Analysis Suggests Corruption in Recent U.S. Election

There’s an impossibly slim chance that discrepancies between the exit polls and the outcome of the latest U.S. presidential election could be due to chance, according to an analysis released last week by a group of scientists.

“The hypothesis that the voters’ intent was not accurately recorded or counted … needs further investigation,” said the March 31 report from USCountVotes, a research project investigating the accuracy of the recent U.S. vote.

Exit polls in the November election showed Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., winning by 3 percent, but President George W. Bush won the vote count by 2.5 percent.

Bush has one of the poorest environmental records of any president in recent history. In his second term he has further angered environmentalists by weakening regulations on mercury pollution and by pushing for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The exit-polling firm explained the discrepancy by arguing that Kerry voters were more likely to participate in the polling. However, this theory is implausible based on the pollsters’ own data, the analysis found.

For a PDF copy of the analysis, click here.