📄 Extracted Text (933 words)
From: James P. McGee
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2013 7:04 PM
To: Mohamed Waheed Hassan
Cc: Jeffrey Epstein; Jason Cincotti
Subject: RE: Preliminary Baseline Polling Memorandum
President Waheed:
Welcome back.
You are correct. The memorandum I sent to you was only a starting point and covered the most prevailing issues from
an outside view looking in. Unfortunately, whenever corruption and religion get raised in an election (as Nasheed has
done here) they always become dominate issues and have to be dealt with. That being said, there will definitely be a
need to review the first draft with your team to identify the other important islands issues such as education, health
care, and tourism just to name a few.
Additionally there will be a blend of horse race questions which will pit you and Former President Nasheed as well as any
other potential candidates head to head while also measuring current favorability and unfavorable ratios for each
candidate.
With respect to the length of the survey / poll that will depend on the level of interaction of the poll universe (i.e.
Maldives Voters we are contacting) and their desire / non-desire to interact and discuss the prevailing issues with your
pollster.
We have contacted an associate that we have done a good deal of very successful polling with in the past including
polling in islands locations. He is reviewing the preliminary memorandum that was sent to you and I will probably loop
him in when we have our next Skype Conference Call with your team so that he can begin to finalize a baseline survey
instrument. He is also looking into call centers in southern India to possibly conduct the survey. I informed him that we
will have to have the poll conducted in the native language so he is aware we have that as a requirement.
I will wait to hear back from you and we will set up a follow up call at a convenient time for everyone.
McGee
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From: Mohamed Waheed Hassan (mailso
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2013 10:05 AM
To: James P. McGee
Cc: Jeffrey Epstein; Jason Cincotti
Subject: Re: Preliminary Baseline Polling Memorandum
Just arrived from Cairo and looked at the questions. I will be going through them with my team tomorrow. I suppose you
will want us to consider other areas and questions which we think might be useful such as education and health.
I know we want be able to and may not even be desirable to make the questionnaire too long. Is there a number we
should try to limit questions to.
Good intro for each section, generally accurate but as you said I will not be too concerned at this stage about all the
facts.
This is a quick message.
We will get back to you tomorrow.
Best regards
Waheed
Sent from President's iPad
On Feb 8, 2013, at 10:56 AM, "James P. McGee
<mailt > wrote:
President Waheed:
As we have emailed, and as I spoke with Jeffrey about, the next step we must get underway with is a substantial
Baseline Survey/ Poll to get a true idea where things stand for you and your opposition in the September Presidential
Election as well as identifying what the prevailing issues are and will play out in the upcoming campaign.
Attached is a very detailed memorandum that was prepared by one of my partners, Jason Cincotti with input
from other 3rd party sources which lays out some very frank (and I am sure in some cases) unpleasant summaries about
the prevailing issues facing the Maldives. It also includes some draft suggested (but not finalized) questions for the
survey that we will need to review and discuss. It is very important that you read this memorandum in an objective way
and it is also very important that you not to take it personally.
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When polling in such a delicate political environment like the one you are currently facing, it is important to
understand that we don't want to shy away from those sensitive areas, in fact we want the opposite — We want the true
answers to those questions to understand what the electorate is thinking about so that we can make sure that you are
the candidate that best speaks to those issues and connects with that electorate.
To put it another way: This isn't about the fluffy clouds and rainbows questions, instead this about the nitty-
gritty questions that are going to make the baseline poll produce the data we can use and that is what we are doing with
some of the suggested draft questions in this memorandum.
We will also add in some of the standard horserace questions including the head to head with you and Nasheed,
etc... that are always a part of any poll but it is the questions around the issues that will produce the most important
data for us.
We would need to review the attached draft questions with you and the designated members of your team to
make sure we have localized and finalized the baseline questions we decide on and ensure the type of answers we are
looking to get out of the survey. We can discuss the memorandum at a time that works for you and your team. Just let
us know what will work best for you and we can set up a time to review and discuss.
Please email me back after you have reviewed the attached memo
I hope all is well and look forward to talking to you soon
McGee
<Maldives Issues-Polling Information (02.01.3.3).docx>
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ℹ️ Document Details
SHA-256
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Bates Number
EFTA02521338
Dataset
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Document Type
document
Pages
3