Reply #125: In Iowa, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico, exit poll data showed Kerry

[Amaryllis]

leading, but the final computer tallies had Bush as the winner. In Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and California, exit poll data showed Kerry with a much higher lead than what the final computer tallies indicated.

In 10 states where there were verifiable paper trails -- or no electronic machines -- the final results hardly differed from the initial exit polls. Exit polls and final counts in Missouri, Louisiana, Maine and Utah, for instance, varied by 1 percent or less. In non-paper-trail states, however, there were significant differences. Florida saw a shift from Kerry +1 percent in the exit polls to Bush +5 percent at evening's end. In Ohio, Kerry went from +3 percent to –3 percent. Other big discrepancies in key states were: Minnesota (from +10 percent to +4 percent), New Mexico (+4 to –1), Nevada (+1 to –3), Wisconsin (+7 to +0.4), Colorado (-2 to –5), North Carolina (-4 to -13), Iowa (+1 to –1), New Hampshire (+14 to +1) and Pennsylvania (+8 to +2). Exit polls also had Kerry winning the national popular vote by 3 percent.

In close Senate races, changes between the exit poll results and the final tallies cost Democrats anticipated seats in Kentucky (a 13 percent swing to the GOP), Alaska (9 percent), North Carolina (9 percent), Florida, Oklahoma, South Dakota and possibly Pennsylvania -- as well as enough House seats to retake control of the chamber.

http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:91516