Richard Charnin: An Open Letter to Nate Silver

Nate, since your recent hiring by the NY Times, the R2K flap and your exchanges with Zogby you have been getting lots of publicity from blogs such as vanity fair and motherjones.com. Your characterization of Zogby’s expertise says more about you then it does about him. Zogby correctly projected the True Vote in 2000 (yes, Gore won Florida, despite what the NY Times said), 2004 and 2008 elections, yet you fail to give him credit. In fact, you rank him at the bottom. Why? Because you go along with the media-perpetuated myth that the recorded vote is sacrosanct. In other words, you discount the fraud factor and fail to distinguish between the True Vote and the recorded vote.

Below, you will see why Gore won by perhaps three million more than his recorded 540,000 vote margin; why Kerry won the True Vote by 10 million; why the Democratic Tsunami was denied in the 2006 midterms; and why Obama won by nearly 22 million votes in 2008, not the 9.5 million recorded.

I hereby challenge you to try and debunk the data, logic and mathematics used in True Vote Model. If you cannot do so, then the underlying premise of your pollster ranking system (that the recorded vote is an appropriate baseline to measure performance) is invalid.

As an Internet blogger who has been posting pre-election and exit poll analyses to prove election fraud since 2004, I have occasionally looked at your postings on fivethirtyeight.com. I will say right here that unlike the bloggers and mainstream media (MSNBC, the NY Times, etc.) who extol your forecasting “expertise”, I do not believe you are quite the polling guru that they claim you are.

I say this as one who has been building quantitative models since 1965 for defense/aerospace manufacturers, Wall Street investment banks and has consulted for many financial and corporate enterprises. I have three degrees in Mathematics, including an MS in Applied Mathematics and an MS in Operations Research.

Your 2008 simulation model win probabilities did not sync with the projected vote shares. The major flaw in your model was to conflate it with your pollster rankings, an ill-conceived methodology. The first rule of model building is KISS (keep it simple stupid). You not only introduced an extraneous variable into your model, but the rankings were incorrect – a double whammy. Now, what do I mean by this, you ask?

You fail to distinguish the True Vote from the Recorded vote by ignoring vote miscounts. The premise on which your models are based (that fraud does not exist) is incorrect from the get-go. In your ranking system, pollsters who come close to the recorded vote (i.e. Rasmussen in 2004) are ranked high, but pollsters who come close to the True Vote (i.e. Zogby) are ranked low. The fact that Zogby is ranked at the bottom is a clear indictment of your approach. Ranking pollsters based on their performance against the recorded vote is a waste of time. Fortunately for you, your fans are unaware of the distinction between the recorded vote and the True Vote. In fact, most are unaware of the extent in which their votes have been compromised by fraud. In your models, election fraud is never a factor.
This is the simple, yet fundamental equation that you seem to be blissfully unaware of: Recorded Vote = True Vote + Fraud.

Since you rank pollsters based on how close their polls match the recorded vote, I assume that exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky are ranked at the top, since their final state and national exit polls always seem to match the recorded vote. So why don’t they release the unadjusted exit polls as well? These may actually reflect the True Vote. As a Polling Quant, you should be interested in the statistical rationale for the matching.

Check with your new employer, the Grey Lady. The NYT is an important part of the National Exit Pool, the consortium that sponsors the exit polls. The NEP also includes the Washington Post, ABC, CNN, AP and Fox News. That’s plenty of MSM polling power. Ask why they expect transparency from R2K but won’t release the raw, unadjusted precinct exit polls from 2000, 2004 or 2008. That information would be very useful. It might indicate which exit poll precincts show discrepancies to the recorded vote that are virtually impossible mathematically.

What are your thoughts about the 2010 primaries in MA, AR, SC and AL? Does the fact that Coakley won the hand-counts in MA indicate something to you? Does the fact that 40 of 42 SC precincts that favored Halter were closed down indicate something? Or how about the unknown, non-campaigner Greene winning in SC by 59-41% but losing the absentees by 84-16%? The DINOS on the state election commission refused to consider the recommendations of computer scientists to investigate the voting machines that were obviously rigged. In AL on June 8, the attorney general issued an opinion that an automatic recount does not apply in a primary election. Knowing all of this, will you be factoring fraud into your 2010 projections – along with turnout and final polling?

