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EVEP

EDA 's Long-Term Campaign to Restore Election Integrity

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EDA works to defend the vote not only at election time, but full-time, year-round. We understand that restoring transparency and public accountability to the electoral process is a major social policy change that will require long-term, sustained commitment.

Election Verification Polling

EDA has conducted and commissioned numerous independent exit polls and voter surveys in counties across the nation during the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential election cycles, providing an independent means of evaluating the validity of official election returns generated by trade-secret software owned by private corporations. In the absence of direct citizen observation of the vote-counting, or credible election auditing practices, these polls provide a valid means for independently assessing the veracity of intrinsically unverifiable electronic voting results. We continue to refine these methods and will, with your volunteer participation and funding support, continue to conduct exit polls and voter surveys in strategically selected locations in forthcoming elections.

Election Forensic Analysis

In computerized elections, citizens are denied access to the very evidence --ballots marked by voters-- necessary to confirm or deny the validity of officially reported election results. EDA has developed methods for independently assessing reported election results by comparing official precinct and county election returns to historical election baseline data, voter registration figures, pre-election tracking polls, and independently commissioned exit polls on election day. This multifactor analysis comparing reported election results to independently verifiable external measures can identify suspect patterns and internal contradictions in the election results indicating probability of accidental mistabulation or deliberate fraud to a very high degree of statistical certainty.

Media Messaging and Public Education

The unacceptable risks of computerized voting are rising into public awareness, but much more public education and advocacy will be needed to institute change in the U.S. electoral system. EDA is building media messaging capacity to provide consistent, corrective information and to issue alarms as necessary on a national scale.

Legal Action

Election Defense Alliance advocates a proactive, pre-emptive response to pervasive breaches in election security and obstruction of the public's right to know. We are devising legal tactics and assembling evidence to support legal intervention before, during, and after elections to enforce effective security procedures and uphold the public's right to monitor electoral processes and inspect public documents without obstruction.

Support for Local Organizing

Because we recognize that all elections are local, Election Defense Alliance emphasizes electoral integrity action at the level of local electoral jurisdiction. We support those efforts by developing research, fundraising, and publicity capacity on a national level and then channeling those resources where they can be applied most effectively: at the county and township level where elections are conducted.

Legislative Policy

Although we regard decentralized electoral administration and local citizen vigilance as the best prescription for election protection, EDA recognizes the present opportunity to repair damage wrought by HAVA (the Help America Vote Act of 2002) and avert similarly misguided and harmful federal legislation now and in the future. We will warn against ill-advised nonsolutions, recommend effective measures to counter electronic voting dangers, and promote handcounted paper ballots and manual audits as the solutions necessary to restore electoral integrity.

These and other actions are carried out by an EDA staff of volunteers who depend on your support to continue and expand these protections. Please invest in electoral legitimacy.

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Was California's Proposition 8 Election Rigged?

Related article: The complete report, Citizen Exit Polls in Los Angeles County: An In-Depth Analysis, by R. H. Phillips


INTRODUCTION


Was California's Proposition 8 Election Rigged?

By Sally Castleman and Jonathan Simon
 

This report is meant as a warning. It does not provide conclusive proof of election tampering, since such “proof” would be embedded with the memory cards and computer code which are regarded as proprietary secrets and strictly off-limits to examination.  But what is revealed here is strong enough to suggest that legislators, secretaries of state, attorneys general, and the public must pay close attention to what is reported in all future elections. Candidates entering upcoming elections should especially read and understand this report and take notice of the current state of our electoral system. This particular report pertains to California; however, Election Defense Alliance is also publishing a comparable report on the 2008 Presidential election, questioning the results in several states. The bottom line is: with electronic equipment counting our votes, we cannot know whether the official results are accurate. Multiple analyses of vote tabulations from the past several elections caution us that they are not.
 

This report presents evidence that in the November 2008 election the tabulation of the vote for California’s Proposition 8, the ballot initiative repealing marriage equality, was probably corrupted. It is beyond the scope of this study to know if any corruption was due to honest error or intentional fraud. Further investigation is warranted.

Much media attention has been focused on California over the past several years regarding gay marriage, abortion, and other hot-button social issues. In November 2008, two such issues appeared on the California ballot:  Proposition 8 outlawed marriage equality (a “yes” vote opposed same-sex marriage); Proposition 4 mandated a waiting period and parental notification before non-emancipated minors were allowed an abortion (similar measures had been defeated twice before).

