You Under 34 year olds Ruined our Election of Kerry

[TruthBeTold22]

According to the report issued by the two firms responsible for conducting the 2004 exit polls, the fact that they employed too many interviewers under the age of 34 resulted in a skewing of the results for Kerry in 26 states!

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-election-exit-polls,0,407502.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[DenverDem]

1. More horse manure.

publicans never stop lying. They can't, they continually have to cover the previous lies.

[Vektor]

2. Um, yeah...

<sarcasm/>
I'm so sure that's what it was. (???)
The age of the interviewer actually affected how people coming out of the polls had already voted.
:wtf:

[seriousstan]

3. That's not the point they were making. They had 2 very valid points.

1. The younger pollers weren't following procedure.

2. Older voters were more likely to assume that the younger pollers didn't share their political views and therefore might be hesitant to participate in the poll.

[Vektor]

9. I don't buy it.

No older Bush lover is EVER hesitant to tell you what they think.
I was an under 34 pollster myself, and not only did I follow procedure exactly as I should have, Bush supporters were all to happy to let everyone, including me, know - LOUDLY, who they voted for.

Republicans are all to willing to shout from the rafters how much they worship the Shrub.

The only purpose of this article is to attempt to cover up what were VERY damning exit polls for Bush.

It is not the fault of the age of the pollsters, or the "hesitancy of the voters" to admit who they voted for. I doubt 26 states were filled with young whippersnappers who had no clue how to conduct an exit poll, and timid Bush voters afraid to admit to a youngster that they voted for Bush.

[SoCalDemGrrl]

20. This is B.S. ....

Has anyone in the last 12 months seen a BUSH supporter who hasn't strutted around like a cocky rooster!!! This rationale is ridiculous, Bush supporters are "in your face" and would never demure from pollsters. I can't believe it took these "pollsters" over two months to dream up this lame rationale for their exit polls not jiving with the official results!!

[pbartch]

23. you're right. The Repukes want to tell us OVER and OVER what a

"loser" Kerry was and they wanted to brag about THE CHIMP.

[Igel]

38. My wife.

Everybody where she works is dead sure that she voted for Kerry. And that her family did, too.

She didn't. Her family didn't.

[fasttense]

25. Oh very young what will you leave us this time?

Cat Stevens song. Anyway they are going to leave us with bad polls.

They obviously picked the wrong young people. If they had hired young republicans this wouldn't have happened. See you get what you pay for. If they had hired rich, white, males then, Oh wait, rich people don't need jobs. So I guess they have to hire them other young people. Well if they will only wait for a few years than they can hire all the people who have lost their Social Security and of course most of them are old so their polls should be better.

I'm over forty and I can tell you this, there is nothing I like sharing more with the young than my opinion of politics. I have yet to see an older person who doesn't enjoy talking and sharing their experiences with the young.

So I don't buy their flimsy, transparent excuses. So is Mis..... (not sure how to spell that name and really don't care to learn) and company going to pay back the ten million dollars they made off their very flawed and poorly conducted exit polls? I mean the media conglomerate really didn't get what they paid for did they? flawed data is not what they wanted I'm sure.

[flyarm]

35. total nonsense...

most older voters know the value of exit polls and would be more inclined to do the polling!!

what sheer b.s.....

as a pollwatcher for early vote and general here in fla..the biggest complaint i got were bush people in the lines trying to intimidate others to vote for bush..calling people who weren't traitors...and you relly think these people would say they voted kerry when they didnt..oh please...

the one constant was bush voters being nasty in the lines..so much so people voting kerry were getting upset with how vocal the bush voters were..

so what they clamed up and went off silently after they voted...or said they voted kerry..i think not!!

