Indeed, why did the exit polls in the more critical battleground states end up being so far from reality? Need to get the final breakdowns and do research on this later. I suspect Florida and Ohio are the two states with the most skewed election results compared to exit polls. Just a hunch.

Over at EDM, Alan Abramowitz tries to explain it away:

The exit polls missed the mark very badly last night (before they were reweighted to correspond to the actual results). The national exit poll consistently showed Kerry leading by 3 points--just the reverse of the actual vote. The Ohio exit poll had Kerry up by 4 and the Florida exit poll had it tied.

What happened? Some combination of bad precinct samples, resopnse bias, or failing to accurately account for early and absentee votes must have been at work. Whatever it was, it was a major problem. In 2000, the national exit poll also overestimated Gore's vote, but not by nearly as big a margin.

What does it mean for the poll results to be "reweighted"? The numbers weren't matching the actuals being reported, so the pollsters scrambled to make them look better to save face?

I'm not about to play the conspiracy card, but over at blackboxvoting.org they're sending Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain computer logs, audit trails, voting reports and other documents. Now, wouldn't it at least be fascinating to validate the election results in Florida? You'd think the President would welcome the opportunity to have his results certified by an third party, right?

For reference here's a snapshot of the original early afternoon numbers from Slate (Dated Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, at 4:28 PM PT):

8:26:04 PM      comment []  trackback []

Let's not get hasty now. We all still live and were born in this country and it's here to serve everyone, not just the conservative agenda.

5:08:39 PM      comment []  trackback []

Some uneasy worries I will still have many days after today:

• Social security: what will happen to it? Will my kids have anything to show for when they grow old?
• Supreme Court: will it change to represent conservative values far from my own for a generation to come?
• Health care: will we ever have affordable health care for everyone in America who needs it?
• World presence: will we continue to piss off other countries, not to mention terrorists?
• World poverty: will we continue to shun impoverished peoples in this world so that we can continue to live high off the hog? How can the conservative right continue to think that their god thinks their "moral values" are more important than solving the worlds problems?
• Nuclear proliferation and terrorism: will Bush step up to the plate or are we staring a warhead in the face at some point in the future?
• Environment: will Bush continue to sandbag for the fossil fuel industry to the point where Day After Tomorrow isn't so far fetched?

Only time will tell...

1:20:42 PM      comment []  trackback []

Did all of us in the blogosphere fall prey to too many pats on the back? Did we blind ourselves to the possibility that this was coming? Andrew Leonard thinks so. I'm inclined to agree.

1:11:17 PM      comment []  trackback []