[EM] advocacy by means of exit polls

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:35 AM 8/31/2006, RLSuter at aol.com wrote:
>Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
>
> > But the issue, really, was independent analysis of election results
> > using different election methods. For this purpose, it is not crucial
> > what polling method is used; I'd expect that telephone polls,
> > however, would be more satisfactory, because they could be more
> > complex.
>
>Wouldn't exit polls have some major advantages as well as some
>disadvantages?

I think I implied that in my complete message. What I'm saying is 
that, on balance, I think that phone polls might have the advantage.

People leaving polls are often in a hurry to get back to work or the 
like, maybe to pick up the kids or whatever. So relying on exit polls 
could skew the results in some direction or other.

However, note that it might be possible to deskew results, if there 
were sufficient experience with thoroughly validated elections vs. 
whatever method of polling were used. And to do this, it would be 
useful to make both exit polls and telephone polls.

One thing that is apparently missing from the U.S. election system is 
monitoring of election accuracy. I've had occasion to discover, 
myself, a rather disturbing level of error in a small town, where 
ballots were counted by hand.

Statistical verification of elections would then make it possible to 
measure, far more accurately, how well exit and other polling matches 
actual voting.

Election *results*, unless vote counting is quite accurate, seem to 
be relatively unreliable, compared to what we would expect. This is 
quite aside from fraud!

Polls of those who voted are likely to miss when there is some 
systemic cause of voter error, such as in Florida. Florida law 
required that votes be counted where voter intention was manifest, 
but this was roundly ignored, in many cases, it appears, where the 
voter incorrectly punched the ballot, due to confusing ballots, and 
then wrote in the desired vote. Where the voter had, for example, 
voted for Gore, and had, in addition, written in Gore, to make sure 
that the ballot was clear, ballots were discarded as being overvoted 
and spoiled.....

Republicans have no monopoly on election fraud.... indeed, the party 
in power, quite commonly, is the one conducting the fraud. After all, 
parties not in power don't have privileged access to the means of 
setting up frauds....