Is Mitofsky a partisan (like Wally O'Dell at Diebold)? Anybody know?

[karlrschneider]

...

[goldengreek]

1. I thought he wasn't

But he certainly seems to have sold out; either that or was terrorized into submission, that's for sure. His answers to our questions, and unwillingness to share data, are disturbing.

[Straight Shooter]

2. Well, he does squirm like a Republican worm

His canned reply to my email some time ago:

There is nothing being hidden by us. We are preparing a report to the people we work for. Hopefully it will be finished shortly and it will be made public. I am not beholden to any political party. Nor do I believe the exit polls will quiet your fears about the system, whether or not we release the raw data. They are not useful for that purpose.

Maybe he's just beholden to Little Boots (bush) :shrug:

[DARE to HOPE]

3. I am just shocked! HOW can he say "No!"??

How dare he walk away from a Congressional inquiry--doesn't Conyers have subpoena power? What about Arnebeck's case, I thought that they were making it an issue of discovery in a federal court of law?!!

How DARE he turn his back on the American people!!! He KNOWS the truth here. "Proprietary," indeed.

[goldengreek]

4. He's not helping with the inquiry?

I didn't know about that. He's up to something for sure.

[bemis12]

6. It's not an official Congressional inquiry

It's just the Dems. If it WERE a Congressional Inquiry, they could subpeona the data. Any cooperation in the Conyers hearing is strictly voluntary.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. Maybe he doesn't want to let people know what precincts he used

for his sampling? I wouldn't be surprise if he favored pro-Bush precincts?

[Quakerfriend]

8. He actually told Conyers in a letter that

"He is not at liberty to release them (ie, exit polls)".
.......something about how that is up to the networks. Unbelievable that we are not all rioting over this alone!

[Zan_of_Texas]

7. Look at who he's working for.

Big media consortium.

Look at the history of VNS, his predecessor -- very murky organization, no verification that they even DID exit polling, the whole thing collapsed and there were NO national exit polls provided on the day of the mid-term election in 2002, or days or weeks thereafter.

Let's say Mitosfky is a craftsman, but also that he likes to get paid by the big boys. He can do a good exit polling job, but then when the "real" vote comes out at variance to his exit polls, he has to do a good con job -- fast shuffle -- "oh, there were too many women in the sample!", or he will not get this job again.

[Quakerfriend]

9. I am going to dig up everything I can find on Mitofsky

Find out just who owns him!

[Zan_of_Texas]

10. Mitofsky

Networks Vow Caution in Calling Election
TV Executives Institute Reforms to Avoid Repeat of Erroneous 2000 Pronouncement

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 12, 2004; Page A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25309-2004Oct11.html

Four years after the biggest embarrassment in the history of television news, network executives are vowing to do better on Nov. 2.
"No one wants a repeat of what happened, when we became part of the story of election night," said NBC News Vice President Bill Wheatley.
"We all learned a lesson four years ago," said Fox News Senior Vice President John Moody. "There will probably be an abundance of caution in most newsrooms, at least in ours."

What ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox did, as anyone who was watching well remembers, was to project an Al Gore victory in Florida on the basis of exit polls, and then to award Florida -- and the presidency -- to George W. Bush six hours later. But the race was so agonizingly close that it triggered a 36-day recount battle, and the news division presidents later apologized at a House hearing. After the fiasco -- and a complete meltdown in exit polling for the 2002 election -- the five networks and the Associated Press dissolved their exit poll consortium, Voter News Service. They have hired two firms -- Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International -- to handle this year's surveys, and have turned over the actual vote-counting to the AP.

On election night, Edison's Joe Lenski and partner Warren Mitofsky will pore over the data in a third-floor office above a former Woolworth's store in Somerville, N.J. Every Thursday since the Fourth of July, they have been running "stress tests" on their upgraded computer equipment, simulating the battlefield conditions of a 50-state election in the space of five hours. Not only has the system -- part of what insiders say is a $10 million operation -- functioned well, Lenski said, but all went smoothly during 23 primary contests.

"A lot of stuff worked in the spring, and that gives you more confidence going into November," Lenski said. Although Lenski and Mitofsky, both highly regarded veterans who have done polling for CBS and CNN, will make recommendations about calling states, each news organization will make its own decisions.
MORE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His colleague, Lenski, used to work for him, it turns out.

Media Group in Deal to Conduct Exit Polls

<http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030204_2143.html>

The six news organizations that disbanded Voter News Service last month signed a contract Tuesday with two veteran polling experts to conduct exit surveys of voters during the 2004 presidential election. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press announced they had reached an agreement with Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky International and Joseph Lenski of Edison Media Research. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The new consortium, called the National Elections Pool, has less than a year to build an exit polling system in time for the 2004 presidential primaries. Exit poll information is used to help project winners in individual elections and provide information on why people voted the way they did. Separately, the consortium members will rely on the AP for counting the vote on election nights, said Linda Mason, vice president of public affairs for CBS. VNS had its own vote-counting operation.

The media organizations disbanded VNS following two major failures in two years. VNS provided flawed information that led television networks to prematurely call the 2000 presidential election for George W. Bush and was unable to provide exit poll data during last November's off-year election. Mason said the news organizations decided to join together to start the National Elections Pool instead of developing their own systems because of the expense involved. The same financial concerns had led the news organizations to form VNS a decade ago.

Mitofsky and Lenski have spent many years in the business. Mitofsky pioneered a sample precinct polling system while working with CBS and ran a predecessor of VNS. Lenski worked for him before starting his own firm. Mitofsky built a limited exit polling operation for CNN during the 2002 election. "We're looking forward to working with Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International," said David Tomlin, assistant to the president of AP. "All of us have our work cut out for us, because the start of the primary season is less than a year away. <SNIP>