Do you want further confirmation that Kerry won in a landslide? As an “expert” analyst, you should have taken a close look at the 2004 National Exit Poll. If you had, you would have seen that the Final NEP, as is always the case, was forced to match the recorded vote by adjusting the number of returning 2000 voters to an impossible level– as well as the vote shares. According to the NEP, 43% (52.6 million) of 2004 voters were returning Bush 2000 voters. But this was impossible. Bush only had 50.46 million recorded votes. Based on voter mortality tables, 2.5 million Bush 2000 voters died prior to the 2004 election. Therefore at most only 48 million returning Bush voters could have voted in 2004. But if an estimated 98% turned out, 47 million voted. Therefore, the number of returning Bush voters was inflated by at least 5 million. Kerry won the election by 10 million votes. You are welcome to try and refute the True Vote Model.

Do you want to see a proof that Obama won by nearly 22 million votes and not by the recorded 9.5 million? As an “expert” analyst, you should have taken a close look at the 2008 National Exit Poll. If you had, you would have seen that the Final NEP, as is always the case, was forced to match the recorded vote by adjusting the number of returning 2004 voters to an impossible level. According to the NEP, 46% (60 million) of 2008 voters were returning Bush 2004 voters and 37% were returning Kerry voters. That means there were 12 million more returning Bush voters than Kerry voters – and that’s assuming the myth perpetuated by the mainstream media (who you are now going to work for) that Bush won by 3 million votes in 2004. Do you believe it? How could that be?

But it’s much worse than that. If Kerry won by 10 million votes as the True Vote Model indicates (you are welcome to try and refute it) then there were approximately 10 million more returning Kerry voters than Bush voters. Assuming the same NEP vote shares that were used to match the recorded vote, Obama wins by 22 million votes, not the 9.5 million recorded.

The 2008 NEP indicated that 4% (5 million) of the electorate consisted of returning third-party voters. That was clearly impossible; only 1.2 million third-party votes were recorded in 2004. In their zeal to match the recorded vote, the exit pollsters had to create millions of phantom Bush and third-party voters.

In the eleven presidential elections from 1968 to 2008, the Republicans won the popular vote by 49-45%, (6% went to third parties). But the Democrats won the True Vote by 49-45%.

It’s all in my book: Proving Election Fraud: Phantom Voters, Uncounted Votes, and the National Exit Poll.

I was the first election analyst to use Monte Carlo simulation in the 2004 Election Model followed by the 2008 Election Model. I applied extensive exit poll analysis in developing corresponding the post-election True Vote Model. It proves that not only were the 2000 and 2004 elections stolen, it is very likely that 1968 and 1988 were as well. There were at least 6 million uncounted votes in 1968 and 11 million in 1988 – and the majority were Democratic (minority) votes.

The Edison Mitofsky 2004 Evaluation Report provides the exit poll discrepancies (WPE) of 238 state presidential election exit polls from 1988-2004. Of the 66 that exceeded the 3% margin of error, 65 favored the Republican. Was it due to reluctant Bush responders and/or exuberant Democratic responders? No, it was the result of millions of uncounted votes (mostly Democratic) and millions of phantom Bush voters.

The Final 2004 Election Model Projection (Monte Carlo simulation) projected a Kerry win: a 51.3% share and 337 electoral votes. This closely matched the unadjusted aggregate state exit polls (52%) and the 12:22am National Exit Poll (51.2%). The True Vote Model indicated that Kerry had a 53.2% share. Of course Bush won by a bogus 50.7-48.3% recorded vote margin. How did your projections pan out?

