Posted on 10/25/2008 5:02:33 AM PDT by HalfFull
WASHINGTON, DC: On presidential election day, November 4, all eyes will be on what exit polls say voters did, and analysts fear they could give a rosier view of support for Democrat Barack Obama than reality.
The combination of the exclusion of early voting, and the greater tendency of young voters--more often Obama supporters--to take part in the surveys, could skew the results of the exit polls, which, taken just as voters leave polling booths, are the closely-watched first indicators of how the election is going.
In a National Journal article in March, Mark Blumenthal of pollster.com stressed that overestimation of Obama support was already seen in Democratic primaries earlier in the year.
In 18 of 20 states he reviewed, votes in favour of Obama, who at that time was duelling Hillary Clinton for the party's White House nomination, were overestimated by an average of seven points.
The gap was likely due to the fact that many of Obama's most fervent supporters, often younger, more politically active and in many cases better educated than Clinton's, were more inclined to respond to exit polls.
The same thing could happen on November 4 if Obama voters turn out to be markedly younger than those of his Republican rival John McCain.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 65 percent of voters aged 18-29 plan to vote for Obama, against 31 percent for McCain.
Meanwhile, pollsters themselves tend to be on the younger side.
"One problem (with polls) has been that interviewers tend to be young people, and older voters are less likely to respond to young pollsters--if most of the interviewers this year are again young people, that might lead to some overstatement of the Obama vote," said Herb Weisberg, a professor of political science at Ohio State University.
Weisberg also stressed the unknown factor: ballots cast before November 4--which researchers say could total as much as one-third of the national total.
"Another problem will be that many votes are being cast absentee (early) this year. Exit polls can't pick up these votes," Weisberg said.
"Some pollsters will undoubtedly do phone surveys the weekend before the election to ask people if they've already voted and how they've voted, as a means of trying to capture this effect."
Exit polls have been conducted since 2003 by the National Election Pool (NEP), a consortium of ABC News, Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News, which uses the Edison media research and Mitofsky International to carry out the post-voting voter questioning across the country.
On November 4, the Edison/Mitofsky team plans to carry out more than 100,000 interviews of voters at more than 1,000 US polling stations.
Concerns about the accuracy of this particular type of polling are nothing new.
In the 2004 presidential election, early exit polls gave a slight advantage to Democrat John Kerry, prompting some premature celebrating by Democrats and hand-wringing by Republicans, only to have George W. Bush eventually win the White House.
"People ought to be very skeptical of leaked (exit poll) results they might see between 5:00 pm Eastern Time (2200 GMT) and when the polls close on November 4," Blumenthal said. (AFP)
Thats correct but in 2004 the issue was the scandalously incorrect exit polling that served the same purpose...to suppress Republican turnout.
Perhaps this time the polls combined with the hubris of Obama supporters will keep the Dems home so they can get an early start on their post victory looting celebration. A little rain on election day wouldn't hurt either.
Point is, ignore everything you here on Nov 4 and vote, tell everyone you know to vote, drive them, hell, carry them there if you have to.
Another article hinting that the polls are wrong and Obama may not win. Keep them coming.
"One problem (with polls) has been that interviewers tend to be young people, and older voters are less likely to respond to young pollsters -- if most of the interviewers this year are again young people, that might lead to some overstatement of the Obama vote," said Herb Weisberg, a professor of political science at Ohio State University.
Hey guys BUY A CLUE. It's not the 'young pollsters' per se. It's that OLDER voters have .... J-O-B-S. They're voting on their way to work, their lunch hour (as in 60 minutes), or on the way home and are t-i-r-e-d (see: 'work').
I've never seen a pollster but I did, and if I had the time I'd talk to them. Now would I tell them the truth ... uh, NO :-)
In 2004 I remember Bill O'Reilly being completely flummoxed over the WV exit polls that he wouldn't report anything, just that something didn't look right (It showed Kerry waaaaaaaaay ahead and everyone, like Barone, knew that was BS). The actual Vote Totals finally proved that.
We got polled like crazy during the primaries.
Now, the phone’s got cob webs on it.
Given that Hussein is nursing a 1-3 point lead over McCain in that vast majority of the polls means that he is in big trouble!
What was his underformance rate in the primaries?
It will not be like Kerry supporters in 2004. It will be a terrible riot in every blue urban area. I expect firebombings, this time, if they lose and just a general selective trashing if they win.
My understanding is that NO exit polling can be released before the close of voting nationwide. This was put in place precisely because of what happened in 2004.
Am I wrong?
I don’t have the stats of the primarys but I know that prior to the primary, Hussein was running close to Hillary. But Hillary won the primary by a much larger margin than the polls.
IOW, a small lead for Hussein now is not good for him. For him to be really confident, he should be at least up by 15 points now.
While I hadn’t heard this I know from my own perspective I’ve got to believe it’s true. I only have cell phones now but when I had a land line I very rarely would take a poll when called.
I'm telling all the Obama supporters I know because of the tremendous number of people voting for Obama it's O.K. to wait a day and vote Wednesday so they don't become disenfranchised by being denied the vote by GOP voter suppression tactics !
You can bet the DNC is telling everyone to vote early and find exit pollsters to dampen West Coast Repubs.
Pray for W, McCuda and Our Troops
I know many of you are fearful of being called racist. We know it's not true and it's time to challenge that wrong and evil assumption. They want to intimidate you. That is not the American way. Do you want to know what's racist? Not criticizing a presidential candidate because he is black; not looking into his past participation in organizations engaged in wrong and evil behavior because he's black; not properly vetting him, because he's black; voting for someone simply because he's back. That's racist. Senator Obama is running for President, not Prom King. It's time for us to all man up.
Yeah, that is a good retort. I wish more of our ‘soft-shelled’ Republicans would pick up on it and ram it where ...
Yeah I can picture what it will be like on CNN, MSNBC and the big 3 networks starting around noon...
“Based on exit polls, we have called Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina for Barack Obama.”
Ah, but they did. That's the point.
I don’t buy that Obama supporters are ‘better educated’ .. they may have more schooling, but better educated? I think not.
Well, let's hope the get "schooled" on 11/5.
Typically, college students are hugh Obama supporters. I attribute that to immaturity and a total lack of real world experience that is shared by older Obama supporters, most of whom never ran a business.
Typically, these students are kids living off mom and dad’s largesse (or guilt), never had to earn a living wage, put a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs. It started in the 60s and has only gotten worse with passing generations. Now, there is a sense of entitlement.
When my kids were early 20s, they wanted to go out on their own. Ok, that’s fine by me. I asked if they could afford not ony the rent, but the groceries, phone, internet connection, cable tv, auto maintenance and insurance. Stupid move on my part, they stayed at home!
Ironically, in a recent poll some 60% of the "better educated" Obama supporters couldn't name his running mate or the current Vice President. Let's face it, to the college age crowd Obama has a certain appeal. They already get free education, free housing, free meals and free medical benefits. The fact that it all comes from the hard work and sacrifice of their parents is lost on them
Once they graduate and see the tax bite out of their wages they will "mature."
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