i had some on day of general come inside and wisper to me that an old lady was in line outside telling people they would go and rot in hell if they didnt vote for bush..
the kerry voters if anything were the quiet ones...and polite enough not to get in arguments and would just quietly wisper that someone needed to stop the intimidation in the lines.
i actually had on gal come in in a burka..she was pregnant ..very pregnant..it was very hot in fla that day...and a boisterous older lady came in..our lines at the front were inside...and we had chairs..well this one older gal was so boisterous and she knew man in line..and came through very gregarious..until she saw she would be seated next to the gal in the burka..well she became indignant...and turned her head and held her nose...and made others laugh...well i sat appalled..i watched it from a distance..and i sprung up and went over to the burka lady and i was sugar and honey to her..and i was very loud about it .,.asking her if she was alright..or needed any assistance..i asked her if she needed water..and told her kerrys people had water outside that i would be very happy to go get her...i was very deliberate and very loud inmy suipport of this young woman...and when i was done being as nice as i could be ..i stared at the fat cow who was so dang rude and innapropriate...and i assure you if she was asked to do an exit poll she would have proudly said bush...it was freaking dripping off her..and so many bush voters....

please..there is no way any bush voters i saw would have turned down doing the poll..they wore their slobber proudly!!

fly

[Imagevision]

4. Bullsh*t -- they ripped us off again and that's all she wrote!

[Goldeneye]

5. You'd think exit pollsters who've been at this since the 70's

would be able to conduct better polls. How old were pollsters in previous years?


Did the independents/undecideds break for Kerry? I'm pretty sure they did...

[Hugin]

6. There is a bridge...

... and I have the title to that bridge.

Would you like it to be your bridge?

[tngledwebb]

27. Are there any really any bridges left for sale?

Hasn't MSM been selling em off wholesale by the dozens, every day for the past four eight ten twenty years?
Still, I guess it's like someone once said- a sucker is erroneously polled every second.

[PaganPreacher]

36. I think the "Bridge to the 21st Century" is available.....

cheap.


dream world


real world

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[justinsb]

7. Makes Sense

Until you are 34 your ears aren't fully developed so a word like Kerry can sound alot like Bush. :eyes: See, if I ever decide to sell my soul I could be very successful in the GOP.

[Career Prole]

10. Oh, okay! That makes more sense.

I was trying to remember how old I was before I learned how to count being pretty sure I was younger than 35 when I mastered it, but yes...the hearing thing...that must be it! :D

[Wilms]

8. What the matter with kids these days? n/t

[Benhurst]

11. What balderdash! The MSM will throw any bullshit out in

hopes there are still morons gullible enough to believe them.
First it was "moral values." Disproven. Then it was a massive shift in the Latino vote. Disproven. Lie. Lie. Lie. To hell with the Main Stream Media and their lackeys.

[LittleClarkie]

16. Don't forget the "youth vote didn't come out" disproven

Lies. All lies.

[Benhurst]

17. You're right, LittleClarkie. And I just remembered another one:

They claimed the women were over-counted. Disproven. Lies, lies and more lies.

[EFerrari]

12. LOL! Good one! n/t

[righteous1]

13. Jeez, I just read all 77 pages, blurry eyed and confused n/t

[genieroze]

14. Oh bullshit! eom

[Stand and Fight]

15. Hogwash...

What hogwash poppy-cock pansy-ass bullshit!

[neverforget]

18. Exit polls in Ukraine are correct but exit polls in the US are wrong.

ok! :eyes: :puke:

[Carolab]

19. That's funny, on Nightline just now

they showed some old fart conducting an exit poll.

[ClintCooper2003]

21. It's total bullshit. Please read my analysis which debunks this manure...

1) If the main problem was simply that there were too many people under the age of 34 taking the exit surveys then why did CNN.com correct the age group 45-59 for the exit polls in Ohio?

Pre-adjustment (age group 45-59 = 29% of voters) Bush 49% Kerry 51%
Post-adjustment (age group 45-59 = 29% of voters) Bush 52% Kerry 48%

2) If there were simply too many 18-29 year-olds being included in the poll, then why did the percentage of this age group within the overall electorate stay the same from pre-adjusted to post-adjusted data with regard to the Ohio exit polls - 21%. In the pre-adjusted data, Bush gets just 40% of this group and Kerry grabs 60%. The post-adjuted data show Bush with 42% and Kerry with 56%. Obviously, the people at CNN are simply pulling this data right out of their arses.

