WP: Exit polls will be studied in a NYC Quarantine Room until 5 pm Election Day

[DeepModem Mom]

On Election Night, Networks Plan to Proceed With Caution
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 2, 2006; C01

....The biggest behind-the-scenes change in network coverage involves what has been dubbed the Quarantine Room. Determined to avoid a rerun of recent years, when its exit polls leaked out by early afternoon to the Drudge Report, Slate and other Web sites, a media consortium is allowing two people from each of the networks and the Associated Press entree to a windowless room in New York. All cellphones, laptops and BlackBerrys will be confiscated. The designated staffers will pore over the exit polls but will not be allowed to communicate with their offices until 5 p.m.

The consortium, called the National Election Pool, is conducting no surveys for House races. The exit polling will take place for Senate and gubernatorial contests in 32 states with competitive races.

The recent track record with such polling has been pockmarked with failure. There was, of course, the debacle of election night 2000, when the networks used polling data from Florida to prematurely award the presidency, twice, within hours. In 2002, the network consortium's predecessor, Voter News Service, suffered a computer meltdown and pulled the plug on its exit polls. Two years ago, its sample was so skewed that the group's surveys showed Sen. John Kerry beating President Bush well into the night.

(Brian) Williams is acutely aware of that history. "I called Florida for Al Gore, too," he says, recalling his anchoring role on MSNBC. "It was a horrible moment." Now, he says, "we have all kinds of fail-safes built into the system."

All the networks are using what are called "precinct models" -- taking into account such factors as a district's voting history and level of absentee ballots -- in gauging whether it is safe to make projections based on partial vote counts....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103434_pf.html

[Peggy Day]

1. Where's Jimmy Carter when you need him?

[truthisfreedom]

2. in theory it's a good idea. or, it could simply be manipulated just like the

diebold machines.

[meldroc]

22. Secrecy is never good here.

With the corporate-controlled media going to all the trouble to keep the exit polls secret, I have very little doubt that they're going through this ritual so "trusted" individuals can "massage" the data before releasing it to the public.

In other words, the MSM's exit polls are going to be just as fixed as the elections.

IIRC, some of the election reform activist groups are conducting their own exit polls. I'm thinking we should watch those instead.

[grasswire]

3. Is this news?

"Two years ago, its sample was so skewed that the group's surveys showed Sen. John Kerry beating President Bush well into the night."

I don't recall hearing that before.

[OnTheOtherHand]

11. it's meaningless

It makes it sound as if they keep surveying people all night long. I guess print reporters don't understand the process very well. What they "really mean" is that the first national tabulation of exit polls that indicated that Bush was ahead came out after midnight. The folks who were actually monitoring the vote counts and projections had a very different view.

[dchill]

4. Somebody please tell Brian Williams...

that there are NO fail-safes for Diebold and Karl Rove. I really didn't think he was THAT naive...

(I know he's not.)

[buddysmellgood]

5. They are all complicit. We need real witnesses in the room.

[HuffleClaw]

6. what utter bullshit

'skewed' my ass. exit polls have been VERY accurate, until those elections were stolen. this story suggests they simply want to HIDE the news of a democrat landslide.

[Old and In the Way]

8. We best have Democratic leadership seeing the raw results

since when has Big Media become the gatekeeper rather than the event reporter? There will be riots if we have another stolen election.

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. how do you know?

How accurate were the exit polls in 1992?

Folks, they're talking about holding the exit poll results until 5:00 PM EST. This is not a big deal, actually.

[tiptoe]

21. or: manage/tweak/suppress exit-poll trends in close races to hide "curious reversal" vs the 'count'

TN, VA, MO Senate races pre-election polling preferences -- (avg latest 5 polls) -- are within narrow margins and are esteemed as "Toss Ups" going into election "official 'count'" day.

Lack of auditable paper trails for easily-hackable e-vote machines and "close races" are "tempting conditions" for undiscoverable election fraud in many states. Management of exit poll news/data by the corporate-media throughout election evening could be means for obviating another venue of fraud suspicion, one that was available for the 2004 elections only by mistake (i.e. by mismanagement).

VA Senate -- Latest 5 Polls
48 Webb, James H. 'Jim' (D)
45 Allen, George F. 'Macaca' (R-Incumbent)

TN Senate -- Latest 5 Polls
47 Ford, Harold (D)
48 Corker, Bob (R)

MO Senate -- Latest 5 Polls
48 McCaskill, Claire (D)
48 Talent, Jim (R-Incumbent)

See Malfunction and Malfeasance Report, Chart B: State-By-State Risk Assessment for Tennessee ("HIGH") Virginia ("HIGH") Missouri ("MID")
"HIGH" == "DRE systems used without VVPB"
"MID" == "Use paper-based voting systems or DRE voting systems that have VVPB but no audit requirement"

[Old and In the Way]

7. A thread from 2004 election night....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1295396#1295415

[Justice]

9. it was a horrible moment Brian, and it is has been a horrible 6 yrs since

[keopeli]

10. "(In 04) sample was so skewed that (it) showed...Kerry beating...Bush well into the night"

"Two years ago, its sample was so skewed that the group's surveys showed Sen. John Kerry beating President Bush well into the night."

Can someone please make these people stop covering up their egregious errors?!

[tiptoe]

23. kindergarten "professionalism", isn't it? One might be tempted to suspect a propaganda conspiracy.

[DemGa]

13. Now the exit polling can be "weighted" before they are made public.

[primative1]

14. Fine , Stop Projecting ...

I think that all this polling just acts to skew or even repress the vote.
Tell me who wins when the votes are counted and not when 0.65% of it is.

[Allyoop]

15. exit polls

I guess I get into these discussions too late. I've been asking repeatedly if anyone has a handle on how early voting and absentee voting can skew exit poll results.

If you vote absentee or early, there's nobody there to ask how you voted. Early votes and absentee votes are counted last. What effect does that have on exit polling?

[DeepModem Mom]

16. Good question. I hope someone has some info on this. nt

[BootinUp]

18. They swag it.

based on previous years and trends in the current election. Nothing but a swag.

[OnTheOtherHand]

19. they can supplement with some telephone polls

-- they did that in 13 states in 2004. I have no idea how much of that they are doing in '06. (Oregon is vote-by-mail, so the entire "exit poll" there was actually a telephone poll.)

[BootinUp]

17. Who wants to bet there wont be a leak?

I say there will be.

[OnTheOtherHand]

20. before 5:00 Eastern, you mean?

If you mean "before the polls close," then good luck getting anyone to take the bet.

I have a little bet going on whether CNN will post the tabulations when the polls close. "Hmm, let's see: if we don't post them like we did in 2004, we will be accused of a cover-up; if we do post them like we did in 2004, we will be accused of a cover-up. Shall we flip a coin?"