The third type, promoted by Mark Adams of ProjectVoteCount.com, uses actual affidavits as surveys. In Florida, a written affidavit, even though not notarized, is legally binding. The plan is that with diligent poll taking, a high number of participants would provide enough votes for a losing candidate or issue to show fraud. The affidavits would then be evidence in court. It would be possible to gather enough surveys to do this, but a high percentage is required, 80% or higher probably. With such a high percentage of participants, even if more total votes than the official count are not found, the percentages of the candidates totals are still significant to show probably fraud, if they vary greatly from the voting machine count percentages.
Both professional pollsters and unpaid citizen pollsters are now using a blend of these types of exit polls. In the Pennsylvania Primary on April 2008, we used a survey that asked race, age range, and gender, but not party, and not their name. It also asked if they liked their current method of voting--paperless touch-screen machines--or if they preferred a voter-verified paper ballot. Another question was if they had any trouble voting. The surveys were collected in several locked file-type boxes with a slot that allowed the whole survey, without folding, to be inserted. Pollsters usually placed the surveys in the boxes. In our parallel elections we asked the voters to place their own ballots in the boxes, to demonstrate chain of custody. Professional Edison/Mitofsky pollsters were observed in the SC Primary using voter filled-out surveys, with every voter asked if they would like to participate.
The primary difference between professional and citizen-run exit polls, is one of purpose. Professional pollsters seemed in 2004 to see their function as providing early results to TV commentators, but since results are obtained so fast now from early reporting precincts, their function now seems to be simply to provide demographic data on what groups of people, such as Evangelicals, Hispanics, white women over 50, young parents, and so on, are voting for which candidates. Professional pollsters no longer pretend to be providing a check on the accuracy of elections, as exit polling has done for years, all over the world , in countries that claim to have democratic elections. Citizen exit pollsters are taking over the function abandoned by professional exit pollsters. Citizen exit pollsters can work with statisticians in local universities to design surveys and to use polling techniques that provide the most scientifically significant results to show whether an election is accurate or suspect. I recommend that surveys ask political party preference in the last two federal elections, eg, 2004 and 2006, age range, gender, and race, and that at least two contests are included, one as a control, one as the main race, e.g., President in 2008. The surveys should be standardized, which we did not do so well in the Ohio primary exit poll, due to last minute organizing.
4. BE EXTREMELY NONPARTISAN
Be extremely nonpartisan, which includes dressing neutrally, and treating everyone the same, with respect and eagerness to have them participate. Do NOT talk about your political preferences. I would not even use the event as an opportunity to hand out literature about the failure of electronic voting machines. Republicans, at least in Ohio, tend to like touch screen voting and Democrats optical scanners. If you are promoting OpScans or hand counting, you may skew your results toward one party's voters. Best to remain neutral. It would be better not to poll your own neighborhood, since people may know how you vote.
5. LOOK for ANOMALIES
In your analysis of the results (after counting and tallying in the presence of other citizen witnesses, who should also help with the counting), you are looking for anomalies. You should first be able to establish accuracy in some of the races, for credibility--hopefully not all of the races will be rigged! You are also looking for skewing of results on one direction. No one will believe fraud has occurred if there was significant rigging on both sides, though in today's political climate and the proven insecurity of electronic voting, anything is possible! Of course you are also looking for your totals for a candidate or issue surpassing the machine counts. If this happens, you will wish you had asked for affidavits, but that may also have affected your ability to get high numbers of participants. Catch 22.
No exit poll is perfect. Most of the ones I have participated in do not prove fraud, but many certainly indicate areas that need a recount or audit. BUT, strong indications of fraud, across many counties and precincts, if we do many exit polls across the country in 2008, will be enough to convince many more citizens that our elections are bogus, and may trigger a recount by a third party candidate. Exit polls also may scare riggers away from manipulation.
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We need citizens to sign up in their states now. One person in each state needs to take the lead. If we, mainly Victoria Parks, can organize eight counties (22 precincts) in less than two weeks, with the help of Ron Paul meet-up folks, our progressive lists, and ProjectVoteCounts's website, then so can others. Citizen oversight is the watch-phrase for honest elections.
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