:

Mr. Hertzberg’s 16 years of experience includes engineering design, technical program management, information systems development, international new business development, strategic marketing, new venture engineering and private capital acquisition.  Mr. Hertzberg now resides in San Francisco where he devotes his energy toward developing innovative social ventures.

Previously, Mr. Hertzberg was Managing Director (California) for an information technology and enterprise integration consultancy based in Toronto, Canada. Mr. Hertzberg’s clients included Handspring and Roxio (an Adaptec company).

During the previous 12 year period, while dividing residences between California and Australia, Mr. Hertzberg participated in the management teams of numerous new ventures (contributing to an IPO). In addition, he also founded and successfully developed his own ventures in the automotive accessories, industrial food equipment, information technology, television and direct marketing industries.

Mr. Hertzberg spent the first several years of his career as a civilian within the US Department of Defense.  While serving as a Project Manager and Test Director for highly visible military development programs, Mr. Hertzberg received the U.S. Army’s Civilian Special Act Award.

[eomer]

4. Hi mod mom

If you've read my recent posts then you know that I am highly critical of ESI and Hertzberg.

But it looks like ESI does have some credentials. Here is a bio for Fritz Scheuren who made this presentation for ESI:

Fritz Scheuren

Fritz Scheuren, Ph.D., is a statistical consultant for HRDAG. Recently, Dr. Scheuren consulted on the methods of statistical analysis for Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and reviewed the report of the analysis. In late August of 2003, he visited Peru, along with Dr. Ball and Jana Asher, to meet with representatives of political, military, and civil society groups to explain the technical basis of the findings detailed in the report. In recent years, Dr. Scheuren has advised on the overall direction and approach to the statistical analysis for several HRDAG projects, including Guatemala and Kosovo. As a top statistician in the field, he has also provided critical peer-review of HRDAG work.

Dr. Scheuren is currently the Vice-President for Statistics at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and President of the American Statistical Association (ASA). Dr. Scheuren has received numerous awards and honors including: the ASA Founders Award (1998); Shiskin Award for contributions to U.S. Economic Statistics (1995); Finalist, Senior Executive Association Executive Excellence Award, (1992); Elected Member, the International Statistical Institute (1988); Elected Fellow, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1984); Elected Fellow, the American Statistical Association (1981).

http://www.hrdag.org/about/fritz_scheuren.shtml

I think that Scheuren's credentials make it even more outrageous that they make all these pronouncements without providing the proper backup. In fact, I bet Scheuren is violating a professional guideline of one of the organizations he is an executive of.

[mod mom]

5. Thank you Eomer. We also have credentialed professionals, that are claim-

ing fraud. My problem w ESI has to do with their dismissal of bodies of work, (RHP's and others) without looking into their claims and data.

[eomer]

6. We are in 100% agreement.

My problem with ESI is exactly the same.

[mod mom]

7. Sorry to keep hammering away on this, but this is a sore point w me:

If the "incompetence/fraud" was a wash between parties,

Where are the incidents of dems applying stickers over bu$h?

Did the dems participate in the faux "Homeland Security Alert" on election day?

Did Dem volunteers have unsupervised access to unsecured ballots in Lucas County (as the repugs reportedly did in a Blackwell investigation) prior to the election?

Were the companies who were responsible for machines/source code big Dem fundraisers who promised the election to Kerry?

Was the person responsible for overseeing the Ohio election and BOEs a dem who also served as co-chair for Kerry/Edwards '04?

[Melissa G]

9. Who is ESI to do this? I have concerns about Foxes and Hen houses

.....IF alleged Foxes are guarding the Hen houses of Election data Then we are REALLY F***ed! Between consolidation of Precincts, Guarding of Data and control of exit polls.... all with no media investigations.... There is certainly reason for concern for the republic!
Election DATA must be kept non partisan!



Steven Hertzberg, project director at the Election Science Institute,
spoke to the broader implications.
"We need to develop better tools to monitor our elections. The fact that
there is debate over this at all shows that we need elections to be more
transparent, more accountable, more audit able," he said. "To increase public
confidence in the system ESI has begun working with election officials in Ohio
to help publish more timely election data so the public may verify for
themselves that the voting and the counting is done accurately."