Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

["Vern Green" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Since this has turned into such a hate fest towards me, I will have to
resort to more drastic measures in an attempt to show you that the
election exit polls were wrong because of the system used, NOT because
of some conspiracy.

http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf

Here is a rather long report produced by Edison Media Research and
Mitofsky International who conducted the exit polling for the
election. Here are a few key points from the executive summary.

"However, the estimates produced by the exit poll data on
November 2nd were not as accurate as we have produced with previous exit polls."

"Our investigation of the differences between the exit poll estimates
and the actual vote count point to one primary reason: in a number of
precincts a higher than average Within Precinct Error most likely due
to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than
Bush voters. There have been partisan overstatements in previous
elections, more often overstating the Democrat, but occasionally
overstating the Republican. While the size of the average exit poll
error has varied, it was higher in 2004 than in previous years for
which we have data. This report measures the errors in the exit poll
estimates and attempts to identify the factors that contributed to
these errors."

"Early in the afternoon on November 2nd, preliminary weightings for
the national exit poll overstated the proportion of women in the
electorate. This problem was caused by a programming error involving
the gender composition that was being used for the absentee/early
voter portion of the national exit poll. This error was discovered
after the first two sets of weighting; subsequent weightings were
corrected. This adjustment was made before NEP members and subscribers
used exit poll results on-air or in print."

And further in the report, here are some interesting statements.

"Since election day there has been discussion about the differences
between the National Exit Poll and the estimates from the Cross Survey
from all state surveys. Some estimates differ by several points among
certain demographic groups, most noticeably among Hispanics. These
differences appear mostly among demographic groups that are both
relatively small (8% or less of the voting population) and those that
tend to be geographically concentrated."

"One way to reduce error is to take additional steps to keep the
interviewers focused on strictly following their interviewing rates in
order to properly sample voters within each polling location. This
will be made an even greater priority in the future. We will develop
additional steps in the recruiting and training process to make
certain that the interviewers are following the detailed instructions
that we give them."

"For the 1,460 exit poll precincts where we have both exit poll
tallies and final vote
returns, we calculated an average WPE of -6.5 on the difference
between Kerry and
Bush."

"While we cannot measure the completion rate by Democratic and
Republican voters, hypothetical completion rates of 56% among Kerry
voters and 50% among Bush voters overall would account for the entire
Within Precinct Error that we observed in 2004."

Anyway, you can read the rest for yourself. The point here is that I
was right, the exit polling company HAS offered up they made an error,
and got it wrong as I suggested before.

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