Voting anomalies: probability is 1 in 250 million.

I found this report linked via BradBlog. Steven F. Freeman, a U. of Penn. professor, has applied a more thorough mathematical analysis to the exit poll results. Napkin calculations by myself and others had found a probability of .002% for the discrepancy (I think Freeman himself was one of the "others" who earlier reported that number). Based on a more careful analysis assuming Gaussian distributions, Freeman has arrived at a probability of one in 250 million for the exit poll discrepancies. The napkin calculations assumed a discrete Bernouli process, in which polling errors would skew toward Bush or Kerry like a coin toss (at least that's what I assumed in my estimate). This report is much better and more detailed than that straw-man piece of garbage from the Voting Technology Project. Some choice quotes from Freeman's article:

"As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error." "Stereotypically, Republicans are early risers." "Given that neither the pollsters nor their media clients have provided solid explanations to the public, suspicions of fraud or, among the less accusatory, 'mistabulation,' is running rampant and unchecked. That so many people suspect misplay undermines not only the legitimacy of the President, but faith in the foundations of the democracy. "Systematic fraud or mistabulation is a premature conclusion, but the election's unexplained exit poll discrepancies make it an unavoidable hypothesis, one that is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies, and the public to investigate."