Posted on 11/07/2006 5:28:30 AM PST by meg88
Two-by-two, polling specialists from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press will go into rooms in New York and Washington shortly before noon Tuesday.
Their cellphones and BlackBerrys will be confiscated; proctors will monitor the doors; for the next five hours, these experts will pore over exit-poll data from across the country.
If all goes well, only when they emerge from their cloisters will the legions of ravenous political bloggers have any chance of getting their hands on the earliest indication of which party will end up controlling Congress.
The extraordinary security is a result of mix-ups that prompted grumbling about the accuracy of exit polls after the 2004 presidential election: Bloggers posted data from early exit polls, incorrectly calling some states for Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry and indicating that he would unseat President Bush.
Exit polls will be available for all the key Senate races, giving an early picture of whether it could flip to the Democrats.
The data are collected through the National Election Pool, a consortium made up of the three traditional networks, CNN, Fox News and AP.
In previous years, numbers were made available to the news organizations in waves via secure Web sites. In 2004, the first wave of data went out around 2 p.m. and quickly leaked onto the Internet.
That's what brought about this year's sequestering of the news organization's representatives. The only communication they'll be allowed to make out of the so-called quarantine rooms before 5 p.m. will be to warn news organizations about potential problems in the data.
But at 5 p.m., waves of exit-poll data will begin flowing to newsrooms via limited-access Web sites. For the bloggers, the scramble will be on to get the data first, hoping for an email from a friendly source.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Then you have to factor in just human nature. They'll have information, and they'll want to share it.
Very true. The closest they might come to keep from leaking is if their results look like the DBM pundits blew it big time, (which I think they have)and the RAT tidal wave turns out to be less than puddle whimper, they may not be so eager to "leak" any exit poll results...but then, they would probably just make it up as they go....like they usually do.
From my perspective It's going to be a long night before we get ACCURATE feedback no matter what projections leak.
I agree. Exit polls are IMHO no more reliable than a CNN/CBS/ABC/etc poll, as was evidenced in 2004.
If you have not already done so, GET OUT AND VOTE PLEASE!!!
Saw my first one today.
Horse manure!
Those "mix-ups" were a deliberate attempt to sway the election.
It was not an accuracy problem with the 2004 exit polls, but a bias problem.
I don't recall the bloggers calling any states. IIRC, the networks called the states early because they were afraid they would get scooped by the blogs. Can anyone shed more light on this aspect?
Somebody get a giant pooper-scooper... The DBM is festering in the sunlight, and it stinks!
Are you telling me you didn't actually vote for Captain Kirk in 2004? I'm SHOCKED! ;-P
I wonder if Drudge will post exit polls as he has done in the past?
"Few people want to...stay for several minutes and talk to a pollster."
Those who have nothing better to do don't mind. And those with nothing better to do are....well, you get the picture.
"Exit Poll Secrecy Measures Aim to Plug Leaks to Blogs..."'cuse me... Have you seen flies refused a blob of sh*t???
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