(National) - 10/12 - EXIT POLL DATA T...

Author Message   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 11728 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 3 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 5, 2012 - 11:49 am:        The theatre that TV Election Night news coverage has become takes one more step into the absurd with cancellation of exit poll data in 19 states. The states that will be excluded from detailed exit poll coverage are: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. The reason, ostensibly, is that these states are not in play. Many of them ARE in play, however, particularly for important battles for control of the U.S. House and Senate, and for important gubernatorial races. By removing crucial components of the exit poll data in these locations, researchers will be blocked from detailed after-the-fact analyses. "Voters in the excluded states will still be interviewed as part of a national exit poll, but state-level estimates of the partisan, age or racial makeups of electorates won't be available as they have been since 1992. The lack of data may hamper election night analyses in some states, and it will almost certainly limit post-election research for years to come," write Washington Post bloggers Jon Cohen and Scott Clement (see below). If you think the debates have turned into a rehearsed performing act, in which "zingers" and how a candidate positions his fingers are treated with greater gravity than substance, then also please notice that network election night coverage has become "theatre" as well. In every major election we watch network and national cable TV pundits pretend that they are competing with other TV outlets, as they refer to "our" numbers and introduce viewers to "our analysts." In fact, they all use identical numbers and analysts, from a single central source now called the National Election Pool. I say theatre because TV pundits "call" the race announcing winners, instead of using the more accurate term "PROJECTED winner." And I say theatre because the single source upon which they rely, the National Election Pool, fudges the numbers midstream by entering "adjusted totals" usually accompanied by a trend change. In addition to the numbers flowing in from National Election Pool, the AP pays state lobbying organizations and local town clerks to call them with numbers read off of the voting machine tapes. The AP makes contributions to state election official organizations in exchange for these phone calls. Sometimes, clerks call in the wrong numbers, which are entered into the fray for announcing winners. For example, in New Hampshire's 2008 primary, two town clerks called in zero votes for Ron Paul even though he had dozens of votes. Later, when caught, they just said 'oops.' I say "theatre" because based on these projected numbers, candidates concede prematurely, as we saw in 2000 when Gore conceded privately to Bush, and was on his way to make a public concession. The 2000 network projections were flawed by a known wrong total of minus 16,000 votes in Volusia County, Florida and another 4,000-vote mistake in Brevard County. Here's a news article with additional details on the removal of 19 states from the exit poll data: Washington Post Blogs - Oct. 4, 2012, by Jon Cohen and Scott Clement http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/10/04/networks-ap-cancel-exit-polls-in-19-states/ Networks, AP cancel exit polls in 19 states Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year's election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning. Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Wednesday. The aim, he said, "is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states," in the face of mounting survey costs. The decision by the National Election Pool -- a joint venture of the major television networks and The Associated Press — is sure to cause some pain to election watchers across the country. (For a full list of the states that won't have exit polls scroll to the bottom of this post.) Voters in the excluded states will still be interviewed as part of a national exit poll, but state-level estimates of the partisan, age or racial makeups of electorates won't be available as they have been since 1992. The lack of data may hamper election night analyses in some states, and it will almost certainly limit post-election research for years to come. A growing number of voters casting early ballots has added to the complexity of carrying out surveys in 50 states, the District of Columbia and nationally. In more and more states it has become crucial to supplement in-person precinct polling with relatively costly telephone interviews in order to achieve representative samples. In 2008, only 18 states included interviews with early voters, with notable absences in Indiana (24 percent of voters casting early ballots), Wisconsin (21 percent) and Virginia (14 percent), according to early voting estimates by United States Elections Project. This year, exit pollsters are set to carry out phone polls in 15 states, about half of all states covered, and increase the sample sizes of those polls by 32 percent, according to Merkle. Moreover, the continued rise in the number of voters using cellphones also bumps up the price of phone surveys, another challenge motivating the changes for 2012. (The Washington Post and other media organizations are subscribers to the exit poll, but not primary sponsors.) With the inevitable, intense focus on sub-group analysis in the exit poll (e.g., percent of Hispanics voting Democratic and Republican), the consortium also made the decision to increase the number of interviews in the national poll by bumping up the number of randomly selected sampling precincts from 300 in 2008 to 350 this year. Slicing the number of state surveys for more representative surveys may be a reasonable trade-off -- but it will hit hard. Here is a list of the states that will be excluded from coverage: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. Comparing this list with the election map, reveals how carefully the exit poll planners allocated resources. All 19 of the states with no exit polls are classified as either "solid Obama" or "solid Romney," and there is only one "toss-up" gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race not on the list: the competitive North Dakota match-up of Heidi Heitkamp and Rick Berg. Two other contests in the "leaning" Democratic category aren't on the list: the U.S. Senate race in Hawaii and the governor's race in West Virginia. The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.   Bob Fleischer Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Rjf7r Post Number: 254 Registered: 9-2005 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 5, 2012 - 1:30 pm:        Perhaps we shouldn't rely on the (corporate) media to gather information on our elections (any more than we should reply on machine vendors).   Francois Choquette Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Ronrules Post Number: 46 Registered: 3-2012 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 5, 2012 - 1:41 pm:        One solution is to do your own exit poll. That's what I'll be doing on Nov. 6. I plan on using copies of the ballot (on yellow paper to prevent any issues) and I will have a box for people to put the ballot in. It's effectively a secret exit poll. People are often reluctant to tell others who they voter for. This method alleviates that. My purpose is to compare the machine results with the exit poll statistics. I'll try to ask everyone coming out of the building to do fill out the ballot. If I'm there all day, there should be minimal issues with demographics. It's not a county-wide poll, just ONE precinct to check that what the machines counted is close to what the will of the people is. I hope others will do the same and we can collect the data ourselves. There are various groups such as WatchTheVote2012, The Election Integrity Project that will love to get your data.   Mike LaBonte Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Mike_labonte Post Number: 643 Registered: 12-2005 Best of Black Box?  Votes: 1 (A keeper?) Posted on Sunday, October 7, 2012 - 6:31 pm:        I think asking people to fill out secret ballots as an exit poll is cool. However, bear in mind that any "friction" in the process will amplify the problem of people self-selecting. Most people certainly would not want to repeat the entire ballot they just filled out. I would limit it to just one race, probably the presidential electors. At that rate the ballots could be business cards, fairly cheap to print in boxes of 1000, and easy to mark standing up without a clipboard.

The public must be able to see and authenticate these four essential steps for an election to be public, democratic, and valid: (1) Who can vote (voter list); (2) Who did vote (3) The original count; (4) Chain of custody.