Angry Pollster denies 'cooking books'

Washington, DC (licentious) -- Denying that his company is "cooking the books" to show a lead for Republican candidates, a pollster points to the complexity of vote forecasting: "It's not just who is registered, or who says they'll vote on any given day! It also matters whether they'll be allowed to vote, and whether the vote will be counted, and whether ballot boxes will be stuffed post facto to make up for unpredicted Democratic votes."

In an exclusive licentious radio interview, a pollster with a leading national polling company who insisted on anonymity explained the intricacies of accurate forecasting. He pointed to Florida 2000 as an example.

One county had a ballot so confusing that more than 10,000 Democrats voted for Buchanon by "accident". In another county, Democratic voters received incorrect voting instructions, and thousands of voters who carefully followed instructions rendered their votes invalid. The state government knowingly, falsely, conspiratorally denied 91,000 mostly-Democratic voters the right to vote. While admitting wrong-doing, Florida's Republican state officials rigged the settlement so they don't have to restore the right to vote until *after* Bush's 2002 re-election battle. Another county managed to invalidate 2,000 mostly-Democratic votes in the 2000 election, while using the same equipment but with a new supervisor in the 2002 primary only lost 16 votes.

Other examples from across the country emerge: police intimidation of blacks on the way to polls, mysterious disappearance of thousands of registered voters from the rolls causing voting delays, court battles to insure that polls don't stay open to make up for voting delays caused by mysterious equipment failures or mysterious disappearances of registration records, Republican-organized voter intimidation campaigns in the polling stations, etc.

"You see what we're up against, don't you? Especially with computerized voting machines made and controlled by right-wing Republican-owned companies, the Republicans are in a position to prevent three to five percent of Democratic votes from being counted in most of the tight races. Then if the election day count is very close, the Republican organization to add additional ballots from operatives in the military overseas comes into play. All they have to do is be sure the envelopes don't get postmarked, and they can stuff hundreds of ballots into the system after election day. We need to take these factors into account when we publicize our projections."

This combination of factors, he said, is why his company predicts a much higher percentage of registered Republican voters will have their votes counted in the 2002 elections compared to registered Democrats.

When asked if the Republican Corporate ownership of his company played any role in the polling results, our informant cried foul.

"That would be like saying Cheney's millions in ongoing payments from Halliburton are a bribe to elicit the billions of dollars of federal contracts Halliburton has received since Cheney took office. Cheney isn't being bribed to do something he wouldn't have done anyway -- he's just getting a small downpayment on the reward that waits for him once he's out of office. It's only called 'deferred salary' because the Andersen people have such a good sense of humor.

For example, in 2001, Halliburton was a hair's breadth from bankruptcy before Cheney rescued it with a quick billion dollar contract that would otherwise have gone to a qualified company.

"It's exactly the same with my company. We present fair and balanced poll results, and in turn democracy flowers."

Asked if voter turnout projections had factored in "accidents" like Wellstone's death by mysterious plane crash, our informant said: "No comment" and ended the interview.