Are Exit Pollsters the new Weathermen?

[toasty]

Who else could get something so wrong across the board with impunity? All of the exit polling I saw for the race yesterday, from multiple sources, had numbers that would have been a win for Kerry. It seems that if you are an exit pollster, "Hey, this shit is unpredictable" is an acceptable excuse.

In fairness, they always tell us that they are not intended to be a reliable prediction of the way the vote will ultimately go, but that is of course impossible and disingenuous. It would be like putting a naked lady in a room and telling you not to look at her. If they're really not reliable enough to use, why do them at all?

[asdf_admin]

the news is Liberal. what would you think?

[toasty]

^^ respectfully, I don't buy that as a reason. If they were liberal and were attempting to influence the election, they would underreport Kerry's support to encourage people to get to the polls. The only thing that matters is the final tally -- the appearance of winning is irrelevant once actual votes are tallied.

Frankly, I blame incompetence.

[asdf_admin]

lol. that is a good one.

i watched abc, cbs, msnbc, fox, etc. it was amazing the amount of different information. honestly, there is one poll that counts and it was yesterday.

remember that.

[FM]

polls don't ever mean shit because they always have margins of error. Don't ever take them for exact face value. Guidelines, yes. Face value, no.

However, the networks are using them to try and get information on how the states are voting, instead of simply waiting for the results to roll in...they then take those and use their own intelligence, computer models, etc. to try and predict who'll win what state (hence the different broadcasts), as well as what people are thinking or believing.

[asdf_admin]

To: toasty
From: asdf

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23580-2004Nov3.html

Keep On Truck'n. :wink: