Tin Foil Thoughts: Do they know who is gonna win before the election ?

[kentuck]

I'm listening to Chris Matthews, Tom Brokaw and others talking as if they already know who the winner is and the polls aren't even closed yet?? I'm getting very uncomfortable conspiratorial feelings that it is all a fix. Why even vote at all? They know who they want to win ahead of time and play all of us citizens like fools. Until we get paper ballots with honest people to count them, I do not think I can ever trust our political system. The propaganda system is just too obvious. Sorry. I am not happy with the way our elections are held. After all, it doesn't matter how many people vote - all that matters is who counts the votes.

[frank frankly]

1. we are teetering on the edge of outright facism

someone page George Orwell quick.

the media keeps getting worse. no, they shouldn't know yet.

[cthrumatrix]

2. The ploy might be to paint the picture of "why bother to vote".....

That's such an good question....I'm sure they'll answer for us later.

[jenk]

3. or, we're so far behind that they know a comeback isn't possible

.

[kentuck]

14. This has been going on for at least the last three hours....

The exit polls, real or imagined, that certain members of the media have been pushing relentlessly. If there was anyone that had not voted and was debating whether or not to go tothe polls, I'm sure many have been convinced it is useless to make the effort. That is the appearance they are transmitting over "our" airwaves.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. two possiblities

They do and the more they repeat it the less people will protest
since they will just accept it.

They do not, but are just talking from wishful thinking and if this
becomes a shit storm, we may see them eat their words

[dflprincess]

7. A third possiblity is that

they know what the exit polls are saying.

[Nederland]

9. Ding Ding Ding

We have a winner. Sad that sometimes the truth is obvious but we'd rather believe in a conspiracy...

[Cha]

5. I know! What's up with that? they shouldn't be saying anything

until the votes are Counted. I'm hoping they will have egg all over their faces.

[MoonRiver]

6. This is the end of a very long road for me. I will NEVER listen to or

trust the American media again. NEVER.

[Clete]

8. I also think they are trying to discourage

people from voting against the recall by announcing all day long that Arnold will probably win. They even had a nasty woman neighbor of Governor Davis on one of the channels telling how she hopes the recall goes through so she can get a new neighbor. I guess he didn't wave to her enough. This really makes me sick.

[jobycom]

10. They usually do know but aren't supposed to reveal it

I'm not being sarcastic. Exit polls give a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, and the networks all know what the exit polls are saying, but they aren't supposed to reveal anything until after the polls close. Listen long enough, and they will start talking about what they know and can't reveal, usually.

Exit polls are more reliable than pre-election polls, because you are interviewing people who have already voted. They aren't foolproof, though, because they still rely on assumptions about voting patterns, and in a close raise with high turnout there is more variable.

Elections aren't stolen on election day. They are stolen a year before, when people like Katherin Harris begin to purge voters rolls and come up with other strategies to influence who gets to vote. Usually there is no need to actually cheat on election day. Florida in 2000 was an exception, since the numbers were more pro-Gore than Bush had anticipated.

[kainah]

11. It's a thought I never had before 2000

but, from now on, I will never trust another election. I will make this prediction about the California election -- there is only one outcome that we will be given tonight: Recall, yes, Schwarzenneger, yes. Any other outcome will be "too close to call" tonight. I am absolutely convinced there is no way that Davis and/or Bustamente could come out with a clear win tonight ... no matter how the voting goes.

Our elections are suspect, folks. That's reality, not tin foil stuff.

[leftofthedial]

12. welcome to Murka

gummint to, at and up the people

[HalfManHalfBiscuit]

13. It is called exit polling

All networks and major candidates do it. Nothing really new.

[Must_B_Free]

15. Oh I remember...

Exit polls are the reason they called Florida for Gore, right.

Yeah I guess Exit Polls are %100 reliable - reliable ebnough to stake you network's reputation on it.

Yeah, I get it....

[FightinNewDem]

16. Exit polls? Noooooo!

Let's blame it on a grand conspiracy that somehow involves Diebold, PNAC, Skull and Bones, Halliburton, Al From, Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper, Rupert Murdoch, the New York Yankees, Likkud, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bowl Championship Series and Lyndon LaRouche.

Seriously, those of us who have been involved in politics for a long time and who have friends in the biz in Washington almost always hear leaks about the exit polls on election day. Unfortunately, they are generally correct. Last November, the numbers we heard during the afternoon indicated a bad night for Jeanne Shaheen and Shannon O'Brien. We all know the outcome.

Now, there are times when things break down. In the 1988 NH presidential primary, early exit polls indicated that Paul Simon had surged past Dick Gephardt and was within single digits of Michael Dukakis. As it turned out, Gephardt actually edged past Simon by about two percentage points.

[kentuck]

17. So you believe the "exit polls"?

Exit polls could never be manipulated? I have serious doubts about our entire electoral process.

[FightinNewDem]

18. Tinfoil Time!

Look, I take all polls with a full shaker of salt (see my comments on the crackpot American Research Group), and exit polls are no different. However, I generally think that the flaws that develop are due to poor methodology, bad sampling and a lazy approach taken by the pollsters, not to some Great Left-or-Right Wing Conspiracy.

Most of my political experience has been in NH, so I will use it as a frame of reference. In NH, there are no electronic voting machines. Under state law, all ballots must either be old-fashioned check-the-box pencil and paper ballots, or optical scan ballots. In my ward in Manchester, we use Accuvote fill-in-the-bubble ballots. As a result, every vote in the state has a hard paper trail.

Generally, the exit polls pretty well track with the actual numbers. Since it is damn near impossible to electronically rig a sheet of cardstock and a golf pencil, I doubt that this is due to a pre-arranged scheme.

Where problems sometimes develop is in the exit pollsters choice of venue. Very often, VNS sends its teams to wards in Manchester, Concord, Portsmouth and to a few large, single-box communities near those cities. As a result, the candidate who wins the cities generally looks a bit stronger in the exit polls. In a close race, this causes problems. In 1996, ABC News, relying on exit polls, called the US Senate race for Dick Swett. Unfortunately, Swett lost to Bob Smith. How did this happen? Swett clobbered Smith in Manchester and Portsmouth, but Smith pulled out his core vote in smaller communities in the North Country and Lakes Region, as well as in rural parts of Hillsborough and Rockingham Counties. VNS never sends exit pollsters to remote communities like New Durham, Deerfield or Jaffrey, so so Swett's geographical advantages were greatly magnified.

So, do I put blind faith in polls? Heck no, but I try to base my doubts on some rational basis, not on any conspriacy theory.