Exit Poll Problems May Be Older Than We Think

Readers may recall all of the hullaballo after the election, when Exit Polls had shown a clean win for John Kerry but actual returns showed a clear win for Bush. This followed the 2000 elections where Exit Polls had predicted a Gore win but then the projections showed a Bush win, and then Florida showed that no one knew what they were talking about in either direction. Since then, the providers of these Exit Poll results have been under CONSIDERABLY srcutiny and pressure to improve their processes. So far, to no avail. Well, one intrepid blogger notes that the problems may not have begun in 2000, but only showed themselves because of a very close election.

Mystery Pollster notes that in The War Room, a documentary that followed James Carville and George Stephanopoulos during Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, "one of the final scenes shows Clinton's operatives reacting to the first leaked exit poll results." ...By pausing the DVD, we can see the handwritten leaked numbers and "it is obvious that these mid-day reports in 1992 were off by nearly as much as the leaked numbers everyone saw on the Internet in the middle of the Election Day, 2004."

This appears to be proof of that which has become obvious to everyone but the Media. It is time to find a better way to guage public reaction and voting activity. Exit Polls are simply too flawed to be useful in close elections. But then, maybe it is up to Bloggers to find a better way by bypassing the professionals altogether. Free-lance Exit Polling, anyone?