In Ukraine,bad exit polls signify fraud, in US bad exit polls signify...

[flpoljunkie]

not possible fraud, only "faulty" exit polling. Why does our media choose to ignore the "ten ton elephant"" in the room?

Could it be because they prefer Bush as president? They disgracefully cheerled this nation to war in Iraq and refused to their job as journalists to monitor this corrupt and inept administration.

Our democracy is in peril and the Democrats, except for the Congressional Black Caucus, may well turn a blind eye.

We will, no doubt, have to hold their feet to the fire, to get the necessary HAVA reforms so that 2006 is not more of the same. There is nothing that matters more!

[Raster]

1. Exit polling is only faulty if the persons polled answer untruthfully.

And studies have found that it doesn't happen. Exit polls were always used as the "control group" to verify clean elections. There was NEVER a problem with exit polling in this country until (s)Election 2000. In fact, exit polling was so accurate the various networks used the exit polling data to call elections far in advance of the actual election totals. The accuracy rate of exit polls in this country before (s)Election 2000 was essentially 100%. Think about it. 100% accuracy and then all the sudden we have major errors in the data. DID NOT HAPPEN.

[Snivi Yllom]

2. not quite

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/12/have_the_exit_p.html

In short, Mitofsky and Lenski have reported Democratic overstatements to some degree in every election since 1990. Moreover, all of Lenski and Mitofsky's statements were on the record long before Election Day 2004.

Of course, those errors were apparently bigger and more consistent this year. According to an internal NEP report leaked to the New York Times, this year's "surveys had the biggest partisan skew since at least 1988, the earliest election the report tracked." However, in some states, the errors in 2000 were still quite large. Consider this comment from Joe Lenski to CNN on December 12, 2000 (p. 48 of pdf), describing the table also copied below:

The second group contains five states that had stupendously bad exit poll estimates. Here is a comparison of the final best survey estimate at poll closing with the final actual results for these five states... As you can see the exit polls in these five states were off by between 7 and 16(!!!)



The exit poll errors four years ago led Mitofsky to tell the CNN investigators, "The exit poll is a blunt instrument," and Lenski to add, "the polls are getting less accurate" (p. 26 of pdf). They recommended "raising the bar" on projections made from exit polls: "The proposed changes result from a belief that exit polling is "less accurate than it was before" and that "we should take exit poll data with caution in making calls," said Lenski" (p. 27).

All of this led the authors of the internal CNN report -- Joan Konner, James Risser, and Ben Wattenberg - to conclude (p. 3, 7):

Exit polling is extremely valuable as a source of post-election information about the electorate. But it has lost much of the value it had for projecting election results in close elections... Cease the use of exit polling to project or call winners of states. The 2000 election demonstrates the faults and dangers in exit polling. Even if exit polling is made more accurate, it will never be as accurate as a properly conducted actual vote count.

[righteous1]

3. Jeeez, I had no idea n/t

[Snivi Yllom]

4. also

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2004/12/have_the_exit_p.html

Have the Exit Polls Been Wrong Before?

I have a short backlog of posts on the exit polls I've been working on this week, intended mostly to summarize information I've covered previously and make it more accessible via the FAQ. However, there is new information here, as well as in the posts that will follow.

One of the odd bits of received wisdom I keep hearing about the exit poll controversy is that up until this year, the exit polls were "always right." If so then this year's errors seem "implausible," and wild conspiracy theories of a widespread fraud in the count somehow seem more credible. The problem with this reasoning is that exit polls similarly "wrong" before, though perhaps not to the same degree or consistency.

Here is the documentation on previous errors. First, from the Washington Post's Richard Morin:

The networks' 1992 national exit poll overstated Democrat Bill Clinton's advantage by 2.5 percentage points, about the same as the Kerry skew

Warren Mitofsky, who ran the 2004 exit poll operation along with partner Joe Lenski, wrote the following in the Spring 2003 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly (p. 51):

An inspection of within-precinct error in the exit poll for senate and governor races in 1990, 1994 and 1998 shows an understatement of the Democratic candidate for 20 percent of the 180 polls in that time period and an overstatement 38 percent of the time...the most likely source of this error is differential non-response rates for Democrats and Republicans:

From the internal CNN report on the network's performance on Election Night 2000 (p. 48 of pdf):

Warren Mitofsky and Joe Lenski, heads of the CNN/CBS Decision Team, told us in our January 26 interview with them that in VNS's use of exit polls on Election Day 2000, the exit polls overstated the Gore vote in 22 states and overstated the Bush vote in 9 states. In the other 19 states, the polls matched actual results. There was a similar Democratic candidate overstatement in 1996 and a larger one in 1992.

