Vote Count: Steined to Death

It is looking like Jill Stein handed Donald Trump his election victory. Sorry Trumper Bashers, the pot belly of the bell curve didn't win this battle on its own.

According to an interesting article in The Independent, from the UK, Jill Stein subtracted more votes from Hillary Clinton, in three key states, than were the margins of victory for Donald Trump.

www.independent.co.uk... n-michigan-a7451641.html

In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Ms Stein got 51,463, 49,678, and 31,006 votes respectively, whereas Mr Trump won by a margin of 10,704, 46,765, and 22,177 in the same states, new figures show.

Most people who voted for Ms Stein would otherwise have been more likely to vote Democrat than Republican, analysts have said, particularly in this election where Mr Trump's denial of climate change and far-right policy proposals were the antithesis of many Green Party values.

I don't fault Ms. Stein or those who voted for her. According to polling data that fooled just about everybody, Hillary Clinton was going to win. I think that by the end, even Donald Trump thought Clinton was going to win. Therefore a vote for Stein could be viewed as a safe line of protest that would not be a contribution to catastrophe.

Incredibly, the polls had it all wrong, missing an entire segment of normally disaffected and unpolled voters.

I'm not sure if all the votes have been counted but in popular vote numbers Hillary Clinton has a fat lead over the President-elect, according to The Independent, amounting to something like 2.5 million votes.

Trump won the three key rust belt states by only around 80,000 votes. That's a real casino owner's long shot coming up Trump's.

originally posted by: ipsedixit
Incredibly, the polls had it all wrong, missing an entire segment of normally disaffected and unpolled voters.

I'm uncertain as to why you and other people still push this point--to anyone actually paying attention to reality during the run up to the election, Trump's popularity with his supporters and their passion for him eclipsed the same concerning Clinton and her supporters.

All of the media and pollsters are only surprised because they held on to the classic metrics by which they judge elections, and this one--from the get go--was shown that it was going to be anything but a classic election. They failed to adapt, and only those who give polls any major weight were amazed by the outcome.

This is why Stein and that dude in NV and Clinton's camp got on board with recounts--they still are in denial that this election woke up some Americans that usually are apathetic/robotic in their voting, and they refuse to accept reality.

The only person who is at fault for losing the election is Clinton--she, as the candidate, is the one who lost it for the Democrats, not pollsters, not the media, and certainly not those voters who decided it was more appropriate to vote their conscience rather than perpetuate the two-party jackassery that occurs every two years at the federal level.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey

All of the media and pollsters are only surprised because they held on to the classic metrics by which they judge elections, and this one--from the get go--was shown that it was going to be anything but a classic election. They failed to adapt, and only those who give polls any major weight were amazed by the outcome.

I'm going to take this thought and go even further with it. Especially since to me, polling has always had very little value.

I think that a vast majority of people who could have been polled, find themselves not wanting to be polled either because they value the privacy of their vote, or because they don't want to waste their time, every time the phone rings, spending inordinate amounts of time so that some media outlet can make its quota. If what I believe is true, then what you end up with is an imbalance of opinion, because it's likely that those who DO make the time for these polls, tend to have similar mindsets and, a likely result is similar voting.

What I do know however is that anyone close to me has the same general demeanor when asked how they feel about the election, and it goes something like this: "All I know is, I'm glad its over, I'm tired of having to dodge the damn phone every 10 minutes".

one word:

Oversampling.

Look it up and see how Clinton's campaign used it to influence poll numbers to make it appear she had higher numbers.

Worked pretty damn well until the election results started rolling in.

Personally, I believe the Clinton campaigns push to use oversampling is what got Stein, Johnson and the others their votes...

People thought Hillary had it wrapped up after being force fed false poll numbers on CNN for months. They assumed that they could voice their displeasure by voting independent because there was no way Trump could win, according to CNN polls.

a reply to: alphabetaone

Yes, I can see that being a reality.

And go even FURTHER...we can't disregard the possibility that these polls were designed to have such outcomes (heavy on a Clinton win) in order to try and create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy by trying to induce people to jump on the bandwagon and vote for a winner.