Election Defense Alliance, a national nonprofit group dedicated to restoring integrity and public accountability to the electoral processes, worked with several other election integrity groups to conduct public election verification exit polls (“EVEP”) in eight states in November.  The polls were meant to validate or detect problems with the official vote counts.  Ten sites, representing 19 precincts, were located in Los Angeles County, California.  This paper presents the analysis of the L.A. County polling results as they pertain to Proposition 8.
 

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EDA Exit Polls Generally Match 2008 Election Results, But Find "Wide Disparities" in NH Vote Counts

 
An Election Defense Alliance Investigative Report
Based on Data Obtained from the EDA 2008 Election Verification Exit Poll Project (EVEP)

This report is meant as a warning. It does not provide conclusive proof of election tampering, but what is revealed here is strong enough to suggest that Legislators, Secretaries of State, Attorneys General, AND CITIZENS must pay close attention to what is reported in all future elections. Candidates entering races in 2010 Mid-Term Elections should especially read and understand this report and take notice of the current state of our electoral system.
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'We know that there are huge disparities between the exit poll data and the official results
at all four polling places in New Hampshire, and that adjusting the raw data
to account for party affiliation does not explain them. . . . 
We are forced to conclude that it is very possible that the official results in New Hampshire are not true and correct.'
____________________________
 
 
CITIZEN EXIT POLLS ACROSS THE COUNTRY:
 
AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS
 
Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
 
ABSTRACT
 
Data from citizen exit polls conducted at 28 sites in seven states were found to match closely the official results for President, Senate and Congress at nine polling places (five in California, two in Pennsylvania, one in Ohio, and one in New Mexico). At four polling places (two in New Mexico, one in California, and one in Texas), analysis was inconclusive. At two polling places in Michigan, the official results for 2008 were not inconsistent with established voting patterns. At two polling places in Ohio, the exit polls reflected correctly an erosion of support for the Congressional incumbent. At five polling places in California, the presidential preference of the non-responders closely paralleled their party affiliation. But at six polling places (two in Pennsylvania and four in New Hampshire), large disparities remained between the official results and the exit poll data, even after properly adjusting the data to account for party affiliation, gender, age, and race. The large disparities in the vote count were found at three of these, and we conclude that the official results may be wrong at all six.
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
Citizen exit polls were conducted by trained volunteers on behalf of Election Defense Alliance (EDA) on November 4, 2008 at 37 sites in eight states. The purpose was not only to collect demographic data (gender, age, race, and party affiliation) for election analysis, but also to reach a large enough sample of voters at the polls to verify (or question) the official results. In every state, the presidential election was listed on the questionnaire handed to the voters. For comparative purposes, the Congressional election, the United States Senate contest if any, and some local contests, were included as well. It is the purpose of this paper to compare the exit poll data with the official results and, where large disparities exist, to assess the reasons for those disparities.
 
There are four possible reasons for a large disparity between exit polls and official results: (1) a basic flaw in the exit poll methodology; (2) many voters lying on the questionnaire; (3) a non-representative sample of voters responding; or (4) the official results being erroneous or fraudulent. The first two possibilities are rendered unlikely by the fact that, at numerous polling places, there was little difference between the exit poll data and the official results. Thus, if the official results are true and correct, any large disparities must be due to exit poll responders being non-representative with respect to gender, age, race, or party affiliation. It is shown in an accompanying paper concerning Propositions 4 and 8 in Los Angeles County that party affiliation is the most important of these parameters.
 
This underscores the importance of collecting “refusal data,” as was done in this poll. The exit pollsters noted the gender, race, and estimated age of each voter who was approached but declined to respond. These data can be compared to the responses on the questionnaires filled out by the participating voters. In some states, the gender and age of registered voters are specified on the voter rolls. Of utmost importance are the party affiliations of those who voted at the polls, which in some states is a matter of public record, although sometimes difficult to obtain. Based upon this information, the raw data for the exit poll can be adjusted according to gender, race, age, and party affiliation, to better reflect the demographic makeup of the electorate.
 
 
OVERVIEW
 
Not all of the exit polls resulted in worthwhile and useable data. At one polling place in Michigan, only 60 of 835 voters were interviewed; no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from such a minimal data set. In San Francisco, and in three of five polling places in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, questionnaires were either lost or possibly mixed up among precincts, leaving us with incomplete and unreliable data sets. At the four polling places in Colorado, election officials have refused to provide a separate vote count for voters at the polls. In Douglas County, Colorado, for example, early voting and absentee ballots accounted for 86.89% of the votes countywide, and 89.51% of the votes in the three precincts where our exit poll was conducted. We are left with no way to make a meaningful comparison between the exit poll data and the official results. But this still leaves us with 28 polling places in seven states. The raw data are shown below.
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