In short, Mitofsky and Lenski have reported Democratic overstatements to some degree in every election since 1990. Moreover, all of Lenski and Mitofsky's statements were on the record long before Election Day 2004.

[lizzieforkerry]

13. Wow, Mitofsky really sucks at exit polling.

I wonder why he keeps getting hired to do it. I recently canvassed a neighborhood, which is like an exit poll. The only people who were hesitant to say who they voted for were Kerry voters. The Bush voters would have shouted it off their rooftops if they could.

[euler]

20. Take a break, do a little research and learn...

...how exit polls are conducted.

[lizzieforkerry]

22. I was being sarcastic. I know how exit polls are conducted

And I can't take a break because I am working too damn hard to prove that Bush stole this election.

[righteous1]

5. Hmmmm, not quite as infallible as some have led me to believe

[nodictators]

10. Here's what happened in 2004

I got the early, leaked NEP data in mid-afternoon on Election Day.

They showed Kerry with 45% in Arizona and 48% in Colorado. Both of those estimates are less than 1 percentage-point off the final result. I don't have 2004 data for the other states in your short list.

"Democratic overstatement" is nonsense. Repubs are more vocal by far.

Actually, Mitofsky & Company did a reasonablely good job until they mixed the actual data with their exit poll data. At that point their exit poll became a fraud-friendly piece of crap.

[euler]

21. This is simply bizarre.

This is how exit polls are conducted. The numbers are always re-weighted to actual votes as precincts close. I could give you all sorts of links, but I've done that and no one really reads them, or if they do, they decide they no more than the experts and cling to their theory anyway.

But, Stephen Freeman seem to be fairly trusted us DUer's, so let me instead point you to page 2 of his analysis.

After interviewing Mitofsky, Freeman writes the following (paraphrasing.)

1. Re-weighting exit poll Numbers with actual votes is a natural exit poll procedure.

2. The 2004 US presidential exit poll was not designed for election verification.

Now, take a look at the footnote on page 3. It says "Warren Mitofsky, the founder of Mitofsky International, is credited with having invented the exit poll."

I don't know your credential, but I know Mitofsky's. Re-weighting to actual votes is an integral a necessary part of the type of exit poll designed for this election. This is basic stuff.

[RaulVB]

23. Besides acting like an arrogant prick...

Do you actually have something to say?

[flpoljunkie]

12. Yes, but we cannot trust election results themselves when central

tabulating computers are vulnerable to hacking and there are no audits of these machine counts. A system ripe for fraud exists in this country--ripe for those who would exploit the inherent vulnerabilities in our electronic voting systems.

[FtWayneBlue]

16. exit polls good, who's counting the votes - bad

I beleive the exit polls are done correctly and accurately and always have been. ANY deviation of statistical significance indicates that the vote counting was compromised. Election stealing is nothing new, it goes back DECADES.

[euler]

19. Where have you been ?

I've posted notes such as this for 6 weeks. I've even used the same links to support my posts. No one cares. It's really bizarre. We wonder why MSM does not take us seriously. This is the reason.

[bmoney07]

6. Nothing to see here - just move along people

heard crickets chirping.

[hvn_nbr_2]

7. Ignorant question here

I keep seeing references to crickets. What does that mean?

Second question: Is there a guide to DU acronyms and expressions? Someone once posted a link to one, but last time I tried it, I got an error message.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[righteous1]

9. It's a rather juvenile way of calling someone a "Freeper" and

gettng around the rules of DU. These people think they are being clever, I guess

[bmoney07]

17. I'm sorry - I was meaning our beloved media is always acting

like there is no fraud hear in the US all the while they slap each other on the back whil talking about the Ukranian election.

My move along comment was intended to go along with how the media does not want to acknowlege our own election problems.

Sorry for the confusion.

Signed Angry Floridian from the 2000 debacle, 2002 and hopefully not 2004

Fuck W

[Pithy Cherub]

11. The $$$$$ media is complicit by not

providing the raw data from the exit polling. Protecting itself from further harm is most important.

Next exit polling means something different on each continent according to the lame journalist cabal!

[righteous1]

14. Don't you believe evenually the "raw data" will be available?

[Pithy Cherub]

15. In evidence long after the fact

and the media is complicit and duplicit by not releasing it now!

[Imagevision]

18. BUSH: In US. exit poll data was all wrong? total corruption.