In the 2006 midterms, the pre-election Trend Model (based on 120 Generic polls) projected a 56.43% share for the Democrats. The unadjusted National Exit Poll indicated a nearly identical 56.37%. The Final National Exit Poll was forced to match the 52% recorded vote. Nate, which one do you believe was correct? You are aware of documented miscounts in 15 –20 congressional elections, virtually all favoring the GOP (see FL–13, FL-24, OH-1, etc.). How did your projections pan out?

The Final 2008 Election Model Projection (Monte Carlo simulation) exactly matched Obama’s 365 electoral votes and was within 0.2%(53.1%) of his 52.9% share. But it was wrong. Obama did much better than that. The final state pre-election likely voter (LV) polls did not fully capture the late shift to Obama. Had they been registered voter (RV) polls, adjusted for undecided voters, Obama would have had a 57% share. He had 57% and 420 EV in the True Vote Model. As shown below, the final Gallup RV tracking poll gave Obama a 53-40% margin. After allocating undecided voters, he had 57% - matching the True Vote Model. How did your projections pan out?

So what does it all mean?

It means that any and all polling analysis that fails to consider voter mortality, uncounted votes and a feasible voter turnout is doomed to produce the wrong result. The correct result is the True Vote based on total votes cast. The wrong result is the recorded vote that ignores uncounted votes but includes phantom voters.

It means that the recorded vote, the basis for your rankings, never reflects the True Vote!

It exposes your ranking system, which places John Zogby (the only pollster to predict the True Vote in the last three presidential elections) at the bottom of a list of scores of obscure pollsters, as being fatally flawed.

It means that your comments disparaging exit polls, along with your failure to do post-election True Vote analyses, indicate that you are in sync with a moribund mainstream media that perpetuates endemic Election Fraud by withholding raw exit poll data. They accept the recorded vote as Gospel - just as you do in your rankings. You will fit in very well at the NY Times.

When will you incorporate the True Vote into your analysis? Why do you ignore the fact that the mainstream media (i.e. the National Election Pool, which includes the NY Times) is responsible for the impossible adjustments (made by the exit pollsters they employ) to the final 2004, 2006, 2008 state and national exit polls? They had to match the polls to corrupted recorded vote counts, come hell or high water - and will surely do so again in 2010.

You have questioned the R2K Democratic share of the 18-29 age group exceeding the 30-44 group in 20 of 20 races.

Table 1 shows the probabilities for all the age groups.
There was a 33% probability that the Dems would do better in the 18-29 group than the 30-44 group in all 20 races given the average two-party shares. The comparable probabilities were 77% for 45-59 and nearly 100% for 60+.

You have also questioned the apparent lack of volatility in the 2008 R2K tracking polls.

Table 2 displays R2K daily statistics.
The margin of error is 1.96 times the standard deviation (a measure of volatility) at the 95% confidence level.
The standard deviation of Obama’s daily poll shares was 1.83%. It was 1.59% for the 3-day moving average.

Table 3 is a comparison of Gallup vs. R2K.
Gallup was a registered voter (RV) poll. R2K was a likely voter (LV) poll.
The average shares and volatilities (standard deviation) closely match.

There was a strong 0.70 correlation between Obama’s Gallup and R2K shares.
There was a good 0.50 correlation between McCain’s Gallup and R2K shares.

Gallup Change Change R2K Change Change
Obama McCain Obama McCain Obama McCain Obama McCain
Avg 49.65 42.90 0.15 -0.15 50.29 42.21 0.06 -0.02
Stdev 2.02 1.74 0.94 0.89 1.59 1.86 0.70 0.73

Table 4 compares the R2K tracking poll and other polls (including standard, non-tracking polls)
Projections are based on the allocation of undecided voters (UVA).

Assumptions
1) 75% of the undecided vote is allocated to Obama, the de-facto challenger.
2) third parties have 1.5% (the actual recorded share).

The final Gallup projection (57.1%) for Obama is a close match to the True Vote Model (57.5%).
Obamal projected shares:
Gallup: 53 + .75 * 5.5 = 53 + 4.13 = 57.1%
R2K: 51 + .75 * 3.5 = 51 + 2.63 = 53.6%

© Scoop Media