A Reply to Nate Silver’s “Ten Reasons Why You Should Ignore Exit Polls”
Oct. 29, 2010
Nate, this is a reply to your November 2008 post. I realize it is two years after the fact, but
with the midterm elections next week, I thought it would be instructive to
review what you said about exit polls. I for one would like to know if you feel
the same way about them. I’m still waiting for your response to these twenty-five questions I
posed back in July. But after reading your “ten reasons”, I can come up with
ten reasons why you have never responded. The “experts” whom you cite are
anything but.
You begin with this: “Oh, let me count the ways. Almost all of this, by the way,
is lifted from Mark Blumenthal's outstanding Exit Poll FAQ. For the long version, see
over there”.
Your first mistake was to believe all those discredited GOP
talking points. Now I will count the ways.
Are you asking us to ignore a) the final exit polls or b) the
unadjusted, preliminary state and national exit polls? If it’s (a), then you
must believe that election fraud is systemic since final exit polls are always
forced to match the recorded vote, even if it is fraudulent. If it’s (b), then
you must believe election fraud is a myth. Based on your sources, it must be
(b) and you probably believe “voter fraud” is real.
1. Exit polls have a much larger intrinsic margin for error
than regular polls. This is because of
what are known as cluster sampling techniques. Exit polls are not conducted at
all precincts, but only at some fraction thereof. Although these precincts are
selected at random and are supposed to be reflective of their states as a
whole, this introduces another opportunity for error to occur (say, for
instance, that a particular precinct has been canvassed especially heavily by
one of the campaigns). This makes the margins for error somewhere between
50-90% higher than they would be for comparable telephone surveys.
RC: Not true, pure baloney. I should stop right here. Exit
polls have a much smaller margin of error than pre-election polls. Perhaps you
are unaware that exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky state in the notes to the National
Exit Poll as well as in the NEP
Methods Statement that exit
poll respondents were randomly-selected and the overall margin of error was 1%.
Adding a 30% cluster effect raises the calculated 0.86% MoE
to 1.1%. It stands to reason that exit polls are more accurate than
pre-election polls because a) those polled know exactly who they voted for and
b) in pre-election polls, respondents might change their mind - or not vote. http://richardcharnin.com/TrueVoteModelDocGettingStarted.htm
2. Exit polls have
consistently overstated the Democratic share of the vote. Many of you will recall this happening in 2004, when
leaked exit polls suggested that John Kerry would have a much better day than
he actually had. But this phenomenon was hardly unique to 2004. In 2000, for
instance, exit polls had Al Gore winning states like
RC: Of course the Democrats always do better in the exit
polls than in the recorded vote. But did you ever consider why? Perhaps you are
unaware that millions of votes are uncounted in every election? And that the
vast majority are Democratic (over 50% are in minority districts)? The
Read about it here: http://richardcharnin.com/StateExitPollDiscrepancies.htm
3. Exit polls were particularly bad in this year's primaries. They overstated
Barack Obama's performance by an average of about 7 points.
RC: You are apparently unaware of Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation
Chaos” in which he advised Republicans to cross over in the Democratic
primaries and vote for Hillary Clinton? His objective was to deny Obama the
nomination. Obama easily won the all the
caucuses in which voters were visually
counted? Read about it here: http://richardcharnin.com/2008PrimariesLinks.htm
4. Exit polls
challenge the definition of a random sample.
Although the exit polls have theoretically established procedures to collect a
random sample -- essentially, having the interviewer approach every nth
person who leaves the polling place -- in practice this is hard to execute at a
busy polling place, particularly when the pollster may be standing many yards
away from the polling place itself because of electioneering laws.
RC: You are apparently unaware that exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky wrote
in the notes to the 2004 National
Exit Poll that respondents are randomly
selected as they exit the polling booth. What is your definition of a
random sample?
5. Democrats may be more likely to participate in exit polls. Related to items #1 and #4 above, Scott Rasmussen has found that Democrats supporters are more likely to agree to
participate in exit polls, probably because they are more enthusiastic about
this election.
RC: You quote a biased GOP pollster who never did an exit
poll. There is no evidence that Democrats are more likely to participate. In
fact, 2004 exit poll data shows just the opposite. You are resurrecting the reluctant Bush
responder (rBr) hypothesis that was disproved by the
exit pollster’s own data.
6. Exit polls may
have problems calibrating results from early voting. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, exit polls will attempt account for people who voted before Election Day in most (although not all) states by means of a random telephone
sample of such voters. However, this requires the polling firms to guess at the
ratio of early voters to regular ones, and sometimes they do not guess
correctly. In
RC: You are apparently unaware that exit pollsters Edison-Mitofsky claimed that their 2004 precinct design sample was
near perfect: http://www.ap.org/media/pdf/EvaluationEdisonMitofsky.pdf
You mention Florida 3000, but are either unaware or choose
to ignore the fact that 180,000 spoiled punch card ballots were never counted -
and 70% voted for Gore. Are you aware that GOP election officials discarded
Democratic absentee ballots and included GOP ballots that were filed after the
due date? Are you unaware of the
7. Exit polls may
also miss late voters. By
"late" voters I mean persons who come to their polling place in the
last couple of hours of the day, after the exit polls are out of the field.
