Problems Found With '04 Exit Polls

Foxnews.com ^ | Wednesday, January 19, 2005 | AP

[MikefromOhio]

NEW YORK — Two firms that conducted Election Day exit polls for major news organizations reported Wednesday that they found a number of problems with the way the polls were carried out last year, resulting in estimates that overstated John Kerry's share of the vote.

Edison Media Research (search) and Mitofsky International (search) found that the Democratic challenger's supporters were more likely than President Bush's supporters to participate in exit polls interviews. They also found that more errors occurred in exit polls conducted by younger interviewers, and about half of the interviewers were 34 or under.

The polling firms laid out their findings to the consortium of news organizations, known as the National Election Pool. See the results of the study by clicking here (pdf).

The news organizations — ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News and The Associated Press — formed the consortium to get exit polling data for the 2004 election after a previous group known as the Voter News Service was disbanded.

In November 2000, flawed information from VNS twice led television networks to incorrectly declare a winner in the presidential race in Florida, the state that proved to be key to the outcome. And in the 2002 election, VNS was unable to provide its members and other clients with results from exit poll surveys.

[persecutor]

I see. Well then, nothing new here-just the usual bias.

[Paradox]

Thanks for the post. I had read bits and pieces of this information, and I misstated that it was Dukakis vs Reagan instead of Duki vs Bush1. However it does seem that, despite the protestations of the DUmmies, there is usually an error in these polls, biased towards the Dems, and this elections bias was no greater than in some other elections.

[Paradox]

Wow! That's more than a bit off, I'd say. ;-)

ROFL, right, Duki vs Bush1 :)