WP: New Woes Surface in Use of Estimates (exit polls "behaving badly")

[DeepModem Mom]

Exit Polls
New Woes Surface in Use of Estimates

By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 4, 2004; Page A29


An Election Day filled with unexpected twists ended with a familiar question: What went wrong with the network exit polls?

In two previous national elections, the exit polls had behaved badly. Premature calls by the networks in Florida led to a congressional investigation in 2000. Two years later, a computer meltdown resulted in no release of data on Election Day.

On Tuesday, new problems surfaced: a 2 1/2-hour data blackout and samples that at one point or another included too many women, too few Westerners, not enough Republicans and a lead for Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry in the national survey that persisted until late in the evening....

***

Election Day 2004 was a roller-coaster ride for the two presidential candidates and for the political press corps. Successive waves of the national exit poll in the afternoon and evening reported that Kerry had a two- or three-percentage-point lead over Bush nationally and in several key states, including Ohio.

Preliminary exit poll results had leaked throughout the day and were posted on a number of Web sites, including the widely viewed Drudge Report site, which added to the confusion and fanned the media frenzy.

To compound the problem further, a server at Edison/Mitofsky malfunctioned shortly before 11 p.m. The glitch prevented access to any exit poll results until technicians got a backup system operational at 1:33 a.m. yesterday.

The crash occurred barely minutes before the consortium was to update its exit polling with the results of later interviewing that found Bush with a one-point lead. Instead, journalists were left relying on preliminary exit poll results released at 8:15 p.m., which still showed Kerry ahead by three percentage points.

It was only after the polls had closed in most states and the vote count was well underway in the East that it became clear that Bush was in a stronger position in several key battlegrounds, including Ohio, than early exit polls suggested....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23580-2004Nov3.html

[glitch]

1. Eyah - uh huh. Riiight. Naughty exit polls! nt

[billbuckhead]

2. They're covering their trail

[Rose Siding]

13. Yep

I hear that other countries use the exit polls to verify the results of elections, rather than as a media fascination.

[jobycom]

3. Ah, the exit polls have behaved badly since Bush has been involved...

Kind of makes you go "hmmm."

I wonder two things: One, if the exit polls were so unreliable, why are the networks using them to tell us what's wrong with the Democratic Party?

Two, why do they consider them wrong in 2000 when they predicted how people TRIED to vote, even if somehow those votes got overvoted?

Okay, and three, will the media ever do what the media is supposed to do and question whether maybe the exit polls were right and something else was wrong? You know the old Sherlock Holmes credo, "Eliminate all false answers, and the answer that remains, no matter how improbably, is true."

Our media won't question the improbably. They won't make anyone angry. Who was the journalist who said "Journalism should make those in power angry. If it says what they want it to say, it isn't journalism, it's advertising?"

Both of those quotes were approximated. My memory is tired and my Google skills are on vacation.

[KayLaw]

14. Yep

It's just the darnedest thing, isn't it?

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

4. Our new "urban legend"

I was listening to NPR on Electio Day and they were prattling on and on about how wrong the exit polls were in Florida for 2000. The problem is, of course, that the exit polls predicted Gore to be the winner -- and he clearly won in the recount completed several months later.

So why are the pundits talking about how "wrong" the exit polls are, when clearly they are accurate? Because it helps their corporate master to steal the next election. Exit polls are an accurate check of voter sentiment on election day, and if the actual results don't co-relate with the exit polls, you have strong evidence of fraud.

[librechik]

5. FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD!! INVESTIGATE THAT!!!!!

A*holes

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Sure, and chimp will "reveal the truth about WMD" too.

[Wright Patman]

7. What has never been done

and now should be in light of all this conflicting commentary is a scientific poll of Ohioans and Floridians, who are willing to affirm that they had voted on Nov. 2, conducted on the day after the election to see how closely it compares with the Diebold results.

None of this is going to change anything, but it is amazing how quickly Charlie Gibson comes to the defense of Diebold and the GOP here.

[LibDemAlways]

11. Ohio uses mostly punchcards

and saves the most decrepit machines for the minority areas. Greg Palast called the rabid repuke SOS's office in Ohio and asked for the over and undervote totals. Was hung up on twice. Also said that untold numbers of minority voters were challenged at the polls and given provisional ballots, who knows how many of which will simply be tossed.

I heard Palast on Pacifica Radio in LA this am. His article "What Happened in Ohio?" is must-reading on tompaine.com. His conclusion: Kerry won.

[Philostopher]

16. Also, many people were discouraged from voting

because of long lines in the districts using the decrepit machines. The weather went bad around 5:00 -- many people didn't want to get into long lines, knowing it would take hours and hours and they still might not get to vote.

If anybody wants to blame somebody, they can just blame Ken Blackwell -- he's the one who did this, and he did it on purpose.

[yardwork]

20. Diebold machines were deployed all over Ohio to Democratic precincts

My family encountered problems with Diebold machines and voter suppression in Ohio.

There is good reason to believe that this election was stolen.

[GoBlue]

8. Just coincidence

that things always go wrong when the Bushies are involved? The mainstream media is so damn lazy.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

17. The mainstream media is way beyond lazy. They are the problem

They are biased because they are corrupt, especially the broadcast media and cable news.

The only reason that someone as lazy and ignorant as W can get elected president is that the media is creating false images and protecting him.

Plus there is the right-wing media that creates all kinds of noise when Kerry mentions that the Cheney's daughter is a lesbian and is silent about 380 tons of explosives disappearing.

A significant number of americans think Rush Limbaugh is journalism. More than 50% of Americans probably think Crossfire is journalism.

It's the attempt by corporate media to make news coverage a profitable business instead of a public service as well as the agenda of the corporations that own the media outlets that corrupts news coverage.

This corruption is why many of us think that W supporters are simply idiots. They aren't. They're just misinformed to the point of brainwashing.

[Beetwasher]

9. DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!!!

Just accept your new Republican Overlords and their god given mandate! It's for the best!

[farmbo]

10. Who you gonna believe? The Diebold main terminal...or your lyin' eyes?

eom

[Village Idiot]

12. The mediawhores keep hitting this over and over...

so that people will believe the exit polls were flawed....They never mention the fact that there were many states where exit polls were correct to 0.1%...and those with a wide margin of error were either Touch Screen or Punch Card states.


Repeat ANYTHING often enough...

[jrthin]

15. Hmmmmmm! Have

the considered the fact that it may not be the exit polls but he voting machines?

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

18. I'm sure they've considered it

They won't be reporting it, however. See my post on the media above.

[democraticinsurgent]

19. I worked as an exit poller...

and while i cannot attest to the methodology used, i can verify that this was extremely well run on the grass roots level.

- i was called to be sure my materials arrived safely
- i was called to be reminded of my phone training session
- i was called the next day after training to see if i had questions and /or feedback
- i was required to make 4 phone calls during election day at appointed times. it wouldn't have surprised me if i got busy signals or put on hold, but in fact ALL four times my call was handled immediately.

bottom line: a very impressive, well organized effort on the part of Edison/Mitofsky.

one thing i'd like clarified: when was the final exit poll report released? is this the one that's being quoted now, or was it modified, and if so, by whom?

And if there was a late wave of Bush vote, why was that so? Who were those people? Or was this when the "adjustments" were made to the black boxes?