More on the CT Exit Poll Experiment
August 16, 2006
Today I want to catch up and fill in a few details provided by our intrepid reader/reporter Melanie about that experimental CBS/New York Times exit poll conducted last week in Connecticut. As regular readers may recall, Melanie first brought the...[More...]
CT: No Exit Polls Today (Make that One Exit Poll - See Updates)
August 8, 2006
I noticed several hundred (at least) incoming Google searches on various combination of "Connecticut exit poll Lieberman Lamont," so let me pass on the official word regarding today's Connecticut primary from ABC's The Note: "There are no pooled network exit...[More...]
Pew Interview: Mitofsky on the Mexican Exit Polls
July 7, 2006
This week's belated focus on the U.S. exit poll controversy was well timed, as exit polls once again made news, this time in the Mexican elections. An exit poll conducted by Warren Mitofsky for Mexican television network Televisa showed the...[More...]
Is RFK, Jr. Right About Exit Polls? - Part IV
July 6, 2006
This post concludes my paragraph-by-paragraph review of the discussion of the exit polls in the article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in Rolling Stone, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Part I looked at Kennedy's claims that exit polls have been...[More...]
Is RFK, Jr. Right About Exit Polls? - Part III
June 9, 2006
This post resumes my paragraph-by-paragraph review of the discussion of the exit polls in the article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in Rolling Stone, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" Part I looked at Kennedy's claims that exit polls have been...[More...]
Is RFK, Jr. Right About Exit Polls? - Part II
June 8, 2006
This post resumes my look at the article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in Rolling Stone, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" In Part I, I began a review of the exit poll section of the article which continues below. Passages...[More...]
Is RFK, Jr. Right About Exit Polls? - Part I
June 5, 2006
Late last week, Rolling Stone published an article by Robert Kennedy, Jr. that asks provocatively, "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" While it covers many topics involving alleged suppression and fraud in Ohio, the article disappoints in its discussion of the...[More...]
NPR on AAPOR
May 22, 2006
I am back today from four days at the annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). Given the various "day job" tasks that have accumulated in my absence, I am grateful that Marc Rosenbaum of National...[More...]
Fooled Again?
May 2, 2006
MP received email from several readers over the last few days asking about a rumor that the television networks had decided to abandon exit polls for 2006 elections. The blogosphere rumor apparently originates with blogger Mark Crispin Miller (author of...[More...]
Numbers Guy: Palestinian Exit Polls
February 22, 2006
Carl Bialik, the "Numbers Guy" for the Wall Street Journal Online," has a comprehensive review of the Palestinian exit poll snafu now online (that, as always, is free to all). MP blogged about this issue briefly earlier in the month,...[More...]
Palestinian Exit Polls
January 27, 2006
Wednesday's Palestinian elections once again highlight the shortcomings of exit polls as a tool for projecting election results. One of the many myths perpetuated by the seemingly endless debate over the 2004 U.S. exit polls involves the supposed infallibility of...[More...]
Election Results and Lessons
November 10, 2005
One lesson for MP is to allow for more blogging time on the day after an election. But on the theory that a little late is better than never, here is a quick roundup of developments from Tuesday's results: California....[More...]
No Exit
November 8, 2005
National Journal's free Hotline on Call reports that we will have no leaked exit polls to speculate about today in New Jersey, Virginia and California. And that's not because the National Election Pool will delay the release until later in...[More...]
A Growing Politicization
June 27, 2005
In the context of the exit poll debate last year, MP pointed to a Pew Research Center study showing that Republicans perceived greater bias in news media coverage than Democrats. The point was that the lower levels of trust in...[More...]
USCV vs. USCV
June 2, 2005
Back to exit polls for a moment. Bruce O'Dell, the founding Vice President of U.S. Count Votes (USCV), the organization that has been arguing that the official explanations for the "exit poll discrepancy" are "implausible," has just released a paper...[More...]
AAPOR Remainders
May 17, 2005
Some additional items of interest from the AAPOR conference Peter Coy of Businessweek was also on hand and filed some commentary. One point he emphasized, that I neglected in yesterday's post, was the steps the exit pollsters plan to take...[More...]
AAPOR: Exit Poll Presentation
May 16, 2005
Unfortunately, the sleep deprivation experiment that was my AAPOR conference experience finally caught up with me Saturday night. So this may be a bit belated, but after a day of travel and rest, I want to provide those not at...[More...]
On "Smackdowns" and Fraud
May 11, 2005
The big news at the newly minted Huffington Post is that two of its "celebrity" bloggers have taken up the exit-polls-as-evidence-of-vote-fraud debate. What's remarkable about yesterday's exchange between ABC sportscaster Jim Lampley and National Review Correspondent Byron York (here, here...[More...]
