Posted on 09/07/2006 8:03:51 AM PDT by rface
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- The owner of DataUSA Inc., a company that conducted political polls for the campaigns of President Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman and other candidates, pleaded guilty to fraud for making up survey and poll results.
Tracy Costin pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Costin, 46, faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 when she is sentenced Nov. 30.
As part of her plea agreement, Costin agreed to repay $82,732 to the unidentified clients for 11 jobs between June 2002 and May 2004. DataUSA is now known as Viewpoint USA.
According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys.
FBI Special Agent Jeff Rovelli said 50 percent of information compiled by DataUSA and transmitted to Bush's campaign was falsified, the Connecticut Post reported Thursday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Chang said on several occasions when the company was running up against a deadline to complete a job, results were falsified. Sometimes, the respondent's gender or political affiliation were changed to meet a quota, other times all survey answers were fabricated.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So, how do they differ from Zogby or the other pollsters used by the Drive-By Media -- other than they are being more honest about cheating?
i wonder who the other candidates they fail to mention are?
rats maybe
Say it ain't so!! A pollster who twisted the results??
Everyone should regularly lie to pollsters just to mess up their phony statistics.
Zogby uses "Special Sauce" in his polls.
What's the old saying?
Garbage IN, Garbage OUT.
Her big mistake was in getting
caught. From the sound of it,
either one of her own people
ratted on her, or she had a
competitor's mole in her employ.
According to a federal indictment, Costin told employees to alter poll data, and managers at the company told employees to "talk to cats and dogs" when instructing them to fabricate the surveys.
http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/pollster-pleads-guilty-to-making-up/20060907093409990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Interesting--if you read the first paragraph, it implies that Bush and Lieberman are somehow part of the wrongdoing, when in fact they were victims.
I thought all polls were frauds? Not news to me.
The conviction of this rascal will be in large part due to laws passed by Congress post 1996 election, and those laws resulted from citizen action initiated here at FR.
The polls were so far off in '96, that around 98% of them were outside their "margins of error." Even up to a week out from election day, some polls still showed Clinton beating Dole by as much as 18% (actual was around 8%). A UK reported wrote that if the US media had not been so biased, Sen. Dole might have had a chance. The interference by Perot, was probably the most damaging though.
Because of this of I posted a website in the Fall of '96 pushing what I called the "Truth In Polling Act" and asked congressional represenatives to enact it. They ended up writing some laws, which basically did the things "TIPA" called for, some of which probably contributed to the conviction of this liberal idiot, because publishing "demographics" was a large part of it. Clinton had a gender gap with men, so if you polled 80% of women in '96, you were going to get a poll that said Clinton would win. The new laws help prevent such blatant slanting.
ACTIVISM WORKS!
Now, may all the knees of the liberal fools at the PEW Institute shake endlessly.
OLDIE PING
Thank you for the reminder piasa.
bttt
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