The downside of publishing exit polls
The media has long used two arguments for why exit poll data should not be made public until polls closed: 1) The results could influence voters and turnout; 2) That the information might not be accurate and it's impossible to tell how accurate it is until polls close and early returns are compared with the early exit polls.
The first argument is the one that's generally made -- and argued against. But it's the second one that really started to make sense election night, when it became clear that some of the exit polls were inaccurate and many bloggers -- not knowing this -- published the information anyway.
Warren Mitofsky, a longtime CBS election analyst who co-heads the NEP, told The Wall Street Journal that the exit polling consortium spotted problems with its early data in Florida, South Carolina, Virginia and six other states. "We had called the networks earlier in the day and told them about a handful of states where we didn't think the results were accurate. But we didn't think we were supposed to share that with the leaker and the leakee," he said.
"All the people getting leaked stuff were getting [it] from people who weren't always accurate . . . and were premature, and now they are complaining about it. We didn't mislead the people we were working with. We made any number of projections. All of them were correct."
Nov 04, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)
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