Statisticians debate validity of 2004 election results

Eleven months after the 2004 presidential election, statisticians continue to debate the exit poll results.

Last Friday, researchers Steve Freeman and Warren Mitofsky gave a joint presentation in Logan Hall about the debate.

On Election Day last year, exit polls showed Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry leading President George Bush by 51 percent to 48 percent. However, when officials released the vote count later that night, it was Bush who prevailed by about two and a half percentage points.

The reason for the discrepancy between the official vote count and the exit poll estimate is a point of contention for many statisticians. Freeman blamed the deviation on election fraud, while Mitofsky disagreed.

Freeman, a member of Penn's Center for Organizational Dynamics, said that massive vote-count corruption -- on the scale of 8 to 10 million votes -- was to blame. He said that vote suppression and manipulation as variables tied to fraud.

Mitofsky, president of Mitofsky International, the organization that conducted the exit polls, explains the deviation differently.

"Our investigation of the differences between exit-poll estimates and the actual vote count point to one primary reason," he wrote in his investigation, adding that the discrepancy was most likely due to "Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters."

He did not give a possible cause of the different participation rates.

Freeman says that using data he obtained from Mitofsky's Web site, he calculated Kerry victories in six Bush states, including Florida, New Mexico and Ohio.

The reason his results differed from Mitofsky's -- which gave those states to Bush -- was the inclusion of outlying data points that Mitofsky excluded.

The analysts' interpretations failed to satisfy many in the room.

"Statisticians need to do a better job of explaining models. We have to put data in a way people can use," Philadelphia statistician Charles Pan said, drawing applause from several audience members.

Others stood firmly behind Freeman's research. Lawyer and 1951 Penn Law graduate Vincent Salandria accused Mitofsky of criminal obstruction.

"I conclude a conspiracy based on evidence," Salandria told Mitofsky during the forum.

"I don't know what to tell you," Mitofsky responded. "I have a lot better basement for [statistical] judgement. ... I'm here to talk about data."

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