VNS was not a consortium of pollsters...it WAS the networks. The networks could not even report their own polling data, for some reason. AGAIN...the reason is, it was not possibe to make their "exit polls" jibe with the rigged elections of Saxby, et al. So instead of trying any further, they simply said "oops, sorry" and went home. VNS, again, was NOT pollsters, it was the networks themselves.
And NOW, with the networks out of picture, basically the same group of idiots is doing it AGAIN...under the guise of "a consortium of pollsters" that some seem to think existed before. I agree that exit polling is theoretically a good thing. But look at the "average" of the five polls out today, that CNN at least has been pushing all day...I believe THIS GROUP is the new "polling consortium." We're being conditioned for them. So, if they're priming us now with the fake poll numbers, then back it up with fake "exit polls" to support fake BBV results in key precincts, then I'd argue that this kind of exit polling is far worse than having none at all.
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January 13, 2003
Voter News Service: What Went Wrong?
By Larry Barrett
In November 2000, a "perfect storm" of vote-counting miscues and polling problems led the major TV networks repeatedly to change their minds as to whether Al Gore or George Bush was the next president. In November 2002, a second storm whipped through the networks' election broadcasts.
Unfinished and mismanaged efforts to update the computer systems used by Voter News Service forced executives at the consortium's owners—ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC and the Associated Press—to abandon the use of exit polling data before it even got all collected. Indeed, by mid-January the failures led to the disbanding of VNS itself. On Jan. 13, the six organizations said only that they were "collectively reviewing a number of strong options'' to avoid another fiasco in the future.
Back up to Election Day, Nov. 5. The balance of power in Congress was up for grabs. Yet by 10 a.m., the TV networks confirmed what they had feared for months: They couldn't derive any meaningful exit-polling data from a system they had just spent between $10 million and $15 million to overhaul.
Disasters were almost comical. Many of the more than 30,000 temporary workers collecting exit-poll information were disconnected from VNS' new voice-recognition system before they could finish inputting data over the phone. Some poll workers were unable to access the system at all. Live operators weren't always a help, as the phone system periodically crashed under the crush of callers dialing in.
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Complete text of "The Perfect Storm" article