Reply #5: let's try, well, reading DU on impossible Ohio exit poll precincts

[OnTheOtherHand]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=397259&mesg_id=397543

Liam_laddie has reported that he interviewed a couple of Democratic Party Poll Observers from Cincinnati 4M. (Of the Ohio NEP polls we have been able to identify, Cincy4m has the biggest WPE. But it does not have the biggest WPE of all the Ohio NEP polls.)

According to the observers, the NEP interviewer at Cincy4m was totally out of his depth. He managed to conduct 31 interviews out of the 1754 voters (times 2, because they went by him twice) fanning in/out from the polling place (the polling place held 4 precincts). It was raining and he was stationed 100 feet away from the door, in a group of campaigners who were vying with each other for the attention of voters entering the polling place.

The observers said that "Republican types" just streamed by him. They didn't refuse to be interviewed. They didn't even notice him.

Maybe the guy was able to note the age, gender and ethnicity of every Nth person in the fanned mob, but I doubt it very much.

He was totally discouraged, took several long breaks and went home early.

Cincinnati 4M appears to be "Mitofsky Precinct Number 25" in the ESI report. (I'm not too worried about jeopardizing confidentiality here, given that (1) I am quoting widely available sources and (2) less than 2% of the voters were interviewed anyway.) Table 1 in ESI's data document reports a 68% Kerry share in the exit poll (that would be Kerry 21, Bush/other 10), with a possible range between 42% and 80%. So we can infer that the interviewer reported about 19 misses and refusals, for a total of 50 attempted interviews. Kerry's percentage would range from 21/50 = 42% to (21 + 19) / 50 = 80%. Looks like a match.

OK, so if an interviewer reports having attempted to interview 50 people out of 1700+ (for the four precincts sharing this polling place), and completes 31 interviews, with a result of 21 Kerry, 10 Bush/other (i.e., 68% Kerry) -- and the final result in the precinct is Bush 312, Kerry 211, other 3 (40% Kerry) -- and the same precinct gave 23% of its vote to the Democratic candidate for governor in 2002 -- who here is prepared to call this virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount?