 HONEST PEOPLE FAIL!
Can an honest person fail a polygraph test? YES It happens all the time. Actually, it happens about %50 of the time a test is given. Ask any examiner if the polygraph is %100 accurate. None of them will be able to tell you yes. Otherwise, polygraph test results would be admissable in court. There are several reasons a person can fail a polygraplh test. The first and most important is nervousness. If a person is extremely nervous they will cause the littles needles on the lie detector to dance like crazy. Other factors that cause a person to fail are surprise and certain health related problems.
Polygraphy has not been shown to reliably distinguish between truth and deception in healthy individuals, there is no reason to expect that these "machines" are reliable when used on people with chronic medical conditions. As matter of fact, the American Medical Association has taken a stand against these machines and testified before Congress in support of the 1988 Employee Polygraph Protection Act. Once again, there is no way to explain why a subject--healthy or ill--may have "failed." These "tests" are simply not a reliable way to measure truthfulness.
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