Free Republic

TERENCE SMITH: By any measure, last night was a nightmare for the news media, especially for network television. To help us sort out what happened and why, we are joined by Marvin Kalb, executive director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy; and by Warren Mitofsky, president of Mitofsky International, who is one of the founders of election exit polling. Last night, he advised CNN and CBS on their projections and retractions. Gentlemen, welcome to you both. Warren Mitofsky, you have been doing this exit polling on election night for years. What went wrong last...

"AP becomes sole source for vote-counting on election day" "Six major US media organizations such as ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and the AP have formed the National Election Poll(NEP) to replace VNS. This time, the media organizations signed contracts with two veteran polling companies -- Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research that will conduct exit surveys for the Nov. 2 presidential election. The two polling companies agreed that the AP, which has been counting the vote since its founding in 1848, would be their sole source for vote counts. Each of the news organizations will use data...

So if this poll is so sophisticated, why can't we rely on the leaked mid-day “numbers” that will soon spread like wildfire across the web? 1) It is still just a survey – Even when complete, an exit poll still has the same random variation as any other survey. NEP says typical state exit polls will have a sampling error when complete of +/- 4% at a 95% confidence level, and +/- 3% for the national exit poll. Even if comparable to the final numbers – which they are decidedly not – the mid-day leaked numbers would have much greater...

The Exit Poll CharadeWhy Slate is publishing the exit poll numbersBy Jack ShaferUpdated Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, at 10:56 AM PT As this item posts, the first raw exit poll data are streaming from the National Election Pool consortium owned by the Associated Press and the five television networks (CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, and CNN) to their news divisions and to the newsrooms of NEP subscribers—big city newspapers and other broadcasters. These early exit poll numbers do not divine the name of the winner. Instead, regard these numbers as a sportswriter does the line scores from the fourth inning of...

EXITS--BETTER [KJL] Kerry +4 in Ohio, I'm hearing from good multiple sources. I'd nix the earlier report. MESSAGE: GET OUT THE W VOTE IN OHIO.

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Lancaster County voters, turning out in massive numbers, gave President Bush a wide but not unexpected lead over Democrat John Kerry early this morning, a New Era exit poll found. The Republican president grabbed a more than 2-to-1 margin over Kerry, the survey of 167 voters at 23 polling places found. In all, 70 percent said they chose Bush, and 30 percent said they chose Kerry. Turnout was extraordinarily heavy across the county. At some of the polling places, the line of voters was 100 — and in one case 200 — deep, the wait at...

VIA: DRUDGE Campaigns await for first wave of exit polls!

Exit Polls From Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International: The Exclusive Source for Election Day Information The major news organizations have hired Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International to conduct the official exit polls for all 50 states and the District of Columbia for the 2004 elections. We offer exit poll data that was previously provided by Voter News Service (VNS).

The networks have vowed caution tonight, adhering to a strict new set of standards meant to discourage eager broadcasters from dramatically declaring early winners to garner high ratings and big audiences.     No one wants a repeat of the 2000 presidential race.     Two years in the making, the National Election Pool (NEP) has arrived, boasting overhauled computer systems, stringent vote-counting and polling techniques, multiple safeguards and assurances that no victors will be projected in any race until the last polling precinct is shut up tight. he NEP replaces the Voter News Service, the old consortium consisting of ABC, NBC, CBS,...

From an e-mail sent mid-afternoon on November 7th 2000. I'm putting it here now so you can see that there's a plus/minus factor in exit polling, so if someone says tomorrow afternoon that Kerry is 2 points ahead in the Florida exit polls, it may mean nothing. I've enclosed the actual exit polling data, followed in brackets by the actual final result and the absolute value of the error in margin. Bush Gore FL 47 50 [49-49; 3] NH 48 47 [48-47; 0] WV 54 46 [52-46; 2] IL 43 52 [43-55; 3] ME 44 48 [44-49; 1] MI 46...

NEW YORK - News organizations will be relying on The Associated Press for a quick and accurate count of votes cast in Tuesday's elections, from top of the ticket races like president, Senate and governor, down through state legislature. The AP will use a network of nearly 5,000 stringers, who will be stationed at county election centers in every state. They will phone in results to one of several vote entry centers, where clerks will enter the numbers into AP's computerized tabulation system. Those returns, from about 6,000 races in all, will then be delivered to newspapers, Web sites and...

In Florida, 30% of registered voters said they already had cast their ballots, using early voting sites and absentee ballots. They supported Kerry 51%-43% http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-10-31-poll-x_x.htm

In many states (including battlegrounds like Florida) in-person early voting began weeks ago. Today one in five voters nationwide say they have already cast their ballot in some way, and still more were planning to do so before Tuesday when interviewed Thursday through Saturday. 13% of likely voters volunteered that they already voted when we asked if they were likely to vote this year; the remainder told us that they had done so when we asked the method by which were voting. Early voters split about evenly, one-third each between Democrats, Republicans and Independents. They are a bit older: one-quarter...

Channel 10 in Miami is currently having a round table discussion (Michael Putney, Host) discussing Florida's role in the Presidential Election... They were going back and forth...and they had a political reporter on (didn't catch his name) who said that he had just gotten off the phone with a Top Republican and the Pub told him that in the early voting Bush is ahead by 125,000 votes or so....when he was asked of what evidence he had...The reporter said that they looked at the demographics of the voters and PARTY REGISTRATION and that gave them a "conservative" estimate of a...

14 percent of likely voters now say they've already cast their ballots, and that could be an understatement since it's a volunteered rather than a prompted response. Their preferences have narrowed to 50-47 percent between Bush and Kerry, very near the contest overall. Early voters are older than others — twice as likely to be retirement age — and most prevalent in the West.

Ok. Here are the official exit poll questions. Are you MaleFemale. Are you WhiteBlackHispanic/Latino AsianOther In today's election for president, did you just vote for John Kerry (Dem)George W. Bush (Rep)Ralph Nader (Ind)Other: Who?_______________Did not vote for president When did you finally decide for whom to vote in the presidential election? Just todayIn the last three daysSometime last weekDuring the last monthBefore that Was your vote for president mainly For you candidateAgainst his opponent (Local U.S. Senate race. DeMint or Tenenbaum) To which age group do you belong 18-2425-2930-3940-4445-4950-5960-6465-7075 or over Do you approve or disapprove of the way George...

The early voting in Florida has been hot and heavy all week. A constant flow of people at all polling places. I think many of these people are Bush voters. Now the big question.....Will this skew the exit polling come election day? With many more Republicans having voted early. Will the press first call Florida for Kerry based on exit data of Nov. 2 only ...then call it for Bush when the votes get counted....leading us to another Florida fiasco...Media Created...

I am just wondering if there is any "exit polling" being done in Florida. Both camps are testing out their GOTV strategies so this might be an early indication....

During election night I want to have the latest exit poll data for states like Ohio and Florida-- does anyone know of any exit poll services? I am mostly interested in Florida and Ohio but I'd probably purchase data for all 50 states if available. Any suggestions would be appreciated

TV Networks to Test New Exit Polling System National Election Pool Deeming Cautious on Elections 2004 By DAVID BAUDER, AP NEW YORK (Oct. 14) - Determined to avoid a repeat of high-profile failures in 2000 and 2002, television networks will rely on new systems on Nov. 2 to help project election winners and analyze why voters made their choices. And they have turned to The Associated Press to count the vote for them. The six news organizations that have formed the National Election Pool - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and the AP - say they're confident things...