Exit Poll Mess - 2008 The Past is Prologue

Exit Poll Mess - 2008

Opposing the Ohio electors
Capitol Hill, Jan. 6, 2005
Michael Collins cc

The Past is Prolog

Michael Collins

(Wash. DC)  Did you know that 2004 was not a "red versus blue" election?  Did any analysis that you heard or read mention that the very red rural voting segment went from 23% of the vote total in 2000 to 16% in 2004?  How about the 2.4 million fewer votes Bush received in the smaller 2004 rural segment than in 2000?  All of this showed up in the exit polls on Election Day and the day after when the "official" exit poll was released.

The national exit polls are sponsored by the National Election Pool (media consortium) consisting of ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NBC, and the Associated Press.  The polling is conducted for the media consortium by Edison - Mitofsky.  The same day poll for federal elections seeks to capture who voted, where, and why.*

The exit poll gave us another surprise, one that was necessary for the poll to match up with the announced vote totals showing Bush winning by a 3 million vote margin, 50.7% to 48.3%.

2004 turnout across the country ran about 16% over 2000.  The big cities had a 66% increase in turnout if we are to believe the exit polls.  In the exit poll analysis, big cities are those with half a million or greater population.  That 66% increase in turnout took the 9 million big city vote total from 2000 to 15 million in 2004.  Bush got just under 4 million more votes in the big cities in 2004 that he did in 2000.  White big city voters went from 5 million in 2000 to nine million in 2004, a remarkable 80% increase

Do you believe this?  Nearly 4 million new votes for Bush in the big cities in 2004!

What was going on?  Who were these nearly 4.0 million new white big city voters and where did they come from?  They were white "ghosts" who emerged from that 66% turnout "measured" by the exit poll, marching toward the polls like extras in the "Thriller" video.  That's the only place they could have come from because they've never been seen before or since.

They were a necessary fiction required to balance out the official exit poll and allow it to be "adjusted" to fit the final vote count.  Given the 16% turnout increase for the nation, isn't it reasonable to assume something proximate in the big cities?  But that's not what happened.  The turnout increase in the big cities was beyond belief but barely noticed.

The 2000 Democrat - Republican big city split of 71% to 26% was comparable to the history of big city party preferences in presidential elections.  But in 2004, that changed to 60% Democrat - 39% Republican with Bush more than doubling his 2000 vote.  Is there some event that explains that this sudden spike in Bush votes and turnout in the big cities?

The only event that caused this was the internal adjustment of big city exit poll figures and percentages by the media consortium sponsored exit pollsters.

The exit poll had to match the vote count?

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