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 Florida’s vote for one side and then for the other in the 2000 election. But the inaccuracies of the media’s 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 Fox’s 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-TV’s 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 ...
Drudge didn't do the exit polling. He reported it.
I believe "exit polling" has the potential to violate the spirit of secret balloting. Puts too much pressure on people to divulge what should be kept private. Secret ballot protects people from being unduly influenced. This is how "exit polling" is being used -- to influence the vote. No other reason.
aw, gee, dat's tuff
This probably deserves its own thread, but there is a big question which is whether there is a reason to pursue exposing Kerry for the fraud he was. What impact would it make, would it be seen as "piling on" or legitimate. Must consider the greater good.
No doubt in my mind that they might try it, but we need to prove it.
A couple of pollsters on Fox this afternoon, and one of them was saying that he believe the polls had been "slammed" intentionally by Dem operatives, and then leaked to the media.
Said it would be easy (if you knew where pollsters were going to be) to send in a bunch of people, have them walk into and then out of the building (they wouldn't need to vote), but then volunteer to take the "survey" (poll).
Obvious voter-manipulation to suppress the vote, particularly Ohio - now we know why...
Exit polls are a good measure of accountability against fraud. They should just wait until every poll is closed to report the results.
I suspect the MSM was in cahoots with the Demonrats on this.
Tri-Cities
BINGO!
I agree with you.
OK, I'll bite...what's a DD214??
Exit polls as a accountability measure against fraud??
Come on, the poll is less reliable and more subject to abuse than is the voteing!!
This is not Mexico. Elections in this country are very well run (yes, even in Forida), and there is no way I would believe an exit pollster over official results.
Case in point: This years Exit polls.
They were determined to steal this election by hook or by crook. It was a massive assault. Think about it for two years, we had democrats running for the Presidency. For two years, all we heard was negatives toward President Bush. There were the books slamming President Bush. There were ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. There were the proganda movies, television shows, and talk shows etc. The only thing we had was the internet (THANK YOU JIM ROBINSON), talk radio (THANK YOU PAPA RUSH), and some what FOX. We knew from the tricks pulled last election were not accidents but planned. When I heard the exit polls, I knew there was a conspriracy. Thank God, Conservatives are intelligent, smart, and was not going to allow the elites to run roughshod over us again....
BM (big media) was predicting 120 million or more turnout. This exit poll crap may be the very reason more didn't vote! Liberals are always lookin' for an excuse to not do what they've 'promised' to do, to shirk their responsibilities, or procrastinate.
I have felt from the start of the Dem campaign that it was a complete fabrication and based on disinformation from the git-go.
sKerry and Breck boy lied every time they opened their mouths.
I voted early yesterday morning in a safe Bush state. What makes me so mad is this bogus "exit polling" could have and possibly did influence some Bush supporters from voting. I know it depressed me when I read about it on FR. I was down, knot in my stomach
down.
I wouldn't even watch TV last night except for when my wife had on Special Report. I watched a little of the Toledo-Miami of Ohio game, then returned to FR. The later it got, the better I felt. I finally signed off at 1:45 AM since Kerry-Edwards wouldn't concede.
At the very least, whoever was responsible for this misinformation should be dosed daily with castor oil.
It was the AP. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000670974
Here is the money quote from that article:
The AP will have stringers calling in results from each of the nation's 4,600 counties. Hundreds of people will be assigned to input the information into computers, and others will monitor the systems to guard against problems. In all, a total of about 5,500 people will be working on AP's vote count on election night.
"We have real confidence in the reliability of the AP's vote count," said Kathleen Carroll, AP senior vice president and executive editor. "We also have enormous confidence in the journalists in the field and the bureau chiefs who will be using the data and their experience when they call winners in the race."
Lying sack of SH@T!
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