Although there is no clear consensus about which types of voters tend to vote
later rather than earlier, this adds another way in which the sample may be
nonrandom, particularly in precincts with long lines or extended voting hours.
RC: You apparently are unaware that Kerry was leading the
National Exit Poll by a steady 3-4% at 4:00pm (8649 respondents), at 7:30 pm
(11027) and 12:22am (13047). As a quant guru, you should ask how was it that Kerry led by 51-48% at 12:22 am but Bush led at the
final (13660) after just 613 additional respondents? It’s simple. The pollsters
had to force the National to match the bogus recorded vote (Bush 50.7-48.3%). It
was impossible - a sham. The fact is that Kerry led the final unadjusted NEP 13660
by 51-47.5%. Are you aware that final
exit polls are always FORCED to match the recorded vote? Read about the final 5 million recorded votes
here: http://www.richardcharnin.com/Final5mRecordedVotes.htm,
In 2008, Obama won
the unadjusted National Exit Poll (17836 respondents) by 61-37%. But the poll
was forced to match the recorded 52.9-45.6%vote. Are you aware that Obama had 52.4% of 121
million votes recorded on Election Day and 59.2% of the 10 million late votes
recorded later?
8. "Leaked"
exit poll results may not be the genuine article. Sometimes, sources like Matt Drudge and Jim Geraghty have gotten their hands on the actual exit polls
collected by the network pools. At other times, they may be reporting data from
"first-wave" exit polls, which contain extremely small sample sizes
and are not calibrated for their demographics. And at other places on the
Internet (though likely not from Gergahty and Drudge,
who actually have reasonably good track records), you may see numbers that are
completely fabricated.
RC: You quote Matt Drudge of all people? Guess you were unaware
of that Kerry
led by a steady 51-48% from 4pm (8349 respondents) to 12:22am (13047) to the
final 13660. http://www.richardcharnin.com/MatchingFinalExitPollToTheVote.htm
9. A
high-turnout election may make demographic weighting difficult. Just as regular, telephone polls are having difficulty
this cycle estimating turnout demographics -- will younger voters and
minorities show up in greater numbers? -- the same
challenges await exit pollsters. Remember, an exit poll is not a definitive record of what happened at the polling place;
it is at best a random sampling.
RC: Perhaps you are unaware that the National Exit Poll
indicates that Kerry won 57-62% of new voters. And that Obama had 72% of new
voters in 2008. But you now agree that exit polls are indeed random samples.
Glad you corrected point # 4. Obama had 72% of new voters in 2008.
http://richardcharnin.com/2004TurnoutProof.htm
10. You'll know the actual results soon enough anyway. Have patience, my friends, and consider yourselves lucky:
in
RC: Exit polls are
more trouble than they are worth? Yes, it’s true - for those who rig the
elections. Perhaps you are unaware that the exit polls were the first
indicators that the 2004 election was stolen. Nate, your problem is that you
refuse to admit that Election Fraud is systemic - or that it even exists. You want
your readers to believe that the recorded vote accurately depicts true voter
intent and that the exit polls are always wrong. Tell that to Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow when you
guest on their show.
You are probably
unaware that the unadjusted 2008 exit polls confirm that Obama won by 23
million votes with a 58% share – not by the bogus recorded 9.5 million and
52.9% share. Obama won the 58% True Vote
share using the identical final National Exit Poll vote shares – but with a
feasible returning voter mix replacing the impossible Final NEP mix which was
required to force the poll to match the recorded vote. Read about it here:
http://richardcharnin.com/ObamaProof.htm
You would agree that
103% turnout of living 2004 Bush voter is impossible, yes? And also agree that
the NEP inflated the number of returning 2004 third-party voters by indicating
there were 5 million even though 1.2 million were recorded? And that there
could not have been 12 million more returning Bush voters than Kerry voters –
especially since Bush won the recorded vote by 3 million and Kerry won the True
Vote by 10 million? http://richardcharnin.com/FurtherConfirmationOfaKerryLandslide.htm
We have the 1988-2008
unadjusted numbers from the Roper website. It shows that Obama had 61% in the
National Exit Poll (17,836 respondents) and 58.0% in the state exit poll
aggregate – exactly matching the True Vote Model. The Democrats led by 52-42%;
but just 48-46% in the recorded vote. That’s an awful lot of Reluctant
Republican Responders, yes?
You are probably unaware
that of the 274 state exit polls in the 1988-2008 presidential elections, 126
exceeded the margin of error (including a 30% cluster factor). Only 14 would be
expected to exceed the MoE at the 95% confidence
level. Of the 126, 123 “red-shifted:” to the Republican and THREE to the
Democrat. The probability is 5E-106. Can you explain it?
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Read about it here: http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/category/election-myths/
Finally, Nate, take a
look at this. You need a real education on exit polls.
http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/perspectives-on-a-new-exit-poll-reference/
