Daily Kos sues Research 2000

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Politico:

Daily Kos has filed a lawsuit against its former pollster, Research 2000, for breach of contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.

The seven-count complaint, filed in a northern California court Wednesday, claims that at least a portion of the polling produced for the liberal website was falsified and that Research 2000 refuses to produce the raw data to verify its work.

An attorney for Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, wrote that Research 2000 breached their contract by failing “to provide accurate polling data, thus proximately causing plaintiffs to incur losses, damages and liabilities” in excess of $100,000.

“However you look at it, Kos Media and Research 2000 had an agreement for one thing – Kos Media was paying money in exchange for accurate, valid polling to be conducted by Research 2000 – and Research 2000 did not deliver the services it promised. That’s what the statistical analysis makes clear,” attorney Adam Bonin told POLITICO.

He said the goal of the process is to “obtain the relevant documents and records to the extent that they exist, analyze them appropriately and follow the trail where it leads.”

On Tuesday, Moulitsas published an investigation on his heavily-trafficked blog that found the numbers produced by Research 2000 were fraudulent.

The Kos analysis, provided by political consultant Mark Grebner, retired physicist Michael Weissman and research technician Jonathan Weissman, found three main problems: A large set of number pairs were too often only even or odd numbers, rather than independent of each other; a set of polls on separate groups appeared too similar given statistical uncertainties; and the consistent lack of change between week-to-week data gathering.

The dozens of polls provided by the firm over the last year and a half impacted the media coverage of several recent statewide primary campaigns, none more than the Democratic Senate runoff in Arkansas, where the group released two polls late in the race showing Sen. Blanche Lincoln losing to challenger Bill Halter – fueling what turned out to be a false narrative that the incumbent was a goner.

The lawsuit also infers that Research 2000 had financial woes, alleging that company president Del Ali, asked Moulitsas to make one lump-sum payment in advance of the 150 polls it would conduct.
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The DailyKos Kids got took by one of their own.