Posted on 11/04/2004 6:38:04 AM PST by NewMediaFan
Millions of people were captivated on Election Day by the unfolding story of John Kerry's victory in the exit polls - except that, once again, the polls were all wrong.
Republicans panicked, Democrats gloated and the stock market tumbled after numbers meant solely for the eyes of news editors were leaked to Internet blogs and other Web sites.
The raw data showed Kerry beating President Bush by three percentage points (he lost by three), winning Ohio by two (he lost by two) and winning Florida by two (he lost by five).
"It was a total failure and an embarrassment," Republican pollster Frank Luntz said of the polling commissioned by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and The Associated Press. "The numbers were so far off that they're unusable."
Marty Ryan, Fox News executive producer for political coverage, called the polls "disappointing," and AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said the news agency will look at what, if anything, went wrong this time.
But pollsters at the National Election Pool, which works for AP and the five networks, said all along that the early numbers were incomplete and unreliable.
Anyone who took them as gospel should blame themselves for getting it wrong, officials said.
"People believed them, and it's particularly the case with Internet bloggers," said CBS poll director Kathy Frankovic...
[snip]
Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman told supporters shortly after 4 p.m. that the exit polls looked bad for Bush, and by 8p.m., many supporters on a Bush conference call were convinced the race was over, barring a miracle.
Meanwhile, Democrats were convinced Kerry would win with a two-point margin in the popular vote. They didn't start getting nervous until 9:30 p.m., as vote totals started working against them in Florida and Ohio.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Thankfully, we were going out to vote for our candidate. We were sending a message to the Rathers of the world.
What is the story on exit polls in general? I heard Dick Morris say that you had to work at it to get exit polls wrong. I heard someone else on the radio today (Rasmussen?) say that exit polls were never intended to forecast outcomes: they were designed to ask people both how they voted and why, with a view to analyzing trends.
I have a theory about the exit poll fiasco that I haven't heard discussed.
Given the directive by the DNC to make voter intimidation charges throughout Fl and OH, and the every vote counts and every vote will be counted mantra, it occurred to me that if any fix was involved, it was intended to validate the DNC's claim that the Republicans were suppressing voter counts in key battleground states.
If the exit polls were hyped enough, and if they were to be believed as fact, then the next logical step would be for the actual counts to be challenged. The exit poll data was leaked at 2:00. The actual counts were not released for at least another 5-6 hours. There was plenty time for the idea that Kerry had it by a landslide to sink in across the country. Please read my theory as to why this was a coordinated attack on the election chances of GWB.
1) Based on the speed with which the blogosphere debunked the GWB National Guard memos, the news of a possible Kerry landslide would be instantaneously disseminated throughout the blogosphere. Pundits and bigoted right-wing extremist, homophobes would immediately begin pounding their keyboards -- assuming the worst. Remember, this is being spread by "us" not the MSM.
2) Devastated, W's supporters wouldn't bother to wait in those notoriously long lines. What difference is it going to make if we can't even win Virginia and North Carolina, right?
3) When early Republican states couldn't be called right away, that fueled the fire for those who may not have gotten the word earlier in the afternoon. If you were in the West, why bother voting.
4) Assuming that the country wouldn't overwhelmingly vote to give the cowboy "W' 4 more years, the results would be extremely close -- like Florida last year.
5) Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of provisional ballots had been cast in key states. Presumably, the numbers of such ballots would exceed the margin of any Bush lead.
6) With the "fact" assumed that Kerry had indeed pulled off the impossible, the way had suddenly been paved to push the vote suppression theory. Of course the tallies were wrong, the polls had shown the truth. The people had spoken all day long - John Kerry had been elected by an unprecedented margin. Bush couldn't even overwhelmingly carry his very red states in the Midwest. Let the lawyering begin!
I know it sounds crazy, but how could each poll be so alarmingly wrong. The samples or the data had to have been manipulated.
Just a theory, but if it were true... The credibility of the MSM would be finished.
> ... Dick Morris say that you had to work at it to get exit polls wrong.
You don't have to work hard. Just pick a Dem district,
interview mostly women, perhaps tip off a local union
about what time you'll be there.
Morris has also called for a criminal investigation.