The Liddle Model That Could
April 29, 2005
Regular readers of this blog may know her as "Febble," the diarist from DailyKos. Her real name is Elizabeth Liddle, a 50-something mother and native of Scotland who originally trained as a classical musician and spent most of her life...[More...]
What the USCV Report Doesn't Say (Part II)
April 18, 2005
Mea Culpa Update - In Part I of this series I erred in describing an artifact in the data tabulation provided in the report provided by Edison Research and Mitofsky International. The artifact (which was first described by others back...[More...]
What the USCV Report Doesn't Say (Part I)
April 8, 2005
Mea Culpa (4/14): This post originally argued under heading “3)” below that sampling error alone will create an artifact in the data tabulation provided in the Edison-Mitofsky report. That assertion was flatly incorrect. The artifact that had been discussed on...[More...]
Tired of Exit Polls Yet?
March 21, 2005
And speaking of exit polls...I borrowed the title for this post from "DemFromCT," a frequent contributor (diarist) on DailyKos. DFC was being a bit facetious; I'd actually like to know the answer. For at least a month, I have intended...[More...]
Hello Exit Polls My Old Friend
March 21, 2005
The release of several new papers on the 2004 exit poll controversy brings me back to this familiar topic. The first paper, from a team of academics with considerable survey expertise, breaks no new ground but provides a good overall...[More...]
NEP Data Available Online
January 31, 2005
Unfortunately, my blogging time is short today but want to quickly pass on one bit of news (thanks to Rick Brady of Stones Cry Out for the tip): The so-called "raw" data from the National Election Pool exit polls are...[More...]
Professor M
January 28, 2005
Following up on a lesson learned from the last post, that a story can sometimes make a point more powerfully than a lot of arcane data, I decided to share an excerpts from a series of emails I received about...[More...]
The War Room
January 27, 2005
Of the newly disclosed data in the Edison/Mitofsky report on this year's exit polls, some of the most important concern results from past elections. Although I had found snippets before, the data was not nearly as comprehensive as what is...[More...]
The "Reluctant Bush Responder" Theory Refuted?
January 21, 2005
First, my apologies for not posting yesterday. The Inauguration was also a federal holiday, which meant no child care in my household and a day of being Mystery Daddy not Mystery Pollster. So without further ado: Though the Edison/Mitofsky Report...[More...]
Impressions on the Exit Poll Report
January 20, 2005
I wanted to read the full 77 pages of the Edison/Mitofsky report in full before weighing in. It took much of the day, but here are some first impressions. This report will not answer every question nor assuage every doubt,...[More...]
"Media Whore" Alert*
January 19, 2005
I am likely to be on ABC's Nightline tonight. This evening's broadcast, barring other "breaking news," will examine the various questions raised about the accuracy of the vote count, including the exit poll controversy. Chris Bury interviewed me for the...[More...]
Breaking News: NEP Releases Full Report
January 19, 2005
A bit of breaking news: The full 77-page "evaluation" of the exit polls prepared by the firms that conducted the exit polls was released this morning and can be downloaded from their website, exit-poll.net . Some highlights from the Executive...[More...]
NEP to Release Edison/Mitofsky Report?
January 18, 2005
This morning, USA Today's Mark Memmott reports that this week, Edison/Mitofsky, the firm that conducted the National Election Pool (NEP) exit polls, "will tell the news organizations that paid for them what, if anything, they think went wrong." But will...[More...]
On Electoral Reform
January 13, 2005
This site aims to be about political polling and opinion surveys, not about voting irregularities or election reform. Nonetheless, since the controversy over the exit polls has been at the center of the debate over alleged irregularities in the 2004...[More...]
More on n-Sizes and National Exit Poll Regions
January 13, 2005
Tonight I want to take up some additional questions readers have asked about the new exit poll data, specifically those about the regional composition of the national sample. For those who would rather not slog though a long post, I'll...[More...]
Fun With Unweighted Interview Counts
January 10, 2005
[UPDATE: The original version of this post included a small error that may have added to the confusion on this issue. See my corrections below] After the appearance of newly leaked exit poll data last week, one commenter on this...[More...]
More Fun with Exit Polls
January 7, 2005
Salon.com's Farhad Manjoo has an excellent article, "More Fun With Exit Polls," out today on the continuing controversy that MP has been my focus since the election (though the article is part of Salon's "premium" content, you can get a...[More...]
The "Smoking Gun" Part II
January 5, 2005
Today's must read for polling junkies is undoubtedly the exchange between Warren Mitofsky and Mickey Kaus (on the "smoking gun" item I blogged on yesterday). I cannot do it justice with a quick excerpt -- you should definitely read it...[More...]
Those Leaked PDFs
January 4, 2005
About those newly leaked exit poll numbers. Early this morning, Mickey Kaus linked to my earlier post the recently leaked exit poll documents and declared them a "smoking gun." When I first scanned the documents yesterday, I did not see...[More...]
