History of the Debate Surrounding the Validity of the 2004 Presidential Election

This historical overview is provided to aid media and the public in understanding key events and presentations from both sides of the debate surrounding the validity and accuracy of 2004 presidential election results.

(PRWEB) October 23, 2005 -- The National Election Data Archive has released a historical summary of facts and events in the debate over the validity of the 2004 presidential election and made recommendations to ensure U.S. election integrity.

Beginning with the discovery that 2004 presidential exit poll numbers were altered late during election eve and forced to match the official vote counts, through subsequent proposed explanations for the unprecedented, statistically implausible disparity between vote counts and exit polls, to the latest analyses of Ohio's precinct-level exit poll results which purports to demonstrate vote fraud, the report presents brief, simplified summaries of relevant milestones.

This report discusses surprising 2004 election results in Florida, New Mexico, Washington, and Ohio, as well as the Carter-Baker recommendations, the latest GAO report on electronic voting, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission voting system guidelines.

Ensuring fair and accurate vote counting is an essential element of American democracy and is fundamental to each American’s right to vote. This historical overview is provided to aid media and the public in understanding what might be regarded as the most important debate of our era.

NEDA's purpose is to facilitate research of and the formulation of policies dealing with procedures that will ensure accurate vote counts; and making detailed election data and information publicly available. NEDA places particular emphasis on and will devote all of its initial resources to creating a “National Election Data Archive” project with the goal of ensuring the accuracy of U.S. elections.

The full paper "History of the Debate surrounding the 2004 Presidential Election" is available at
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Presidential-Election-2004.pdf

Press Contact: Kathy Dopp 435-658-4657 or cell 917-656-0066

Press release from:
The National Election Data Archive (NEDA), a nonprofit organization of statisticians and mathematicians devoted to the accuracy of U.S. vote counts. http://electionarchive.org.

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