PROBABILITY TABLE: Exit Poll Margin of Error vs. Vote Deviation

[TruthIsAll]

For example, if the Bush National exit poll deviation was
3.50% in going from from 47.0% in the preliminary poll to
50.5% in the recorded vote, then the odds are 1 in 288 billion
for this result to have occured by chance alone. 

The 1.0% MOE stated by Edison/Mitofsky in the notes at the
bottom of the exit poll summary screen (WP/NEP) is used for
the calculation. 

If the MOE was 1.50%, the odds are much higher that the
deviation could have been due to chance: 1 in 416,000.

We use the Normal Distribution Function, calculated over a
matrix of the two variables: Deviation and MoE (1.96* standard
deviation at the 95% confidence level). The standard deviation
= MoE/1.96 is entered in the Excel function.

The probability P is given by:
P = 1 - NORMDIST(Actual vote, Exit poll, MoE/1.96,TRUE)

P = 1 - NORMDIST(.505, .470, .01/1.96, true) = 1/288 billion.


		Probability Matrix						
	Deviation from preliminary exit poll to the final vote						

		Exit Poll Margin of Error						
Dev.	1.00%	1.50%	1.75%	2.00%	2.25%	2.50%	2.75%	3.00%
		          1 in 						
1.00%	40	10	8	6	5	5	4	4
1.50%	609	40	22	14	10	8	7	6
2.00%	23k	223	80	40	25	17	13	10
2.50%	2.1mm	1.8k	391	140	68	40	27	20
3.00%	485mm	23k	2.6k	609	223	107	62	40
3.50%	288bn	416k	23k	3.3k	871	330	159	90
4.00%	450tr	11.5m	267k	23k	4k	1.1k	459	223