Evidence Mounts That The Vote May Have Been Hacked

Though early, incomplete, essentially unauthorized, leaks of exit polling data appeared to favor Kerry, the final tally of the full day's exit polls all but mirrored the recorded vote total in every state.

Got a link to the "Final Tally"?

Reuters: Exit Polls Come Under Post-Election Criticism

Incomplete results from preliminary exit polling were leaked to the freewheeling world of the Internet, where online political pundits known as bloggers misread or took the information out of context, creating the false impression of an early groundswell for Kerry in key battleground states such as Florida and Ohio.

That view was telegraphed to the public through the mainstream media but proved wrong.

a similar pattern emerged four years ago, when preliminary exit polling gave an early edge to Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) in numerous states where it never materialized.

Slate: In Defense of Exit Polls
You just don't know how to use them.

And indeed on Tuesday, the network experts used exit polls as they're supposed to. Exit-poll surveys in some 29 states showed margins for George Bush or John Kerry great enough to conclude that the chances the leading candidate losing was essentially zero. On that basis, when the polls closed in those states and before any votes were counted, 16 of them were placed in the president's corner and 13 in the senator's. They tended to be places like Kansas and Rhode Island.

In quite a few of other states, though, the exit polls were less conclusive. That's where the trouble came in.

... About 4 p.m., the pool statisticians met with the network reps and gave them a rundown on the exit-poll surveys and indicated which ones might be called when the polls closed (the 29 above) and which ones to be wary about. The networks were advised against drawing any conclusions from the second group and to air none of them. They followed that advice.

But while these figures never got on the air, they did get around.

But the real problem is not that the exit polls were wrong. They were about as accurate as they usually are. The problem was that in the age of the Internet the exit polls were being seen by thousands of people who didn't know how to read them. Like any sophisticated weapon, they are dangerous in the hands of the untrained.

CBS: Shortcomings Of Exit Polls

In future elections, political analysts may put a bit less stock in the inside track data from exit polls.

That's because some of the early numbers that got into circulation Tuesday turned out to be misleading.

... "The first wave of data has a smaller sample size and is only interviewing people that voted that morning,'' says Lenski. "So they're not necessarily going to accurately reflect the entire day."

Election experts have warned for years that poll numbers are given too much credibility by a nation eager for quick information. This year it was Internet bloggers who learned the hard way not to consider those numbers a snapshot of voter attitude when they are really just a small part of a much larger picture.

Zogby on Exit Polling

But exit polls become problematic when they are used to project a winner. No matter how good the sampling process involved in an exit poll, it is still sampling, which means that there is a margin of sampling error. This matters less if the election is a landslide, but in a close election, a one- or two-point margin of error looms large.

Knight-Ridder How did exit polls start avalanche of inaccuracy?

Don't blame the exit polls, said Joe Lenski, co-founder of Edison Media Research, the Somerville, N.J., company that conducted the surveys nationwide at the behest of major media companies.

Generally, exit polls are used to get at the demographics behind an election, to quantify where candidates got support and to break the vote down by age, race, gender and other factors.

But determining winners?

Not in these close elections, he said.

Most of the exit poll questions asked Tuesday had an error margin of 3 percent to 4 percent.

In many states, the actual results were much closer than that.

NYT: Report Says Problems Led to Skewed Surveying Data

Millions of people viewing those sites may not have approached the data with enough skepticism, the report said, in part because many of the sites did not include specific or detailed caveats that the results were preliminary and many fell within margins of error.

The report saved some of its harshest words for the networks and subscribers, whom it accused of allowing the data to leak.

"If it were not for leaks we would not have much of the problem forced on us by the leakees: the nonsubscribing media and the politicos,'' the report said. "They don't know how to evaluate what is being leaked, and then they demand that the leaked results be accurate in midday before it is vetted and before it is complete."

Am I missing something in these numbers? Is there a way for this to be possible?

Republicans struggled to get Republicans to vote. Democrats struggled to get any and every one to vote. Registering carloads of crack heads looked more effective than it really was. Turns out; even crack heads have minds of their own.

Some things just never change, I guess...

It should not be labeled as a Democrat effort, but election officials doing their job to ensure a proper vote gets tallied. Why should any honest person mind?

Gee Bear; I'm sorry my post didn't meet your high standards. Btw, do you know what most clichés and stereotypes have in common? (Try not to get hung up on the tree. :wink:)

Republicans struggled to get Republicans to vote. Democrats struggled to get any and every one to vote. Registering carloads of "less informed voters" looked more effective than it really was. Turns out; even "less informed voters" have minds of their own.

Joe; "crack heads" represent a tree in the forest of "less informed voters". Substitute "less informed voters" for crack heads in my original statement and you should see my point.

Watch:

Quote:

Republicans struggled to get Republicans to vote. Democrats struggled to get any and every one to vote. Registering carloads of "less informed voters" looked more effective than it really was. Turns out; even "less informed voters" have minds of their own.

See what I mean? I think the point is relevant either way, but I thought the original was more amusing. <Shrugs>