Dean says biased exit polling questions make it seem like "one party has a monopoly on religion"

[madfloridian]

It appears the National Election Pool, made up of major media outlets, has been asking questions about religion mostly to the Republican voters.

The Carpetbagger Report points out that an interfaith group called Faith in Public Life has been pushing the fact for a long time that the exit polls are asking questions that make it appear Republicans are the only religious ones.

From The Carpetbagger Report:

My friends at Faith in Public Life, an interfaith group interested in broadening the religious agenda beyond issues favored by conservative Christians, have been doing all of the heavy lifting on this, and it’s beginning to generate attention. The group has been hounding NEP officials, arguing that exit polls have ignored “the bipartisan courtship of evangelical voters” and “perpetuated the misperception that all evangelical Christians are Republicans.”

This week, Howard Dean and the DNC picked up on the cause. “This bias in polling questions,” Dean said in a letter to the National Election Pool consortium, “has in turn shaped news coverage, making it appear that one party has a monopoly on religion in this race.”

And the response from the National Election Pool....basically...we decide what to ask, you answer. Sounds like they are the deciders after all.

What about Tuesday? The pool’s media coordinator, Jack Stokes, would not go beyond saying: “We choose the questions based on our internal editorial discussions. To protect the integrity of the process, we routinely do not talk publicly about what questions are on our surveys.”

On Election Day in November, exit polls will ask all voters the same questions. It will become apparent, for example, whether evangelicals experiencing Republican fatigue signaled that by voting Democratic or simply, as some polling for The New York Times suggests is more likely, by staying home.

In the meantime, the nine unhappy evangelical leaders fear a kind of vicious circle. Is “an outdated script” about religion and Republicans, in Mr. Dean’s phrase, unduly influencing the exit poll questions, the answers that are in turn influencing reporting and analysis by reporters, newscasters and pundits, which in turn influence future poll questions. Is campaign coverage and discussion being diverted from new developments among both evangelicals and Democrats?

Evangelical Democrats, Exit Polls and a Matter of Balance

Here is more from that link about the questions asked in the exit polls. From the New York Times.

Evangelical Democrats, Exit Polls and a Matter of Balance

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a born-again Christian votes in a Democratic primary and no exit poll records it, does it matter?

..." Exit polls cannot ask about everything. The questionnaires handed voters hurrying away from polling places cannot be any longer than two sides of a single sheet of paper. Pollsters have to make choices. And representatives of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NBC News and The Associated Press, who have formed the National Election Pool that has conducted state and national exit polls since 2003, have good reason to be tight-lipped about what goes into making those choices.

Still, it has not gone unnoticed that in five states, voters in Republican contests were asked their religious affiliation, and in four states they were asked how frequently they attended religious services. Voters in Democratic contests were asked those questions in only three states.

In four states, voters for Republican candidates were asked how much it mattered that a candidate shared their religious beliefs. Nowhere was that question put to voters for Democratic candidates.

And most notably, in every state voters in Republican caucuses and primaries were asked if they were born-again or evangelical Christians. Voters in Democratic caucuses and primaries were never asked.

It is a subtle thing to make the Republican Party look more religious. Whether it was intended that way or not, no way to know.

More from Howard Dean's letter here

Democrats are also people of faith. As a "big tent" party we embrace and represent people from a number of faith traditions. The religious diversity of our party reflects the rich diversity of our nation-and this includes those who don't identify with a religious tradition.

At most, Democrats so far have been asked which religion they identify with and how often they go to church. In Iowa and Michigan, Democrats weren't asked about religion at all. And this bias in polling questions has in turn shaped news coverage, making it appear that one party has a monopoly on religion in this race. A group of Evangelical leaders organized by the group Faith in Public Life wrote to you, objecting to this discrimination saying it "pigeonholes Evangelicals and reinforces the false idea that Evangelicals are beholden to one political party." Your response to this group --"that we have limited real estate on our questionnaires" - is insufficient.

So far, exit polls, media reports and the pundits have largely missed the story because they're using an outdated script which leaves the impression that religion and faith matter only to Republicans. As the presidential race turns to the 23 states and territories holding contests on February 5, I call on you to accurately depict our political process and honor the religious diversity of our country by including Democrats when asking about faith, values and religion.

Actually it is reinforcing a stereotype that religious people are mostly Republicans, and that is just not true.

[Warpy]

1. It's sure not true in my area

People here are Democrats whether or not they go to a church, which one they go to, how they feel about abortion, or anything else. This is a working class area and people here all know the GOP has never done a damned thing for anybody with a job except cut wages and then send the job overseas.

[madfloridian]

2. It was a deliberate misrepresentation of the GOP...

They were using the Christian right to get elected. They used wedge issues, and they succeeded so well that many Republicans are backing off. I have a Catholic Republican relative who is disgusted with the emphasis on abortion and gays.

Now it appears even the polling is skewed to encourage that misrepresentation.