News Outlets Sweat Over Exit Poll Accuracy

Media outlets are preparing for the possibility that their Election Day surveys could be skewed because of overstated support for Barack Obama, largely because of the enthusiasm of his supporters.

While exit polling is a notoriously inexact science—early exit poll results suggested John Kerry would be elected president in 2004—the introduction of several new variables, ranging from the zeal of Obama’s supporters to his racial background to widespread early voting, is causing concerns among those charged with conducting the surveys and the networks that will be reporting them.

News outlets sweat over exit poll accuracy - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14778.html)

Man the media does everything they can to pump up Obama. Now its people are so excited from voting for Obama that they cannot correctly tell the polster who they voted for. Now that I think about it maybe they don't know who they voted for and just went by the directions of the bus driver who drove them to the polls and promised them $5.00 for going to vote.

This happened somewhere in 2000. The problem was that the person directing them on how to vote had the wrong sample ballot so people voted for some off the wall person. Then they tried to say these people where disenfranchised because they had no clue who or what they where voting for in the first place. I'm sure we will see plenty of these buses at work on the 4th.

get ready for the tide of Obama backers tripping over themselves to discredit this.

This whole voter fraud issue is truly unbelievable. At its heart, it is an effort by GOP operatives to preempt what will be a vociferous response to efforts to disenfranchise legitimate voters on Election Day. This has been going on for years, decades even, and yet most Americans don't even know about it. Indeed, despite there being no major record of voter fraud in recent history, innuendo and rumor is cooked up by right wing apparatchiks, repeated ad nauseam by their media surrogates until it filters down to Joe's like First, who recall hearing that somewhere one time in Florida democrats like cheated or something. HA!

Here is a stunning article from Robert Kennedy and Greg Palast (Block the Vote : Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23638322/block_the_vote)), the leading investigative journalist on contemporary American electoral corruption, who while a household name in Britain is virtually unheard of in his own country. As someone who has been overseas a few years and has friends from all over the world, I can tell you categorically that American democracy has zero credibility overseas. We are viewed the way most of you look at Zimbabwe. When I tell people that I think Obama will win they roll their eyes and laugh at my naiveté. On public broadcast debate shows people argue over whether you can label America a democracy at all.

Anyone who has time should read Palast's most recent book which goes into a lot more detail regarding the hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters who were disenfranchised in 2004. This is a moral issue for me that cuts to the heart of our putative democracy. For those of you simply repeating claims you heard on right wing radio I beg you to consider and research this issue more carefully.

When I tell people that I think Obama will win they roll their eyes and laugh at my naiveté. On public broadcast debate shows people argue over whether you can label America a democracy at all.You aren't in the slightest offended by their ignorance of our political system? Or are you simply taking their skepticism at face value?

You aren't in the slightest offended by their ignorance of our political system? Or are you simply taking their skepticism at face value?

I don't know what you mean by taking their skepticism at face value. I don't really go around getting offended by what people think unless it's blaming the Jews for 9/11 or something. The point is that the voter suppression that has occurred in the US has been high profile news in other countries but strangely not in our own. I think a lot of Americans have a blind faith that everything is working fine when it's not, that people aren't trying to game the system when they are. America's electoral system is consistently ranked below other democratic nations by organizations like Freedom House and Amnesty International.

I would also add that on the eve of the 04 election only 1/3 of polled respondents in a NY Times poll indicated that they were confident their vote would be counted. I have an African-American friend who doesn't plan on voting because, in his words, they are just gonna steal it again. Should I be offended by their and his "ignorance" too?

Media outlets are preparing for the possibility that their Election Day surveys could be skewed because of overstated support for Barack Obama, largely because of the enthusiasm of his supporters.

While exit polling is a notoriously inexact science—early exit poll results suggested John Kerry would be elected president in 2004—the introduction of several new variables, ranging from the zeal of Obama’s supporters to his racial background to widespread early voting, is causing concerns among those charged with conducting the surveys and the networks that will be reporting them.

News outlets sweat over exit poll accuracy - David Paul Kuhn - Politico.com (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14778.html)

Who cares about exit polls? The only thing they do is allow networks to make early predictions. What matters for the election is accurate state by state polling. For that, see FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/) .

Why would us Obama backers need to discredit this? Seems like a problem for the networks, but it's all after the fact. It's the voting that counts. And there, the polls look pretty good for Obama. McCain is running out of time here. He's pulled out of most states to focus on Penn. Maybe he can flip it and with that momentum hold everything else. But he's getting outspent like hell and Palin is not helping with the Indies and Clinton folks. And the nutty Congresswoman ranting about anti-americans didn't help, nor did the Powell endorsement. McC needs some good news and quick.

I don't know what you mean by taking their skepticism at face value. I don't really go around getting offended by what people think unless it's blaming the Jews for 9/11 or something. The point is that the voter suppression that has occurred in the US has been high profile news in other countries but strangely not in our own. I think a lot of Americans have a blind faith that everything is working fine when it's not, that people aren't trying to game the system when they are. America's electoral system is consistently ranked below other democratic nations by organizations like Freedom House and Amnesty International.

I would also add that on the eve of the 04 election only 1/3 of polled respondents in a NY Times poll indicated that they were confident their vote would be counted. I have an African-American friend who doesn't plan on voting because, in his words, they are just gonna steal it again. Should I be offended by their and his "ignorance" too?

You know we have a whole thread on voter fraud. And let's not act like buying/stealing votes is something exclusive to the Republican party or that it's something new. But if people take comfort in using that as a crutch when things don't go their way, that's their problem. Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business. I don't think either side has been completely clean ever.

You know we have a whole thread on voter fraud. And let's not act like buying/stealing votes is something exclusive to the Republican party or that it's something new. But if people take comfort in using that as a crutch when things don't go their way, that's their problem. Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business. I don't think either side has been completely clean ever.

I'm not talking about buying or stealing votes. I'm talking about legitimate voters being denied the right to vote. The fact that dead people voted for Kennedy in 1960 doesn't make that OK. Politics has historically been dirty, sure, but you accept that? I don't. Demanding anything short of perfection from our electoral system and democracy is pretty unpatriotic to me.

And I was responding to First's comment in this thread.

I'm not talking about buying or stealing votes. I'm talking about legitimate voters being denied the right to vote. The fact that dead people voted for Kennedy in 1960 doesn't make that OK. Politics has historically been dirty, sure, but you accept that? I don't. Demanding anything short of perfection from our electoral system and democracy is pretty unpatriotic to me.

And I was responding to First's comment in this thread.
After the 2000 election and all the bickering about voter fraud from the dem it was clear that they were just blowing smoke. I really cannot believe that people are saying the the republcans are guilty of this and the dems just get a free ride. The only time the dems complain about voters fraud is when they loose an election for example both of Bushes victories. This past election when the Dems won so many seats in congress we did not hear one thing about voter fraud.