Personally, I think it is clear that the Clinton campaign were taken in by the poll numbers, as was virtually everyone else. I think what happened is that the pollsters, somehow, failed to reach Trump's key demographic, people who were completely fed up with the political process and who supported Trump, not because they are easily hoodwinked by casino owners, but because they were willing to try ANYTHING to break the grip of the status quo on American politics.

Interestingly, the LA Times/USC Tracking Poll, a consistent "outlier" among the polls monitoring the election, ridiculed and derided by people like Webster Tarpley, a somewhat sophisticated observer, unfortunately prone to bouts of wishful thinking and jingoism, was the only poll that got it right.

This poll employed a different methodology to the standard one of polling randomly selected individuals and then using statistical methods to tweak the results to improve accuracy. The LA Times/USC Tracking poll operated from within a limited "universe" of data by obtaining a group of individuals to participate in the poll, who consented to being re-polled at regular intervals until the election. Thus a varying sample of the same finite group of people (between three and five thousand people) were asked the same or similar questions at periodic intervals up to the election.

Their success was a huge coup for the designers of the poll. I think this method originated in the UK but was modified by statisticians at USC, for this election.

Hilary Clinton's "instincts" had been questioned by Bernie Sanders and by Donald Trump, and ultimately they failed her.

It is clear to me that she believed the standard polls, and made a fatal error near the end of the campaign in thinking that she had the election won, need not worry about the rust belt states, and could run around Georgia and Texas in an attempt to try to improve the Democrats position in the House and Senate.

When the votes are counted a passionately voted ballot counts as numerically equal to an indifferently voted ballot. Donald Trump won this election through an unfortunate, for Hillary Clinton, combination of factors. I think it comes down to fate, karma, whatever. The man of destiny can do no wrong. On the other hand, nothing can save someone whose number is up.

I too dislike polling calls and whenever i get them on my cell phone which I conduct all of my consulting business on I just tell them what they want to hear...
Hello, "I'm so and so from the coalition for democratic reform... we are conducting a poll... who are you planning to vote for.. " Me, "Oh I'm right there with you on that Hillary candidate, yup that's the one. Good day!"

So, polls are not effective, they are anonymous and the people being polled don't like to be bothered or simply don't want to state their position. I have a feeling that by all of the polls showing Hillary taking a lead, the Trumper's made sure they got their votes cast. What better motivation could there be?

originally posted by: alphabetaone

originally posted by: SlapMonkey

All of the media and pollsters are only surprised because they held on to the classic metrics by which they judge elections, and this one--from the get go--was shown that it was going to be anything but a classic election. They failed to adapt, and only those who give polls any major weight were amazed by the outcome.

I'm going to take this thought and go even further with it. Especially since to me, polling has always had very little value.

I think that a vast majority of people who could have been polled, find themselves not wanting to be polled either because they value the privacy of their vote, or because they don't want to waste their time, every time the phone rings, spending inordinate amounts of time so that some media outlet can make its quota. If what I believe is true, then what you end up with is an imbalance of opinion, because it's likely that those who DO make the time for these polls, tend to have similar mindsets and, a likely result is similar voting.

What I do know however is that anyone close to me has the same general demeanor when asked how they feel about the election, and it goes something like this: "All I know is, I'm glad its over, I'm tired of having to dodge the damn phone every 10 minutes".

originally posted by: RickinVa
one word:

Oversampling.

Look it up and see how Clinton's campaign used it to influence poll numbers to make it appear she had higher numbers.

Jeez, not this crap again.

There is no evidence anywhere that the DNC colluded with mass media to inflate Clinton's poll numbers.

Yes, I've read the Podesta emails in question. Yes, I've actually read the attached document from Atlas media more than once.

The Atlas document was a private DNC analysis for internal DNC polls, aimed specifically at helping the Democrats target their messaging efforts more effectively to key demographics. The specific instances of oversampling are mentioned in the document, along with the reasons why.

All you have to do is actually READ the document to see this had nothing at all to do with the MSM.

But why do you and so many others believe this nonsense?

TWO WORDS: FAKE NEWS.

Polling is both art and science.

The science part involves the math of population size, margin of error, and confidence level. So, yes, it really is possible to get a 95% confidence level, and a margin of error of +/- 3%, on a population as large as the voting population of the U.S. by sampling around 1,000 people.

The art comes in knowing WHO to sample.

