Fraud at Iowa Straw Poll—But By Which Side?

Posted by James Bowery on Wednesday, 15 August 2007 22:57.

In the Iowa Straw Poll, the exit poll conducted by “Vote in Sunshine” was at odds with the official vote count by an enormous margin (37% vs 9%) of over 300% difference in the case of Ron Paul. Detractors of the exit poll claim this difference was caused by the exit pollsters being obvious Paul supporters—driving away supporters of other candidates from signing their exit poll affidavits. But here is a front and back view of a supposedly representative shirt worn by an Iowa Straw Poll exit pollster (click through for higher resolution detail):

Now clearly these images are not consistent with the theory put forth by the detractors that the exit pollsters were presenting an image so biased toward Ron Paul that it resulted in a 300% increase in exit poll results for him. The over 300% disparity can hardly be explained by whatever subtle signals might have been put off by the exit pollsters. It might be explained by two other things, however:

1) Actual fraud during the closed count of votes during which a voting machine “malfunctioned”.

2) Misreporting by the “Vote in Sunshine” folks so gross that we must assume something was going on akin to the exit pollsters chanting Ron Paul slogans while wearing shirts not represented by the above “neutral shirts”—misreporting by “Vote in Sunshine” so gross that it is most reasonably construed as fraud.

I don’t know who is lying here but either way when liars show up around issues of such stupendous significance—rationality sides with further questions being asked.

UPDATE: We now have 3 more straw polls, two of which strongly corroborate the Vote in Sunshine exit poll (Alabama State and a county fair in New Hampshire) nd and one of which weakly corroborates the Iowa results (Illinois State).

Video evidence presented by Vote in Sunshine of their activities. Again, no sign of the exit pollsters boosting Ron Paul.

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Comments:

Posted by dgiagu on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:06 | #

everyone knew that those machines were faulty going in . those machines just should nt be used - also it is obvious where the fault lies with out going into it further - this is truly one of the reasons why so many people are behind Ron Paul -I have a feeling New Hampshire will be a very very different story with ron paul pulling out of the mainstream medias mantra of obscurity

Posted by Iowa Caucus System on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:29 | #

The Iowa caucus system is resistant to fraud and may actually favor Ron Paul. You need actually warm bodies who are willing show up and to wait and wait and wait. Who have enthusiasm about the candidate. I can easily see non- Ron Paul voters defecting to the Ron Paul camp on Caucus night.

Posted by James Bowery on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:44 | #

You make a case for the Iowa caucus system favoring Ron Paul in terms of the votes cast but you do not make your case for the Iowa caucus system being fraud resistant.

Posted by Vote In Sunshine on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:05 | #

We never claimed our poll was “scientific”. Our t-shirts sported stickers and buttons from all the candidates with the exception of Ron Paul who’s campaign - mysteriously - did not show up with a supply of stickers and buttons.

Individuals who support Ron Paul naturally seem to be more concerned and aware of the vote fraud issue. We had a very hard time doing our work as the Iowa GOP worked with the local police, sheriff and campus police to harass and detain some of our volunteers.

Our results at least roughly square with the fact that about 1/2 to 3/4 of the individuals inside the Hilton Coliseum when they announced the “unofficial” results of the Iowa Straw Poll. Supporters of Mitt Romney were non-existent as they all seemed to be bused in an out.

We are still patiently waiting for the Iowa GOP and the Iowa State election auditor to count the paper ballots of the Iowa Straw Poll “in the sunshine” with the cameras rolling and We The People present along with officials from all the campaigns. To date they have yet to count the paper ballots the old fashioned way by hand in the sunshine. The Iowa GOP finally told the world a few days before the Straw Poll that they would not be counting, auditing, saving or storing paper ballots - “no comment” was there answer to the question “are you going to save/store the paper ballots?”

The greatest public service our effort produced was 1) a pretty accurate hand count - using hand clickers - of the total number of voters exiting the 3 voting stations at the Iowa Straw Poll; and 2) documenting our experience with video - we have a lot of video of the repression being exercised against us by the “authorities.” I personally didn’t have a problem all day so I cannot comment on the repression, but other members of our team did and we hope to get those videos uploaded to the net soon.

Thanks for at least commenting on our effort. I hope we can get more Americans involved in this issue.

Peace and God Bless,

The Vote In Sunshine Coalition

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:41 | #

“Supporters of Mitt Romney were non-existent as they all seemed to be bused in an out.” (—Sunshine)

Right, with 44 million dollars to spend on your Iowa campaign you can afford to bus in as many warm bodies as you need to pull off a victory. But is that democracy? Debatable. Debatable too is whether this is democracy:

“We had a very hard time doing our work as the Iowa GOP worked with the local police, sheriff and campus police to harass and detain some of our volunteers. [...] we have a lot of video of the repression being exercised against us by the ‘authorities.’ I personally didn’t have a problem all day so I cannot comment on the repression, but other members of our team did and we hope to get those videos uploaded to the net soon.” (—Sunshine)

Yeah of course that kind of deliberate police and sheriff harrassment of honest voters taking part in a straw poll is Bush’s, Rove’s, Jim Robinson’s, Free Republic’s, Rush Limbaugh’s, and Sean Hannity’s idea of democracy but Hey, I seem to remember being taught a different idea in grade school ... My mind must be playing tricks on me ....

Posted by Miller Welders on Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:05 | #

This type of corruption has been around since the beginning of human’s existance… The only difference is the technology by which it shows itself.