Fooled Again?

Exit Polls Legacy blog posts

MP received email from several readers over the last few days asking about a rumor that the television networks had decided to abandon exit polls for 2006 elections.   The blogosphere rumor apparently originates with blogger Mark Crispin Miller (author of the book Fooled Again, How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal it Again) who provided the following seemingly authoritative report last week:

This year there will be no official exit polls conducted. The media
consortium that paid for them in previous elections isn’t going to do
it any more, ostensibly because such polls have been "exposed" as
unreliable; and so we will have no way to determine whether the
official vote-counts can be trusted.

He seemed pretty sure, but it was news to me.  So I went to the source and sent an email to the official spokesperson for the National Election Pool (NEP), that news consortion that conducts the exit polls.  I received the following official, on-the record response:

The rumors are false.  NEP will be
conducting exit polls during the off year
election.

There you have it.  I’ve also heard unofficially that the exit pollsters are hard at work planning for 2006.  So it looks like we’ll have network exit polls to kick around again in November 2006 (although they promise to hold back the results, even from reporters, until 5:00 p.m. — so maybe no mid-day leaks this time).

This rumor episode tempts me to remind readers about placing too much faith in similarly authoritative theories about how the 2004 exit polls are evidence of a stolen election.  But that would be awfully snarky of me, wouldn’t it?

PS:  While the networks will conduct exit polls in November, as far as I know they will not  conduct exit polls in connection with any of the primary elections, including tonight’s Ohio primary.   

However, those concerned — with good cause — about the problems with electronic voting and the integrity of our voting system might want to check out this Cleveland Plain Dealer story that mentions what sounds like an innovative exit poll being conducted today in Ohio’s Cuyahoga County by the Election Science Institute (ESI).   This sort of work has far more potential to help us monitor and improve the conduct of our elections than pouring over the remnants of the 2004 exit polls, which were simply not designed to check for fraud.  Hopefully, we will hear more about the ESI project soon.   

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.