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Larry Sabato, the respected political scientist from the University of Virginia, admitted to Fox News' "Fox & Friends" this morning that he was "steamed" about the exit polls yesterday. Sabato joined Dick Morris in questioning the results of the surveys, which showed John Kerry with a decisive victory. Story Continues Below He said the exit polling service had to "answer for" the inaccuracies. Sabato said the unusual mistakes were way off base. He noted one exit poll had Kerry winning Pennsylvania by 19 points. Results so far show Kerry winning Pennsylvania by a tiny margin, smaller than President Bush's margin...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Exit polling, long a key indicator of election trends, emerged on Wednesday as a big loser in the 2004 election after Internet pundits latched onto early data to mistakenly report a commanding lead for Democrat John Kerry in key states. The use of the raw, preliminary data on freewheeling Web sites triggered a brief but doomed wave of euphoria among Kerry supporters and a sharp drop on Wall Street. The data also wound up being telegraphed by mainstream media in TV reports. The truth was that in the end Kerry did not win states like Ohio...

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...

"The news of the early exit poll numbers sent shockwaves through everything...the internet, talk radio, mainstream media, and most likely some mid-day voter turn-out. If Kerry truly had been up big in every single battleground state then indeed it should have ended much differently. Dick Morris just said on O'Reilly that "exit polls sometimes miss percentages - but they never make up results that aren't there". "By doing so," he went on to imply, "it seems to indicate that someone was manipulating the results or the process." He went on to explain different ways it could have been done....

So let me just ask you a question, folks: Are you feeling pretty good today? I'll bet most of you are. Well, what an afternoon and night and morning it has been. Senator Kerry has called President Bush to concede. Senator Kerry will announce his concession at one o'clock from Faneuil Hall in Boston, right in the middle of this program, ladies and gentlemen -- where that concession deserves to be. Greetings and welcome. It's the Rush Limbaugh program. It's the EIB Network. Our telephone number, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address is Rush@eibnet.com. Before we go any further, I want...

The following email from a anonymous very knowledgeable source seems to summarize yesterday quite effectively:'The people behind the Voter News 2000 disaster and the complete collapse of the VNS in 2002 must be overjoyed with the utterly dreadful performance of the much ballyhooed National Election Pool.'They f***** up the national poll, countless state polls, (Virginia a tossup?) and God knows what elese. The entire mainstream news media goes on a completely misguided goose chase for SEVEN FREAKING HOURS from 2PM to 9PM.Since few of them have no idea how to read a county vote table, many of then kept pumping...

Okay Time to fess up.... The initial exit polls had me so depressed i couldn't think straight. Anybody else? C'mon ye of little faith...confess!

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow Jones industrial average fell on Tuesday in a sharp reversal that trimmed gains in other indexes as Internet sites suggested exit polls had Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) ahead of President Bush (news - web sites) in key states in the U.S. presidential race. Shares of defense, pharmaceutical, health care and medical technology companies led a reversal that sharply trimmed gains and moved major indexes lower at about 2:48 p.m. after traders heard about the exit poll speculation on the Internet. "Apparently the blogs are saying that Kerry is ahead in one...

Tue Nov 2, 5:32 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Political web sites gave Senator John Kerry an early lead over President George W. Bush  in key states in the presidential race, jumping the gun on the US networks by citing what they said were pirated early exit polls. "Kerry Finds Comfort in First Batch of Exit Polls," was the headline on the popular web site drudgereport.com. Another well-known political web site, Slate.com, posted what it said were early exit poll numbers which had Kerry leading Bush in the crucial states of Florida and Ohio and by a wide margin...

With all the justified giddiness over Dubya's re-election, we nevertheless need to keep pressure on the unfinished business surrounding issues that dusted up during the campaign, such as...

DICK MORRIS: It takes a deliberate act of fraud and bias to get an exit poll wrong. DID CBS TRY TO SABOTAGE PRESIDENT BUSH. . . AGAIN?   It takes a deliberate act of fraud and bias to get an exit poll wrong. EXIT-POLL OUTRAGE DICK MORRISNovember 3, 2004   MITOFSKY INTERNATIONAL 1776 Broadway - Suite 1708 New York, NY 10019 mitofsky@mindspring.com Phone: 212 980-3031 Fax: 212 980-3107   Mitofsky International is a survey research company founded by Warren J. Mitofsky in 1993. Its primary business is conducting exit polls for major elections around the world. It does this...

Mr. Bush received support from 53 percent of voters 60 and over, compared to 46 percent for Kerry, according to CBS News exit polls. ...... CBS News National Exit Poll results are based on interviews with 13,531 voters. The sampling error is plus or minus 1 point.]

Morning Edition, November 3, 2004 · The youth vote made less of an impact this election than expected. NPR Senior Correspondent Juan Williams joins NPR's Renee Montagne for a discussion on exit polls and voter demographics.

IN the end, George W. Bush won the election. But the networks were afraid to report that fact to us because their exit polls showed Kerry winning. Conditioned to believe that exit polls could never be wrong, the news anchors were left stuttering and stammering. Before the polls closed, a friend called me with the results of the ABC-TV tracking polls reflecting a Kerry win in all but one of the swing states. Like the network anchors on election night, I concluded that Kerry would win in a walk. But then the returns came in. In state after state, it...

DID CBS TRY TO SABOTAGE PRESIDENT BUSH. . . AGAIN?   MITOFSKY INTERNATIONAL 1776 Broadway - Suite 1708 New York, NY 10019 mitofsky@mindspring.com Phone: 212 980-3031 Fax: 212 980-3107   Mitofsky International is a survey research company founded by Warren J. Mitofsky in 1993. Its primary business is conducting exit polls for major elections around the world. It does this work exclusively for news organizations. Mitofsky has directed exit polls and quick counts since 1967 for almost 3,000 electoral contests in United States, Mexico, Russia and the Philippines. His record for accuracy is well known. "This caution in projecting winners...

The Seven Hour Presidency: The following email from an anonymous but very knowledgeable source seems to summarize yesterday quite effectively: [T]he VNS [leadership] from 2000 (disaster) and 2002 (complete collapse of VNS) must be overjoyed with the utterly dreadful performance of the much ballyhooed National Election Pool [which conducted the 2004 exit polls]. They f*** up the national poll, countless state polls (Virginia is a toss-up, I don't think so!) and God knows what else. The entire news media goes off on a completelymisguided goose chase (or goose hunt!) for SEVEN HOURS (from 2-9pm), and since few of them have...

When the exit polling data showing Sen. John Kerry performing strongly leaked out this afternoon, it sent Wall Street into a tailspin. But as actual vote totals came in after the polls closed, it appeared the exit polls were inaccurate. The exit polls made it more difficult for television newscasters to project winners because of the conflicting data. Exit polls are surveys of voters leaving the polling places and are designed to provide data about what voters are thinking, rather than to provide evidence of trends in vote counts. Political websites gave Kerry an early lead over President Bush in...

IN the end, George W. Bush won the elec tion. But the net works were afraid to report that fact to us because their exit polls showed Kerry winning. Conditioned to believe that exit polls could never be wrong, the news anchors were left stuttering and stammering. [snip]Like the network anchors on election night, I concluded that Kerry would win in a walk. But then the returns came in. In state after state, it became clear that Bush was running ahead of his performance in 2000: first, Kentucky, three points better, then Indiana, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, all...

<p>Election 2004 has been rocked with first wave of exit polls which show Kerry competitive in key states, campaign and media sources tell DRUDGE.... National Election Pool -- representing six major news organization -- shows Kerry in striking distance -- with small lead -- in Florida and Ohio.. MORE...</p>