The exit polls WERE adjusted to the election results

[johan helge]

From http://stones-cry-out.blogspot.com/2004/11/what-went-wrong-with-exit-polling.html:

Richard Morin of the Washington Post "informed me that the CNN {exit polls} had been weighted to the election result".

Morin wrote: "The Post was one of the subscribers to the exit polls, like the New York Times, WS Journal, USA Today. We got the results of the final national poll and a few states when it was completed but before it was weighted, so I know that the poll had Kerry up by 3."

"The MIT-Caltech Voting Project, for example, issued a report concluding that the exit poll data were consistent with state tallies and that there were no discrepancies based on voting method, including voting systems. But they used this adjusted data (weighted to the election result) to exonerate the process! In other words, they used data in which the count is assumed correct to prove that the count is correct…"

So Kerry went from +3 in the exit poll to -3 in the election result. Three possible explanations:

1 Election fraud

2 Perhaps Bush voters voted later in the evening than Kerry voters, and perhaps the exit polls didn't properly account for this.

3 Perhaps Bush voters were more reluctant to participate in the exit polls.

Can anyone say anything about 2 or 3 (or 1!)?

[cavanaghjam]

1. #2 doesn't seem valid;

exit polls ask people for whom they voted. Did the pollsters stop asking in the evening?

#3 may be valid, but you've got to ask why such tendency would skew overwhelmingly GOP. Personally, I don't see it.

[Longgrain]

2. I'll take a crack at it...

2 Perhaps Bush voters voted later in the evening than Kerry voters, and perhaps the exit polls didn't properly account for this.

Baloney. The places with the most problems regarding long lines late in the day were places with high Dem turn-out. Dems work during the daytime, most of them vote after work.

3 Perhaps Bush voters were more reluctant to participate in the exit polls.

Why would they be reluctant :shrug: unless they were ashamed to admit they voted for the shrub. ;-)

[sandnsea]

3. 2000 voters in 2004 exit polls

I don't remember the exact numbers, but the CNN poll asked 2004 voters who they voted for in 2000. 17% hadn't voted. 40+% for Bush. 30sum percent for Gore. And then a small other. So, if their own poll shows that they did, in fact, poll more Bush voters than Kerry voters; #3 definitely doesn't fit and that's the one they like to quote the most.

[Carolab]

4. One can make NO SUPPOSITIONS

The second two points are JUST THAT. SUPPOSITION and CONJECTURE.

Unless these can be PROVEN (which they CANNOT), they do NOT belong in the argument. PERIOD.

Only the FACTS can be allowed to stand. ONLY THE FACTS!!!!

[nashville_brook]

5. i remember reading somewhere that adjusting the exit poll

with actualy returns was standard operating procedure. now i can't find it.

this exit polling mitofsky character is creepy. i don't trust him at all.