3) The exit pollsters were prevented from standing close to some of the precincts? Get real. Even Blackwell's attempt to prevent pollsters from standing close to the precincts failed. And there is no indication whatsoever of how widespread this was. The results were about 10% off of the exit polls in the state of Delaware alone. Boy, I guess there must have been a major attempt to keep those exit pollsters away from the precincts in that key battleground state of Delaware.

4) Mitofsky and Lenski contend that Bush voters were less likely to fill out an exit poll than Kerry voters, perhaps because Bush voters would be less likely to approach a young person whom they perceive as having a different political philosophy than them. This is patently absurd. Even if I saw some dude with a "God Bless Bush" T-shirt standing out front handing out exit polls, I would still fill out whatever form he handed me. In fact, that might make me MORE likely to fill it out, not less.

Again, the is NO INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE that Bush voters were less likely to fill out an exit poll. The only evidence is that Mitofsky and Lenski are automatically assuming that the count is correct - and they make all their claims based on that assumption.

The entire backbone of Rove's campaign effort was that Republicans simply weren't voting. And he was using certain key issues to energize the base. So if it is indeed true that Rove's campaign worked well enough to fire up Republicans to get out and vote after a long absence from the polls, why wouldn't they be fired up enough to fill out an exit poll?

It just doesn't make any sense at all.

[qwghlmian]

22. Here is independent study showing that Republican-leaning

voters are less likely to respond to exit polls than Democrats:

http://www.duke.edu/~mms16/non_response2000.pdf

"Our results also lead us to conclude that exit polls are likely to over-represent the opinions of younger and non-white voters. Because non-white voters tend to vote for Democrat candidates, over-representation of this social class will skew an exit poll’s results in that direction."

They also cite some studies that show that non-whites respond to exit polls a lot more readily than whites (Brehm, John. 1993. The phantom respondents: Opinion surveys and political representation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.) and studies that show that young people respond toe exit polls more readily than whites (DeMaio, Theresa J. 1980. Refusals: Who, where and why. Public Opinion Quarterly 44 (Summer): 223-233.) and (Herzog, A. Regula, and Willard L. Rodgers. 1988. Age and response rates to interview sample surveys. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 43 (No6): S200-5.)

Since other polls have consistently shown that younger people and minorities are less pro-Bush than older people and whites, this should fill the criterium as "independent evidence" that Bush voters were less likely to fill out an exit poll.

[ClintCooper2003]

24. Mitofsky invented the exit poll. I think he would be aware of this data..

Also, the data for each state were weighted.

And anyway, you're just a freeper.

[righteous1]

33. That's right, illustrate your intellectual prowess by name calling.

and then completely dismiss anything you read that does not agree with your preconceived notions. Terrific way to grow intellectually.

[qwghlmian]

45. Silly me - for some reason I thought that

when you stated that "NO INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE that Bush voters were less likely to fill out an exit poll" exists, you would want to be corrected if you were wrong. Apparently you like being wrong and lash out at people trying to correct you. My mistake.

[tngledwebb]

29. So many universities have their special ' research teams'

to bolster key Repug spin points, ie no global warming, social security will soon go bankrupt, second hand smoke is not dangerous, world terror networks are the number one threat to world security, and a very odd one about how plane hit a big building but was sliced up like inside like a tomato, and so on. This has gone on for ages, and the same applies to some Dem causes and issues.

So- you wanna buy a bridge? It's big enough to live under, if you want.

[Igel]

43. You misread the main post.

It's not that too many younger voters filled out the forms; it's that there's a correlation between the age (& experience) of the exit poller and how much the precinct-level estimates differed from the final results. Unless there's some correlation between precinct characteristics and interviewer (not interviewee) age (and it's not ruled out), I can't offer an alternative explanation.

I also think that *if* Mitofsky's method were followed they'd get no more than a small amount of exit polls that oversampled younger voters: his method should keep the sampling random within precincts. Keep in mind that his strategy for random sampling is every nth voter. Non-respondents don't just refuse to answer; some may get into a car and leave before they're asked to participate, or rush away because it's raining, or be missed because the interviewer is busy with a person still filling out the questionnaire. If there are lots of non-respondents (30 or 40%) it doesn't take a lot to mess up the estimates: it depends on how you assume the non-respondents break. If you think they break 40-60, and they break 45-55, you're off by a lot.