Whatever the next step (or not) if you hear any libs
spouting "polls correct, votes rigged", call them on
this BS. It is vastly easier to rig polls than ballots.
Doesn't this sound like the DNC and Terry McAwful had a hand in these fake polls? It just fits the pattern of the deceitful DNC. Remember the bogus online polls after the debates?
Yup... probably the best GOTV technique ever devised. That Karl Rove is a pretty smart guy ;=)
Seriously, after all the self deluding garbage the MSM cranked out believing forged memos and everything else, it's no wonder they messed this up.
They just forgot to count "I'm not talking to you, you liberal media sack of $#!+" as a vote for Bush.
This is a very serious story. Those exit polls were defintely slanted and I think a serious investigation should be done. Of course the media investigating the media over a slant left will likely be only slightly covered and put on the back pages of the newspapers.
This is exactly the line that Juan Williams wanted to push on election night coverage on Fox. He said that since their was obviously such a disparity between the exit polls and the vote count, there "were questions" as to the reliability of the machine count. I really think they wanted to start this stink, but the sheer volume of Bush votes made that a losing scenario. Thank God all those Republicans turned out to support their President! I'm with Morris on this one...someone needs to investigate who was responsible for the exit snaffu because he said that it would not be easy to make such a huge "mistake".
Media pretending it's about 'leaked' polls. No it's about deliberately FALSE polls.
Wow, I didn't realize. Did Juan really begin to put forth this "theory"? I thought he was looking awfully smug when I was channel surfing.
Not to me. (Did you use to be a Dem operative? ;-))
LOL - I'm just one very thankful, proud, Christian, stay-at-home mom. It's time OUR rights mattered and OUR views presented in the national media.
Warren Mitofsky, old line liberal and CBS News veteran, did the polling and sold it to all three networks. A quick look at his resume will tell you all you need to know.
Black box voting machines trump exit polls.
I think a hint was in 2002 when the exits had Saddam winning only 90%-10%.
bump for later...
Make sure to capture zogby link too...
SEE ---> http://www.noDNC.com
Next, on O'Reilly, Dick Morris said pretty much the same thing but ADDED: and Congress should look into it, for voter manipulation.
I second that.
On the way home on Election Day, I turned on the radio and heard Sean Hannity interviewing Drudge - only heard the end of it but it was clear that from what Drudge had said, Kerry was the predicted winner in the early exit polls.
This is 5:25 PM EST, when NOT ONE VOTE had been counted yet!! NOT ONE but most importantly, the polls were ALL still open.
For background: I cried all the way home - silly me, believing that the exit polls were more truthful and predictive than the exit polling done 4 years ago, and believing that Drudge had the inside track to somewhere.
Frankly, I now believe that Drudge and Sean are guilty of being used by those who sought to manipulate the vote and that Drudge, especially Drudge, needs to be called before a Congressional committee and asked who his sources were - were they "real" exit pollsters or who gave him the information.
Don't you want to know why the informaiton that could have caused thousands to give up voting for Pres. Bush because it "looked like Kerry already had it in the can" was aired by Sean Hannity via Drudge?
I want to see Drudge forced to reveal who he was talking to, and whether he did any vetting of the information at all?
I mean, think of how many Bush voters Drudge reached, by going on Hannity's show and letting out that poison? Wasn't he discouraging the President's base?
How many people heard that on the way home, and decided it wasn't worth going to stand in line for and hour or two, if Kerry was aleady leading?
Aren't there parallels here to calling Florida for Gore, when the panhandle part of Florida, on CST time, still hadn't voted? Who got hurt there? Bush because since it had been called for Gore, why bother going to vote for Bush.
I think we all need to contact Sean and tell him he owes us a big apology, and that he needs to drag Drudge back on there and get an apology from him.
Next, we need to contact Fox News - where Michael Barone and Dick Morris appeared, and tell them that we want to hear more about the possible exit poll manipulation.
Third, we need to contact our members of Congress, and ask for a Congressional investigation of these exit pollsters, and the fraud and manipulation and intimidation that possibly occurred on Election Day, by them giving out the incorrect information that "Kerry was in the lead" thus discouraging votes for Pres. Bush.
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