More on (Sigh...) Exit Polls
January 3, 2005
Looks like my New Year’s resolution to change the subject won't last through my first day back. As those who read the comments on this blog probably know already, there were a few developments in the ongoing exit poll controversy...[More...]
So if Exit Polls Have So Much Error, Why Do Them?
December 27, 2004
After my post last week, which argued that the deceiving Kerry "leads" in four battleground states fell well short of statistical significance required for a projection, especially given the 99.5% confidence level required by NEP, I got this comment from...[More...]
So WHY Were the Exit Polls "Wrong?"
December 27, 2004
This post is another summary that mostly ties together various items I've covered separately, but also adds some new material. We know that the exit polls had an average error favoring John Kerry of 1.9% per precinct. What explains the...[More...]
Have the Exit Polls Been Wrong Before?
December 24, 2004
I have a short backlog of posts on the exit polls I've been working on this week, intended mostly to summarize information I've covered previously and make it more accessible via the FAQ. However, there is new information here, as...[More...]
What About Those German Exit Polls?
December 19, 2004
A commenter asked last week, "why are exit polls so much more accurate in Europe?" This is a question worth considering, because all surveys are not created equal. Differences in sample sizes, response and coverage rates and the experience and...[More...]
Exits: Were They Really "Wrong?"
December 14, 2004
Last week's posting of more detailed information on the sampling error of exit polls by the National Election Pool (NEP) allows for a quick review of the now well established conventional wisdom that the "exit polls were wrong." Let's first...[More...]
News Roundup
December 10, 2004
So many good topics, so little time. Several items appeared in the past 48 hours that are worth passing along. Slate's David Kenner and William Saletan did a post-election review of the issues raised in their pre-election consumer's guide to...[More...]
What is the Sampling Error for Exit Polls?
December 9, 2004
The newly posted methodology information on the National Election Pool (NEP) website (for states and the national survey) provides much more guidance on exit poll sampling error, but some of it may be a bit “mysterious.” Let me take this...[More...]
NEP Methodology Info Now Online
December 7, 2004
As of yesterday afternoon, the National Election Pool website (exit-poll.net) has posted methodology statements for both the national and statewide exit polls and the complete verbatim questionnaires used in each state. While these statements will not answer every question, they...[More...]
Correcting the "Correction"
December 6, 2004
Having spent the weekend with my family, I have much to cover today and not enough time to cover it. Let's start with the mini-controversy over the estimate of Hispanic voters, both nationally and in the state of Texas. I...[More...]
That Rumored Hispanic Revision?
December 3, 2004
It's now apparently official. Brosnan of the Scripps Howard News Service reports and includes a hint as to how the "revision" was accomplished: Initial network exit polls on Election Day overestimated President Bush's support among Hispanic voters, an NBC official...[More...]
NBC's Shuster on Exit Polls
December 3, 2004
We learn more in drips and drabs. This from NBC's David Shuster via Chris Matthew's "Hardblogger" (hat tip: RottenDemark): The fact is, a lot of people over the last month have blown opportunities to tamp down the internet wildfire and...[More...]
The Raw Exit Poll Data
December 1, 2004
I know there has been much interest in when the National Election Poll would release the raw data from the exit polls. I want to voice one note of caution to those who have been hoping for a quicker release....[More...]
NEP Revises Texas Hispanic Estimates
December 1, 2004
I am a bit behind on this item, but the Associated Press issued a "correction" on Monday based on a revision of the exit poll estimate of President Bush's support among Hispanics in Texas. The correction reduces Bush's support among...[More...]
Freeman's Data
November 29, 2004
Steven Freeman, the author of the widely circulated paper entitled, "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," has posted exit poll tabulations for 49 of the 50 states, plus DC, on his website. While I disagree with many of Freeman's conclusions about...[More...]
The Difference Between "Partial" and "Final" Exit Polls
November 29, 2004
A few days ago John Kesich, a commenter on this site, complained about the way the term "exit polls" has been used to describe both projections and raw data. He had a point. Confusion over the term "exit poll" runs...[More...]
FAQ: Questions about Exit Polls
November 29, 2004
*************** Looking for Information on Exit Polls for Election Day 2006? See the Exit Polls: What You Should Know 2006 or the newly revised Exit Poll FAQ, both now on Pollster.com! *************** Since the election, I have written quite a...[More...]
Stones Cry Out on Exit Polls
November 24, 2004
A blogger and San Diego State graduate student named Rick Brady posts his own exploration of the exit poll discrepancy. Brady plows a lot of ground that will be familiar to regular readers and (at risk of ruining the surprise...[More...]
More on the Berkeley Report
November 23, 2004
Having raised the issue of the Cal Berkeley Report on alleged voting irregularities in Florida, I have been struggling with how much to comment on the ongoing debate among statisticians on their findings (some of it in the comments section...[More...]
