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An end to exit polls? Please?

Published Wednesday, November 03, 2004 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

Why in the world would anyone put their trust into polling data that didn't reflect anyone who 1) voted absentee, 2) voted early, or 3) voted in the late afternoon or evening of Election Day? But that's what all of the TV networks have been doing, election after election. No wonder it bit them in their behinds. Again.

As CNN's E. Andrew Torgan wrote on Romenesko, exit polls weren't the only dunderheaded prediction tools misused by the media... "Desperate to fill time/space in the final days of an election that was too close to call, many of us resorted to quirky "predictors" such as: "The Washington Redskins lost their last home game before the election, and that's good news for Kerry..." and "The Dow lost more than one half of one percent in October, and that's good news for Kerry..."
Well, it looks like all these turned out to be wrong. And now, we can't use them in 2008, for which I'm sure the media-consuming public will be eternally gratetful.
Just watch out for "No Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts has ever won an election in the same year the Boston Red Sox won the World Series..."