Exit polling internal review finds...

[Rsak]

I cannot speak to whether there was an attempt to change the results. The only thing I can attest to is the fact that those emails did not reach everyone who voted for Bush as evident from the polling results.

However you are failing to understand that when the results of the poll are wrong outside of the margin for error it is a problem found in the polling process. That could be their canidate selection process, the calculation, or the validation of the poll.

If by some strand occurance they were getting results where 75% of the people stated they voted for Kerry they should raise some flags due to the inconsistency with previous polls done in the election cycle. The proper course of action is to throw the results out and start over or give up. The process has to answer to the trends and the numbers they collected.

And with the small numbers of people needed to make these kind of results the claim that the republicians could reach enough individuals to effect the results of a properly executed poll is absurd unless you acknowledge that this poll was not properly executed.

[vaulos]

It sounds as though you are suggesting that they simply didn't poll enough people. However, I would simply point out that the impact of the "email" on these polls were more than likely the same in any area and over any amount of people. The whole idea behind a poll is that your sample accurately reflects the answers you will get across the nation. If the Bush people are generally more unwilling to participate than the Kerry people everywhere, then the result is the same.

Think about it this way, if they wanted to use a poll to find out which side's voters were more unwilling to particpate in a poll than another's, they would have taken a nearly identical poll to what they actually did, and then compare the results against the actual election numbers.

[Rsak]

But I cannot by any leap of imagination support the notion that all or even the majority of voters for any party in that level of communication with the respective campaigns.

There are just too many people out there that never received the emails or flat out ignored them for there to be significant impairment to a properly executed poll. Compound that with the fact that some people are not going to refuse to participate in the poll for reasons other then being told by their party of choice. Polling is able to surmount that obstacle already and exit polling can be improved to do the same.

[vaulos]

Keep in mind that it only takes a realitively small number of Bush voters had to have some additional reason not to participate (than Kerry voters) to have pushed the numbers strongly (and I mean that in the odd Washington sense of strong numbers) in Kerry's favor.

It probably wasn't "some conspiracy", it might have been that Bush voters simply didn't want people to know that they were closet Republicans or closet Bush-ites. But as heated as that race was, I have no doubt that many Republicans who DID get the email were willing to not participate in some vain attempt to influence the vote in thier favor.

[Rsak]

I am open to that possiblity Vaulos, but all that does is further support the conclusion that the poll was flawed.

And I fail to see how such a notion is going to influence the actual election results in anyone's favor and least of all in favor of Bush. I agree with you that if someone is swayed on such a basis they should be voting in the first place, especially in light of the late presidential election and the continued inability of our news oragnizations to keep anything confidential especially something as volatile as these results which have shown to be wrong on numerous occasions.

[Relbeek Einre]

It puzzled me, actually, why anyone would want to thwart polls.

My best speculation is that they want to sabotage the validity of polls in general... or possibly create an overcount of Republicans (by overcompensation) in tracking polls. Not sure. It wasn't going to alter the election, to be sure. Perhaps it was part of a gambit to create more grist for the "liberal media bias" mill.

[Eidolon Faer]

Actually, Relbeek, the "why would anyone want to thward polls" is easy.

Pollsters are rude. Inherently rude.

Think about it, Relbeek, the only proper response to some stranger coming up and demanding to know how you voted is to say "Fuck off and mind yer own business!" And in this day and age of ENDLESS telemarketing, telephone surveys. push-polling, and just general spam, people are becoming increasingly impatient with the whole process.

And since beating them to a pulp with a folding chair or lighting their car on fire is something that typically is only acceptable behavior during a Democrat peace rally, the most effective long-term strategy is to smile and lie until they go out of business.

In fact, I got rather seriously unpleasant with three or four Republican telephone volunteers in the days leading up to the election. And I was planning to vote Bush. Frankly, if some smarmy exit pollster got in my face, he'd come away thinking that I'd voted for Osama bin Ladin as a write-in candidate, because national security was my hotbutton issue.

[Relbeek Einre]

Funny, pollsters never got under my skin. If I don't have time or inclination to answer their poll I tell them so and they bid me good day. I never found them rude.

Maybe it's a Republican thing. Some sort of personalized form of isolationism. Maybe they think pollsters are terrorists too.

[Eidolon Faer]

Or maybe Republicans have better things to do than talk to pollsters all day long.

Why do you think it's five bucks more per month for an unlisted number?

[SabiarofErudin]

You guys should put talent points into Initiatize. It can give you a 75% chance of adding a combo point when using the cheap shot ability.

[vaulos]

Rsak- Of course the poll's results were flawed, we all saw the election! But the "process" which the poll utilized was NOT flawed. It was quite standard and scientific. What it assumed was equal willingness of participation between Republicans and Democrats. That is a problem NO poll can (or ever will) overcome.

As an interesting correlation, in NYC about 10 years ago the NYPD started collecting racial data on people reporting crimes. According to the study, Asian women were FAR less likely to be robbed or assaulted than any other group (followed closely by Asian men). This of course prompted an investigation into why these people were less victimized. Turns out that Asian women were assaulted FAR more often than anyone else, but failed to report the crimes due to cultural oddities. Was the process that the NYPD study used inherently flawed? Of course not, the flaw resided with the people not reporting crimes.

[Eidolon Faer]

Vaulos--

Actually, it depends on which poll we're talking about if we're going to attempt to make the claim that the "process" of the poll was fair, scientific, unbiased, and non-fattening. Some of them are exceptionally and blatantly biased.

And any exit poll that allows one to answer "moral values" as the reason for one's voting decision without further probing on the part of the pollster is suspicious in my view. If one question is designed that stupidly, what were the rest like?

