Posted on 11/03/2004 7:04:25 PM PST by quidnunc
By now it is well-known and a part of the 2004 election lore how the exit polls by the major television networks were wrong.
Likely this faux pas will assume its place among wartime stories alongside the mistaken calls on Floridas vote for one side and then for the other in the 2000 election. But the inaccuracies of the medias polling deserve more scrutiny and investigation.
Exit polls are almost never wrong. They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state.
So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave the polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries. When I worked on Vicente Foxs campaign in Mexico, for example, I was so fearful that the governing PRI would steal the election that I had the campaign commission two U.S. firms to conduct exit polls to be released immediately after the polls closed to foreclose the possibility of finagling with the returns. When the polls announced a seven-point Fox victory, mobs thronged the streets in a joyous celebration within minutes that made fraud in the actual counting impossible.
But this Tuesday, the networks did get the exit polls wrong. Not just some of them. They got all of the Bush states wrong. So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
bttt
I agree.
There is no other excuse or explanation.
This behavior may just be what incited us to push so hard to get out the RIGHT vote.
Backfire?
Well yeah, it was a videotape replay of the 2000 election. Suppress turnout in the Central Time Zone.
"The game's a foot!" said Dickie Morris.
ping
And the results showing Kerry with a large lead was intentionally "leaked" knowing that the liberal media would gladly trumpet the news, hopefully discouraging the Bush supporters like they did for the Florida panhandle in '00.
off topic: I am having a senior moment. Could someone direct me to the photo gallery please?
There is no smoking gun, but it's awfully suspicious.
CBS strikes again. I think its time that repubs denounce CBS as completely non credible and hostile to their party.
Matt Drudge and NRO.com are a part of the liberal media?
Well it's something they'll never be able to use again. And they were able to this time either after the 2000 mess.
AAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! Whadda' game!
The Fox Panel (a.k.a, "The Dream Team & Juan Williams") were dumbfounded that the precinct numbers weren't matching the exit polls. It got so bad that they started to make lame jokes about it. Why am I telling you this? Every single Freeper was probably watching Fox News instead of the MSM imbeciles.
Zogby's toast.
were should read weren't
It seems to me a few months ago I read that the actual questioning at the precincts for these exit polls would be handled by the AP. I remember thinking at the time I would not trust them. But I have found no reference to them in any of these stories. Am I nuts? Were they not involved?
Melba
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