Mike Malloy

[TruthIsAll]

The Unadjusted 2004 National Exit Poll: Closing the Book on the returning Gore voter “False Recall” Myth

Richard Charnin (TruthIsAll)

Oct. 17, 2011

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/the-unadjusted-2004-national-exit-poll-closing-the-book-on-the-returning-gore-voter-false-recall-myth/

“False recall” was the final argument promoted by exit poll naysayers to cast doubt on the preliminary 2004 National Exit Poll (Kerry won by 51-48%) and the unadjusted state exit poll aggregate (Kerry won by 52-47%). False recall followed the “reluctant Bush responder” (rBr) and “Swing vs. Red-shift” arguments, both of which have been refuted. It was the equivalent of a “Hail Mary” pass to explain away the mathematically impossible 43/37% returning Bush/Gore voter mix in the Final National Exit Poll (NEP).

http://richardcharnin.com/2004FalseRecallUnadjEP.htm

The exit poll naysayers maintained that the 43/37 mix was a sampled result and therefore the preliminary exit polls which showed Kerry winning were flawed. They promoted this disinformation despite the fact that it is standard operating procedure for the Final NEP to be forced to match the recorded vote.

The “false recall” hypothesis was that a significant net percentage of returning Gore voters told the exit pollsters that they voted for Bush. The strange behavior was apparently due to “slow-drifting fog” in the memory of Gore voters and/or a desire to be associated with Bush, the “winner” of the 2000 election who actually lost by 540,000 recorded votes. Although there is no evidence that Gore voters came to love Bush after he stole the 2000 election, or that they were more more forgetful or less honest than Bush voters, the “false recall” canard had some success in keeping the “bad exit poll” myth alive.

But the unadjusted National Exit Poll results, available on the Roper site, put the lie to “false recall”. Unlike the published Final NEP, the unadjusted responses of 13,660 sample set of respondents shows that 7064 (51.7%) voted for Kerry, 6414 (47.0%) for Bush and 182 (1.3%) for other third-parties.

Of the 3,182 respondents who were asked about their past vote, 1,222 (38.4%) said the voted for Gore, 1,257 (39.5%) said Bush, 119 (3.75%) said Other. The remaining 585 (18.4%) were either first-timers or others who did not vote in 2000. The Final National Exit Poll was forced to adjust the the differential in the return voter mix from the plausible actual 39.5/38.4% to the impossible 43/37%.

By releasing the actual unadjusted responses to the question “Who did you vote for in 2000″, there is no longer a question whether or not Gore voters forgot or lied or were in a slow moving fog – because the results prove that the actual Bush/Gore returning voter mix (39.5/38.4%) differs substantially from the artificial, mathematically impossible Final 43/37% mix. It is proof that the Final NEP is not a true sample. It makes no sense to conjecture on the cause of the Final 6% spread. We know the reason. The exit pollsters don’t like to talk about it, but it’s standard operating procedure to force the Final to match the recorded vote by adjusting the mix. Of course, the mainstream media pundits never talk about it.

When the actual Bush/Gore 39.5/38.4% mix and 12:22am preliminary NEP vote shares are used to calculate the final vote shares, Kerry’s has 51.7% – exactly matching the unadjusted NEP cited above. On the other hand, in order to make the Final NEP match the recorded shares, the exit pollsters had to do more than just replace the actual 39.5/38.4% mix with the impossible 43/37%. They also had to inflate Bush shares of new and returning voters to implausible levels.

Here are the numbers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjAk1JUWDMyRdGN3WEZNTUFaR0tfOHVXTzA1VGRsdHc#gid=34

The following arguments refuted False Recall years ago, but they are just icing on the cake at this point. It is no longer necessary to show that the Final NEP mix was mathematically impossible or respondents did not forget or misstate their 2000 vote. The release of the unadjusted NEP has a further benefit; it shows that Kerry’s 51.7% share is close to the unadjusted 52.0% aggregate of the state exit polls.

http://richardcharnin.com/FalseRecallRebuttal.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/ConversationAboutFalseRecall.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/FalseRecallPetard.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/SwingVsRedshift1992to2004.htm
http://richardcharnin.com/SwingRedShiftHoisted.htm

The Final NEP is mathematically impossible since the number of returning Bush voters implied by the 43% weighting is 52.6 million (122.3 million votes were recorded in 2004). Bush only had 50.46 million recorded votes in 2000. Approximately 2.5 million died, therefore the number of returning Bush voters must have been less than 48 million. Assuming 98% turnout, there were 47 million returning Bush voters, 5.6 million fewer than implied by the Final NEP.

Based on 12:22am NEP vote shares, Kerry wins by 10m votes with 53.2% – assuming equal 98% turnout of returning Bush and Gore voters. He wins by 7 million given 98/90% Bush/Gore turnout. Total votes cast in 2000 and 2004 are used to calculate returning and new voters.

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