As far as the "cultural oddities", it's nice to know that the "Republicans don't respond to pollsters" theory is not without analogous precedent in other types of polling data. As to what the root motivations are, I can only speculate.

For my personal perspective, I suppose my irritation with pollsters can be summed up as "If I wanted to tell you what I think, I'd call you. Not the other way 'round." It's very similar to my annoyance with a pushy, overhelpful high-pressure salesman. "If I had a question about the product, I'd come over and ask you. If you're going to persist in bothering me I will shop elsewhere."

Also, I resent being pigeonholed. While in some respects I am a typical Conservative, in others, most notably the reasoning behind my stance on Abortion, I am fairly atypical. If you're going to ask a simplistic, multiple-choice question where none of the responses really fit my views, don't bother. I have this board, which is a more elegant platform for stating, refining, and testing my viewpoint than any crude pollster's questionnaire. Sometimes I can really relate to Hannibal Lecter's line: "A census-taker tried to categorize me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Thpthpthpthp!"

[Rsak]

It doesn't wash Vaulos.

You cannot show any logical basis to believe that this email could sway enough bush voters (note voters, not supporters) for the pollsters to not get a valid sample data if they tried. The number of people needed to respond is so small that the effect of this kind of email is marginal at best and no one has been able to scientifically prove otherwise.

The key point that you hit upon was that they made an assumption and their calculation process was based upon that assumption. That is the flaw in this polling system.

And despite your claims that no poll can ever overcome this then I direct you to the numerous other polls during the election year leading up to the election that was accurate within the margin of error with the same obstacles. Somehow they were able to manage and since the email Relbeek spoke about did not specify particular polls to boycott they overcame that problem.

[Eidolon Faer]

Rsak,

You're missing the forest for the trees...or perhaps you got the chicken and the egg mixed up.

First of all, I agree that this mysterious Republican email is a non-starter. It didn't go out to nearly enough people to have the kind of overwhelming effect on the exit polls that we saw in November.

Secondly, Relbeek is probably confusing cause and effect when he tries to sell his konspiracy theories. If Republicans are naturally inclined to find exit pollsters annoying, the email makes sense from a simple get out the vote viewpoint. "Don't let those obnoxious exit pollster assholes bother you or stop you from voting. Just ignore them." Or for that matter, it doesn't even have to be that sophisticated: "Just ignore those exit pollsters, they're annoying and that'll show them."

Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest theory is the best one. If we are ready to accept a cultural dislike for pollsters on the part of Republicans, why bother considering some convoluted double-bind conspiracy theory? Why bother making a conscious effort to discredit exit polls when the 2000 election did such a fine job of that already? And why give the Democrats exit-polling data that will inevitably be used as ammunition in their ongoing, ceaseless efforts to attack Bush and discredit our Democratic process, when there is nothing at all to be gained?

Let's face it, the Florida Panhandle in 2000 showed us that a Democrat early lead in the exit polls is not to Republicans' advantage. It suppressed Republican voter turnout in the panhandle a great deal when NBC called the election early for Gore.

Also, most politicos acknowledge the belief that there are a goodly number of lemmings among the undecided voters, who simply want to have voted for the guy who won. Why hand them to Kerry when the election was supposed to be close?

The exit polls don't decide who is President, the ballots do. There is simply no credible motive for the Bush Campaign to engage in such efforts.

[Rsak]

I have acknowledged all of that Eidolon but I feel it must be further disproved that even if such a konspiracy existed it could only work in a flawed poll which supports my lack of support for this type of polling. They are a crutch for those lacking in character in my opinion in the political field.

[Eidolon Faer]

There's no question that the poll is flawed. That much is obvious from the way the predicted outcome failed to match the actual outcome.

That's so obvious I don't understand why it needs to be stated.

The question is: in what WAY is it flawed? What was the cause? That is the thrust of Relbeek's bizarre conspiracy theories and that is the focus of this thread. Relbeek blames the errors on malicious misdeeds by Bush, just like he blames everything else on Bush's evil ways. You appear to be making a similar error by ascribing the discrepancy to malicious intent on the part of the pollsters themselves.

While I find your own konspiracy theory to be significantly less preposterous than Relbeek's, there is no conspiracy theory truly required. Unsuspected cultural bias in the people responding to the survey could easily account for the sample skew.

For that matter, if the response bias was limited to a subset of the Republican voters, say the fiscal conservatives, that could easily explain the other piece of bullshit coming out of this poll, that "moral values" was the #1 motivating factor among voters this year.

Occam's Razor. Who needs a conspiracy when there's a simpler explanation?

[Ddrak]

Although this may cause the board to spontaneously combust, I think Eid is correct.

Dd

[Rsak]

Then I apologize for the confusion. I do not ascribe to any conspiracy.

I tend to support the theory that the exit pollsters were lazy more then anything and got caught by their own assumptions. Were they on their game and properlly executing a poll then even if you believe the notion that there was a malicious conspiracy by Bush it still would not have changed the results.

The fault falls on the shoulders of the group that was responsible for the accuracy of the poll not on any group being polled.

[Relbeek Einre]

It's very puzzling that Eidolon would say I blamed it on Bush. I didn't even mention the man's name once during this thread. I'm sorry Eidolon feels the need to continually misquote me in his efforts to repeatedly insult me.

So the question remains -- why would I get these emails? I don't know. I found them bizarre.

Who knows, maybe Occam's Razor is the simplest answer -- Republicans just culturally mistrust the media as much as they do intellectualism. Which doesn't speak well of Republicans, mind you, but it's the simplest answer.

This leads to another question - one of why they hate a media which has essentially been in their back pocket since 2000.

[Partha]

Wasn't this the poll that identified 'moral values' as the center of the election?

If so, doesn't that mean that it wasn't conservatives voting FOR Bush claiming moral values, but liberals voting AGAINST Bush?