(FLASHBACK) Report Acknowledges Inaccuracies in 2004 Exit Polls

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22188-2005Jan19?language=printer ^ | 1-20-2005 | Richard Morin and Claudia Deane

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Interviewing for the 2004 exit polls was the most inaccurate of any in the past five presidential elections as procedural problems compounded by the refusal of large numbers of Republican voters to be surveyed led to inflated estimates of support for John F. Kerry, according to a report released yesterday by the research firms responsible for the flawed surveys.

The exit pollsters emphasized that the flaws did not produce a single incorrect projection of the winner in a state on election night. But "there were 26 states in which the estimates produced by the exit poll data overstated the vote for John Kerry . . . and there were four states in which the exit poll estimates overstated the vote for George W. Bush," said Joe Lenski of Edison Media Research and Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky International.

The polling firms presented their findings in a much-anticipated report to the sponsors of the Election Day surveys, a consortium of news organizations that includes ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN and the Associated Press

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The key here:

"problems compounded by the refusal of large numbers of Republican voters to be surveyed led to inflated estimates of support for John F. Kerry"

[circlecity]

I think Rush had been pushing a campaign that year telling listeners not to talk to exit pollers.

[Flightdeck]

If the flaws didn’t lead to a single incorrect prediction for a state, then the media would have thought GWB won by lunchtime. Makes no sense.

[MarineBrat]

Every pollster or surveyor who has ever crossed my path has been politely told to go to hell.

[Venturer]

This is the pollsters already making excuses for their having skewed the polls from day one.

[cripplecreek]

Exit pollsters don’t go to any of the thousands of truly small towns in America.