Warren Mitofsky, head of the consortium which gathers and publishes the exit poll data for all of the major networks and newspapers, has been claiming of late that those who relied on and/or published his exit polling data during the course of Election Day were mistaken to have done so. The reason being, Mitofsky recently emailed Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, is because those raw numbers, leaking out when they did, are more aptly compared to “the score at half time at a football game” rather than information to be used to judge against the final election results.
I believe Joseph Cannon gets it exactly right, however, when he responded yesterday with this thought:
Of course, without the raw data from the exit pollsters, everyone is largely guessing. So I will associate myself with pollster John Zogby’s sage demand on MSNBC last Wednesday wherein he said, “I think that the gentlemen who are responsible for the exit polls should be fully transparent, release their data, discuss their methodology. Let us see what exactly it is that happened, and why it happened…I’ll take this opportunity right now to say I think that it’s in the interest of healing this country and restoring some unity to this country for us to have a thorough investigation of what happened both to the election and with the exit polls.”
Hear, hear, Mr. Zogby!…
Tis a shame though that rest of the media in this country were dilligently covering the “unacceptable” disparity between exit polling and final results over in the Ukraine, as the Bush Administration has spoon-fed them to do, instead of looking into those same disparities here. So unfortunately, Zogby’s call likely falls on deaf ears. Now if only he were a Republican on the other hand…
Folks just now wrapping their brain around all of this would be well advised to peruse the published work — neatly summarized in this Detroit Metro Times article — of Steven Freeman, a professor of statistical analysis at the University of Pennsylvania with a doctorate from MIT. Freeman’s analysis of the exit poll data versus the final results in just Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania peg the probability that the exit polls could all swing so wildly for Bush so late in the day as they did in all three states as a 250 million to 1 longshot.
Freeman’s study was double-checked for accuracy, and concurred with a few days later, by colleague John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia. Paulos further goes on to make a crystal-clear point to skeptics who may feel that all of the “irregularities” combined so far would still not be enough to have any meaningful effect on the election itself. He smartly notes that if “only about a half dozen voters per precinct in [Ohio] – switched their votes, Kerry would be president-elect. Considerably fewer switches would be required if, as is likely, most provisional and spoiled ballots were good and went for Kerry.”
But never mind such questions about our own democracy…Back to that “outrage” in the Ukraine!
Zogby was quoted on NPR on November 10th when Pam Fessler gave her report on "voting Myths" — I don’t the exact quote here (go to All Things Considered, NPR, archives, it might be there). The bottom line was that he was *swayed* (my term) by the actual vote tallies — and at the time, was not up in arms over the fact that the exit polls and the final votes were so off. I remember this vaguely, and have reference to his stand in the letter I wrote to them that night.
I think there was an actual interview with Zogby around this time on Teri Gross or perhaps NPR Morning Edition, too, though it’s possible I could have dreamed it *smile*
I’m glad that he’s come around. I really feel so many different outlets were just trying to "put this to bed" in order to "keep the peace."
For what it’s worth I (and thousands of others) — emailed about Fessler’s "report" that night, — and Thursday morning they read some of these, and more importantly, Friday, the 12th she did have a report on the electronic machines going for Bush when Kerry was chosen in Youngstown.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/ has the video clip of the Olbermann segment with Zogby!
Great work Brad. Let’s find a whistle blower already!
On 11/2, Drudge printed a list of states that Kerry was ahead in via exit polls. He was ahead 57-43% in Florida. It was only on the Drudge Report for about 5 minutes because the exit poll was done using 60% women and 40% men. We know that white women vote more Democrat while white men (non-Jewish) vote more Republican. You cannot take an exit poll of 60-40 and call Kerry a winner. That’s like taking 60% Liberal Demcrats and 40% Conservative Republicans and saying that Kerry won. It was a bad exit poll!
What about all of those polls before the election like at realclearpolitics.com that had Bush ahead by 2-3% in the poll averages? All of those poll averages were right. At least two pre-election polls that favored Kerry, had to admit that they used more Democrats than Republicans. That is a bad poll too!
Pundits are constantly talking about the exit poll data indicating the top topics of morals and Iraq and National Security which are all topics that Bush scores higher in than Kerry. Which exit polls are one to believe?
I agree with Dick Morris, the exit polls were rigged to help Kerry.
Paul said (mistakenly as usual):
"the exit poll was done using 60% women and 40% men"
You are wrong. But I encourage you to show us evidence for your claim.
"Pundits are constantly talking about the exit poll data indicating the top topics of morals and Iraq and National Security which are all topics that Bush scores higher in than Kerry. Which exit polls are one to believe?"
I supposed it’s your choice. You can choose to "believe" the exit polls that were altered after the fact to match up with the election results. (And misinterpreted to overweight the generic notion of "morals", which any further examination — even by wingnuts — shows to be completely over/misinterpreted)
Or, like so many of your wingnut brethren you can pick and choose to believe *only* the information you care to believe is correct (like "values voters" made the difference), but ignore all the rest of the data (like Kerry won).
"I agree with Dick Morris, the exit polls were rigged to help Kerry."
Beyond the lack of proof for this notion that Morris offers (he offers none), I guess you’ll also ignore Morris’ statement that "exit polls are extremely accurate".
If you are to believe Morris, as you are want to because he supports what you’d like to believe, then you also have to believe that the polls were all wrong on the "value voters" etc.
Instead, what you should be doing, is joining those of us who are in favor of democracy and the transparency it requires, by calling for the full release of the actual raw Exit Polling data so we can examine both it and it’s methodology instead of guessing — as you have — as to which part of it is accurate (because you like it) and which part isn’t (because you don’t).