Most of the correlations make sense: anything that makes it less likely for each voter approached to hang around to fill out that form seems to increase within precinct error, if only because it makes for more non-respondents. And some things of concern (voting method) that seem to increase within precinct error really might be dependent variables.

The latest RW tinfoil hat theory making the rounds: MoveOn.org infiltrated the ranks of the Mitofsky staff, intentionally skewing the exit polls to more Kerry voters (explaining the already commonsense correlation between interviewer experience and within precinct error, needing no additional explanation). Goal: discourage * supporters.

[count_alucard]

26. pathetic

what ruined the election was the Bush KKKlan criminals plus Kerry's cowardliness.

[dmac]

28. "You look at the factors out there,

and young voters in this election were the strongest supporters of Kerry by age group," he said. "Older voters seeing a younger interviewer may have been less likely to participate because they might believe that interviewer might not agree with them politically."


Now this is believable, isn't it? I know of TON of people who are reluctant to declare their support of GWB, don't you???

NOT. The ones I know are so convinced that they are right they are proud to announce it and would certainly never duck exit polls. This is the most absurd thing I have seen them do to date. They are going to great extremes to get the information out there that the exit poll data was incorrect - when you can hardly find any exit poll data published anywhere in the first place. Who are they trying to shut up? US? Just one more thing to discredit our claim that there was election fraud all over the place. I saw some complaints posted from NY last week - and I once again realized the thorough-ness with which this job was done. I wonder if every state has similar reports?

[ottozen]

30. Mitofsky

Falling on his own sword.

[roenyc]

32. gotta wonder when they paid him off

and how much. cause he changed his story in a heart beat from exit polls are never wrong to um ah ah "shit happens" almost over night!

its like everyone was "notified" of what would be the outcome. and the exit polls would now reflect that outcome so fix them. and so begins the scramble. amazing.

but this is the most far out excuse!! under 35! damn if only we had no child left behind back in the day maybe you youngsters would have done a better job.

[roenyc]

31. You Kids

:crazy: they are really grasping at straws aren't they. first they said the young people didn't vote. now they screwed up the exit polls. you know, we should just draft ya all!! you just keep making the government look bad. shame on you guys. (kidding of course).

[Hugin]

34. Darn pablum puking kids...

*NOT*

[HEAVYHEART]

37. pffft!

What a bunch of bullshit. :grr:

[garybeck]

39. wake up truthbetold22!

if your name is truthbetold i'd think you'd be interested in the truth, not propoganda.

someome slap some sense into this guy!

[GOPBasher]

40. Yeah, sure, that's it.

[NationalEnquirer]

41. A bit far fetched, but who knows.

It does explain a few things, since most exit polls do skew towards democrats.
I dont know, I mean, if they have known about these problems all along, you would think they had figured out a way to get it right.
Its not like this is a new phenomena, this skewing.
Why can't they get it right?

[Mistwell]

42. This happens every year

I believe there was fraud. However, I do not believe the exit polls can be used to show it.

I've said it before, and I will say it again until people stop pretending that exit polls are always accurate.

The early exit poll data, like the ones we all saw here and were hopeful about, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS OVRSTATE THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE. The same exit poll overstate the Democratic vote in every single year the exit poll was taken (which is from 1988 and on) in every single Presidential election. Sometimes, it overstated it by far more than it did this time!

So, unless you think there was Republican fraud in every election since 1988, despite them losing the popular vote in actual counts three times out of four, and winning in the fourth time against Dukakis in a way that even if there had been fraud the exit poll numbers show they STILL would of won, then there is another explanation. And that other explanation has been studied and researched by folks to the point where they have it nailed down - they don't think, but they KNOW that Democrats tend to answer the polls more often. See:

http://www.duke.edu/~mms16/non_response2000.pdf

So please, can we put an end to this myth that pre-weighted exit polls are useful for calling a close race? Every single one turned out exactly like this one. Exit polls are NOT the answer to proving fraud.

[Jo March]

44. Hooray! I turned 34 one month before so it wasn't me!!

I didn't do it!!

:evilgrin: