EVEP Election Day Report

EVEP Election Day Report, 11/6/2008 12:05:00 PM

The Election Day Phase of the November 4 Election Verification Exit Poll

Election Defense Alliance and partners Election Integrity.org and The Warren Poll have completed the exhaustive Election Day phase of the 2008 Election Verification Exit Poll. With 350 interviewers, we conducted exit polls in 70 precincts in 12 states, covering these precincts with extraordinary thoroughness, approaching every exiting voter in many polling places, and in many cases generating response rates of 75 percent or higher.

This is the strongest data ever collected both for detecting election fraud and determining the efficacy of exit polling as a means for determining how voters actually cast their ballots.

Two election officials in Ohio tried to prevent us from conducting our polls, but a legal effort led by EI general counsel, Bob Fitrakis prevailed, permitting us to poll every site we selected. Some election officials refused to post the official outcomes. In at least one Florida polling site, this occurred explicitly because we had conducted our poll there. That said, most election officials were helpful and fully supportive, some even offering official support in following up any indication of a corrupted count.

The margin in the presidential election was too decisive for possible fraud to affect the outcome, but this was not true in all of Tuesday's races. Suspicious patterns were also revealed within the presidential race. We are currently analyzing the data and will post findings as they unfold.

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To all those who participated and donated, we extend our appreciation and my congratulations. For the first time in 8 years, Americans have actually elected a president. Together, we played a role in that monumental fact about this historic election. After a series of increasingly extreme anti-democratic elections and initiatives (e.g., HAVA and the spread of electronic voting), we may have at least mitigated the trends.

As Steve Freeman reminds us, "America’s election processing has hardly been fixed; nor will it be without our efforts. Whatever Obama's attributes as a man and a statesman, recall that his first act in Congress was to reject Stephanie Tubb's challenge to Ohio's electors; he was convinced that Bush won the 2004 Ohio election legitimately. (The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 7)

So please, stay involved and/or donate so that others may continue this work.

We have a mountain of high quality data that needs to be coded and analyzed.**

We also hope to follow up on disparities between official numbers and survey results by hand-counting ballots and other investigative efforts. Obama may really have been America’s choice for President, but election integrity remains no less critical an issue.

Addenda 11.23.08 -- EVEP exit polling project

This Election Day polling project was the largest citizen-run poll ever undertaken in this country (or perhaps anywhere). We have a very rich pool of data.

If it had been necessary to give a bottom line assessment on Election Night, we would have been able to do so, but as we saw early on that this would not be necessary, we decided to take a different approach in our analysis of the data. Consequently we do not have anything quantitative to report as yet.

We can, however, say that we are incredibly indebted to our donors and our volunteers who made this work possible, and that we hope to release our first definitive reporting very soon.

In parallel to the data analysis, a separate team is assessing the polling processes and is re-designing protocols and procedures for future years.

More soon.......