Gallup Polls: Conditioning For Vote Rigging?

October 8 2004
Counterbias.com
by Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence

The recent polls showing a large Bush lead seem to be designed to either discourage Democratic voters and/or condition the American public for a Bush victory based on vote rigging. The methodology that seems to be in use by Gallup and most other polling firms connected to large corporations are greatly over weighted to give Republicans excessive representation and do not give sufficient weight to Democratic voters based on historical voting trend. Polls by independent polling organizations that are using properly weighted samples (like Zogby, Pew Research, Harris and others) are not showing a significant Bush lead and some have Kerry ahead!

While most political analysts predict the largest Democratic voter turn-out in history, Gallup is predicting in their methodology that Republicans will be 7-8% more of the total electorate than Democrats actually voting on election day. Based on the most recent elections, Democrats have usually been 7-8% more of the total electorate when the actual votes were counted. The swing in numbers using Gallup's distorted methodology would tend to give Bush a "fake" lead in the neighborhood of 15%.

As voters, we need to ask ourselves "why Gallup would use a methodology that would almost definitely mean that their election predictions would be wrong?" These writers are somewhat baffled in answering that question. Why would Gallup want to give the false impression of a Bush lead?

It is interesting to note that James Clifton who bought the Gallup organization is a big Republican donor. He gave thousands to Right Wing Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herman Cain. (See opensecrets.org) Cain ran as a huge backer of cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans. This is essentially the same tax position supported with vigor by the Bush-Cheney ticket.

The Bush Administration has been re-writing the tax codes, labor regulations and business laws to give more wealth and power to large corporations along with wealthy and powerful individuals since their first days in office. Polling outfits, media companies and their owners have benefited as never before in history. Many of these entities and individuals are doing everything in their power to keep the Bush Republicans in power.

The massive increase in electronic voting machines will make it nearly impossible to detect vote fraud by computer hacking or hidden computer code. Many states are using machines that do not provide a paper receipt to voters. A top executive of one voting machine company at a Republican rally in Ohio promised to do everything in his power to put Ohio in the Bush column in November. He should have been removed as an executive by the company but was not. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has very close ties to another large voting machine company. He is a former top executive of that firm.

These concerns would not be as serious if the computer codes used by voting machine makers were standard, open source codes like in New Zealand and Sweden. In the United States, the vote counting computer codes are company property not available to the average voter. Voters should be worried and watchful but not discouraged. The public will not tolerate massive vote fraud in America regardless of any attempts at conditioning the public by the Corporate Media.


Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence are hosts of Democratic Talk Radio (http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com).