WP's Morin on Exit Polls
November 22, 2004
Yesterday's Washington Post had a long story on the exit polls by Richard Morin, its director of polling. If you have followed the exit polling controversy with interest, it is absolutely positively a must-read. Of course, as a "self-important blogger"...[More...]
The Freeman Paper Revisted
November 19, 2004
I want to revisit my post from Wednesday night on the paper by Dr. Steven Freeman on the "Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy." First, Dr. Freeman himself posted an answer last night that many of you may have missed (even I...[More...]
Exit Polls: Winston's Theory
November 19, 2004
The New Republic's Noam Scheiber passed on a theory floated by Republican pollster David Winston about the discrepancy in exit polling data that favors Democrats, not just this year, but in years past (although not as consistently): Winston suggested that...[More...]
The UCal Berkeley Report
November 18, 2004
First, one point I should have made more clearly in previous posts: The absence of significant evidence of fraud in exit polls does not prove the absence of fraud. When Warren Mitofsky says he sees no greater deviations for any...[More...]
Fraud in Florida?
November 18, 2004
A quick note before anyone emails to ask whether I think these guys are "delusional" too. The release posted on RottenDenmark indicates that the team from the Research Center at the U. Cal. Berkeley will release evidence from some sort...[More...]
Exit polls: breaking news
November 18, 2004
Two late breaking updates that I did not want to get lost in the very long previous post on the Unexplained Poll Discrepancy paper, although both are highly relevant. The first is news from the USA Today's Mark Memmott that...[More...]
The Freeman Paper
November 17, 2004
And speaking of MIT educated PhDs... The latest "must read" among those who want to pursue theories that the vote count was wrong and the exit polls were right (or who want to debunk them) is a paper released by...[More...]
Exit Polls: CalTech/MIT Report
November 15, 2004
Two new reports on exit polls came to my attention over the weekend. Both reports were written by high-powered PhDs from high-powered institutions, and both contribute to the ongoing debate (or efforts to debunk) theories of vote fraud in this...[More...]
Pew on "Moral Values"
November 12, 2004
The Pew Research Center released a new study yesterday, a follow-up interview with 1203 voters who were originally surveyed in October that sheds interesting new light on the “moral values” controversy. Pew conducted an experiment with the question that asked,...[More...]
Blaming the Bloggers - epilogue
November 9, 2004
Yesterday's "Real Time" column by the Wall Street Journal's Hanrahan and Fry made essentially the same point I did about the exit poll/blogger controversy. My point, for those who may have missed it, was less about defending "the likes of...[More...]
Vote Fraud?
November 9, 2004
I am hoping to spend the next week or so looking at what the elections have told us about the various issues we discussed here in the weeks before the election: likely voter models, weighting by party, the incumbent rule,...[More...]
Blaming the Bloggers
November 7, 2004
One thing that has bothered me about the coverage of the early exit poll snafu on Tuesday is the notion that bloggers were the problem. "Bloggers Said to Blame for Bad Poll Info," read the headline over the AP story...[More...]
MoralValues
November 7, 2004
Saturday's New York Times had three articles on the other big exit poll issue this week: The question that showed 22% of voters choosing "moral values" as the issue they were most concerned about. In an op-ed piece, ABC News...[More...]
Exit Polls: Mitofsky on News Hour
November 6, 2004
Warren Mitofsky, one of the principal directors of the National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, appeared last night on the Lehrer News Hour. The full transcript is not yet ready, but you can listen to the entire interview via real...[More...]
Exit Polls: The NEP Report
November 5, 2004
A story by Jim Rutenberg in today's New York Times finally reports the explanation of the exit poll mishap from the people who ran it, Warren Mitofsky and Joe Lenski of Mitofsky International & Edison Research. Rutenberg "obtained" a post-election...[More...]
Exit Polls: What We Know
November 4, 2004
The apparent problems with Tuesday's exit polls were obviously topic number one with MP's readers yesterday. Before jumping into what went "wrong" and why, it is important for all of us to be clear about what we know and what...[More...]
Exit Polls: More Questions
November 2, 2004
Dave M asks: You say that they poll randomly through the day and when the final precinct vote (not survey) counts are available, they get incorporated. If exit poll interpretation isn't done until the voting is done, then why use...[More...]
Exit Polls: Answering Your Questions
November 2, 2004
Let me answer some questions that came up in the comments: Frankly0 asks: I don't get the notion that the exit polls have a 3% MOE nationally. I can see 4% MOE for a given state, but the sample set...[More...]
Exit Polls: What You Should Know
November 2, 2004
***************************** Looking for Information on Exit Polls for Election Day 2006? See the newly updated, 2006 edition of this post now on Pollster.com! ***************************** So sometime very soon, the traffic on certain web sites will hit astronomically high levels as...[More...]