Things like political affiliation are hardly ever considered AT ALL because they are transitory and viewed as an attitude rather than a fixed attribute (which is accurate), so in effect these polls end up measuring that as a secondary metric.

However, they do try to take into account physical, immutable characteristics, like age, gender, income level, level of education, etc.

IF the trends are similar to what has been shown historically, the polls will be extremely accurate.

If something NEW happens, the polls will not be as accurate.

Yes, it was clear that Trump supporters were more enthusiastic than Hillary supporters, but generally speaking, that only serves to increase voter turnout among party loyalists, who were going to vote anyway. In this case, it was actually an indication that non-party loyalists (in particular, blue collar white males in the rust belt) were flipping to Trump.

This was not anticipated. Ergo, almost all the polls were wrong.

Still, having said that, Nate Silver gave Trump a 30% chance of winning the day before the election. So it's not as if this was viewed as a statistical impossibility.

Nate himself pointed out numerous times that there were more "unknowns" in this election than usual.

a reply to: Greggers

Polling is an art and science...

When you poll 100 people and the make up is 50% democrats 30% republicans 20% independent.... who is surprised when the democratic person gets higher numbers?


Polls are worthless.

Unfortunately too many people put a lot of stock in polls.

originally posted by: ipsedixit

According to an interesting article in The Independent, from the UK, Jill Stein subtracted more votes from Hillary Clinton, in three key states, than were the margins of victory for Donald Trump.

So, what you're saying is that there's still a way to defeat Trump, if Clinton and Stein would form a coalition government?

a reply to: SlapMonkey

You know as sure as sh*t the media was hoping for more marches, disturbances etc...anything to pull in more viewers....and a big F.......U.....to Soros who could have bought water filters for the folks in Michigan for all the money he wasted on this endeavor..

a reply to: Greggers

They didn't have to.

Most polling was done by assuming that the electorate that was going to show up at the polls was statistically going to be the exact same electorate that turned up to vote in 2012.

So they tweaked and sampled to that effect. That assumes the exact same level of ethusiasm and the same numbers showing up to vote in the same ways as voted in teh 2012 election.

Can you really say that teh Democrat electorate was as excited about Cliinton as they were about Obama in any demographic? Or was that simple wishful thinking?

How about the Republican electorate? Can you REALLY tell yourself that Trump and Romney were anything at all alike in who they reached and the level of enthusiasm for them as candidates in those groups?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Greggers

They didn't have to.

Most polling was done by assuming that the electorate that was going to show up at the polls was statistically going to be the exact same electorate that turned up to vote in 2012.

So they tweaked and sampled to that effect. That assumes the exact same level of ethusiasm and the same numbers showing up to vote in the same ways as voted in teh 2012 election.

Can you really say that teh Democrat electorate was as excited about Cliinton as they were about Obama in any demographic? Or was that simple wishful thinking?

How about the Republican electorate? Can you REALLY tell yourself that Trump and Romney were anything at all alike in who they reached and the level of enthusiasm for them as candidates in those groups?

It's a fair point that turnout was estimated inaccurately. However, it's also fair to point out that not every poll assumed identical turnout to 2012. If they had, there would have been fewer swings among the poll results.


Polling companies want to get it right. It's their reputations on the line. They simply didn't have data that white, blue collar males in the rust belt were swinging from D to R.

originally posted by: AMPTAH
So, what you're saying is that there's still a way to defeat Trump, if Clinton and Stein would form a coalition government?

That kind of thing might happen in a parliamentary government, where elected MPs of any party could, in theory, form a coalition. A kind of "coalition" can happen in the US, through presidential cabinet appointments, or through arrangements in the House and Senate, but not to determine the winner of a presidential election. The exception to this would be a rogue movement of significant proportions in the Electoral College, where electors vote their conscience to redirect a general election result.

originally posted by: RickinVa
a reply to: Greggers

Polling is an art and science...

When you poll 100 people and the make up is 50% democrats 30% republicans 20% independent.... who is surprised when the democratic person gets higher numbers?


Polls are worthless.

Unfortunately too many people put a lot of stock in polls.

You might want to try reading my post again. It specifically mentions that polling is both an art and a science and WHY political affiliation is NOT considered when drawing the sample.