When was the last time the New Hampshire primary polls got it so wrong?

[Jim__]

Ummmm - 2000 - from the Daily Howler:

On January 31, Broder reported that Bush and McCain were “deadlocked in the latest surveys.” The next day, McCain won the race—by 18 points! But then, New Hampshire can be hard to poll, in part because of its large numbers of independents, who are free to vote in either party’s primary (more below).

The column also has some suggestions fo why the pollsters may have been so wrong.

[The Magistrate]

1. Things Like This Are Far From Unusual, Sir

A very large proportion of people did not make up their minds until the last minute, and their number dwarfed even the widest gaps between candidates.

Where polling internals seperated out registered Democrats from independents, the figures indicated either very narrow gaps, or Sen. Clinton in the lead. The pollsters' guesses about the proportion of independents and registered Democrats in the turn out seem to have been wrong.

Tracking polls indicated a surge to Clinton in the closing hours, that in tracking polls was masked by the averaging back over a three day period.

[Bitwit1234]

2. You question is all wrong. The primary didn't get anything wrong.

what was wrong was the fact that the MSM wanted Obama to win. They are the ones who reported over and over he was ahead...and besides, if I lived in NH I'd lie thru my teeth so they would get it wrong.

Of all the TV sites with their polling and trolling CNN was the only station that reported an exit poll that got it right. So instead of reporting facts the other stations LIED.

[RC]

3. And we can never know for sure because of Diebold

Hasn't all this been fixed?

You'd think so. But, the answer is definitely no. Votes are still taken by voting machines produced by vendors highly sympathetic to the Republican Party. The machines are still off limits to those who want to examine how they operate and observe real vote counting. And good luck if your candidate loses and there's fraud or voting machine problems suspected.

You're out of luck. You can't hire outside experts to look at the mission critical software in the optical scanners (Sec. 1.5). You'll have a great deal of difficulty examining the paper records with voter marked choices. Don't count on seeing any recounts either. Almost all the states have high hurdles before you can request and get one of these simple verification tools (See Appendix 2).

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0801/S00057.htm



And here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2644824