The blogosphere was alive with claims of election fraud after the 2004 election.  Much of the controversy centered on the discrepancy between the early release exit poll information and the eventual vote count.  However, even after the fact, some point to discrepancies between the final exit poll estimates and the election returns as possible evidence of election fraud.

Many of our section members have been actively involved in this controversy, contributing not only to the advancement of the discipline, but engaging in debates that speak to the fundamental legitimacy of the democratic process.  As such, they embody the best that political science can offer.

Those who are new to this debate can find useful reviews at
The "Mystery Pollster"  http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/exit_polls/,
"US Counts Votes"  http://www.uscountvotes.org,
Verified Voting http://www.verifiedvoting.org, and the
Open Voting Consortium http://www.openvotingconsortium.org.

Political scientists maintaining websites of papers and results include:
Jas Sekhon: http://elections.fas.harvard.edu/
Walter Mebane: http://macht.arts.cornell.edu/
Jonathan Wand: http://wand.stanford.edu/elections/

A number of our members worked on the DNC Voting Rights Institute Report: http://www.democrats.org/vri/ohioreport/index.html

The National Exit Poll (NEP) data is available at the ICPSR.  More information on this data is available here: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/org/announce.html#nep

Thanks to Walter Mebane for help with this report.