Math Logic Proof Shows that ESI Analysis of 

Ohio and National Exit Poll Data is Bunk

Math Logic Proof Shows that ESI Analysis of Ohio and National Exit 

Poll Data is Bunk -- Mitofsky and ESI's Claim to "Rule Out Vote 

Fraud" is Proven Incorrect

Summary:

George W. Bush could have won the 2004 presidential election due to 

large-scale vote fraud without election data showing the patterns 

that the Election Science Institute (ESI) and pollster Warren 

Mitofsky claim must exist if vote fraud had occurred.  The analysis 

that exit pollster Warren Mitofsky presented at the October 14, 2005 

American Statistical Association fall conference has been proven 

mathematically useless for testing exit poll data for vote fraud.

Background:

In the 2004 presidential election, John F. Kerry won according to 

exit polls. Yet George W. Bush won according to the official 

election results.  Exit pollster Warren Mitofsky in a January 2005 

paper, stated that the discrepancy between election and exit poll 

results was caused by Kerry voters responding to exit polls more 

than Bush voters.  From January to June, the National Election Data 

Archive (NEDA) used algebraic methods to show that this "reluctant 

Bush responder" explanation was refuted by the available exit poll 

data.  However, in a June 2005 paper, and at the October 14 American 

Statistical Association fall conference, Mitofsky presented another 

hypothesis that he claimed "kills the vote fraud argument" in the 

2004 presidential election.

Math Logic Proves that ESI's Latest Analysis Purporting to Rule out 

Vote Fraud Is Invalid

Mitofsky and Election Science Institute (ESI)  argue that

"If systematic fraud or error in vote counting [favoring Bush] 

occurred [in precincts] in 2004 but not in 2000, then Bush would 

have done significantly better in those precincts in 2004 [than in 

2000], and we would see larger exit poll discrepancies in those 

precincts."

That is, ESI claims that if precincts had vote fraud, then we would 

expect better Bush performance in those precincts in 2004 than in 

2000. Mitofsky showed that precinct-level Bush vote increases from 

the 2000 election were not correlated with larger exit poll 

discrepancies, and concluded that vote fraud could thus be ruled out 

in the 2004 presidential election.

However, to cite just one possibility, what if the Democrats won the 

2004 turnout battle big-time so that the effect of vote fraud in 

those precincts was to rescue Bush from a worse performance than in 

2000 and bring him up to even?

The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) uses mathematical logic to 

prove that ESI's logic is incorrect and that any analysis of vote 

fraud based on it is meaningless.  NEDA, in its proof, shows how 

Bush could win in 2004 due to large-scale vote fraud and yet have 

higher exit poll discrepancies where the Bush vote share is less in 

2004 than in 2000 (not more as ESI claims).

In other words, no conclusion on the occurrence of vote fraud can be 

reached via the analysis used by Mitofsky with ESI.

Any mathematician utilizing the discipline of Math Logic can easily 

check the validity of NEDA's proof by reading "Mathematical Proof 

that Election Sciences Institute's Test to Rule Out Vote Fraud is 

Logically Incorrect" which can be found at 

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/exit-polls/ESI/ESI-hypothesis-ill

ogical.pdf. 

NEDA requests that:

1.      Mitofsky and ESI please shoot only straight arrows into the 

fray from now on -- by logically and mathematically checking their 

hypotheses of the 2004 exit poll discrepancies before publicly 

releasing them.  Time could better be spent on implementing a 

national election data archive system to analyze election data as 

soon as polls close; and

2.      the polling firm Edison/Mitofsky release their arsenal of 

2004 raw precinct-level unadjusted data for the entire United 

States, as was done for Ohio, so that independent researchers could 

statistically ascertain whether vote fraud probably occurred or 

not.   Further, precinct identifiers are needed to allow 

investigation into the causes of some impossible election results in 

some precincts where the sum of all non-responders to the exit poll 

plus the number of all responders who said they voted for Bush is 

less than Bush's official vote share.

Any valid comparison of the 2000 and 2004 elections to test for vote 

fraud would require 1) the unadjusted exit poll discrepancy data for 

the 2000 election, and 2) consideration of other issues such as the 

influence of third party candidates, voter turnout increases, and 

changing precinct demographic and geographic characteristics .

NEDA will release its own analysis of the precinct level Ohio exit 

poll data on November 2, 2005 in a report, "The Gun is Smoking: Ohio 

Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of 

Vote Miscount".

Press Contact: Kathy Dopp 435-608-1382 or 917-656-0066

kathy@uscountvotes.org

The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) a nonprofit organization 

of statisticians and mathematicians devoted to the accuracy of U.S. 

vote counts.

Organization: The National Election Data Archive 

http://electionarchive.org

online versions of press release: 

http://electionarchive.org/ucvInfo/release/ESI-hypothesis-illogical-press-r

elease.pdf

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/10/prweb304137.php