Exit polling, reliable or not?

[AlCzervik]

What do you all think, i'm hoping the results so far are right.

[Eric J in MN]

1. very reliable

If Exit Polls say one thing, and electronic voting machines say another, I'll believe the Exit Polls.

[pabloseb]

3. yes, but

are early voters being exit polled? I think this was discussed in other thread but I don't remember what the conclusion was.

[pabloseb]

2. No exit polling so far

Exit polling means catching voters when they're leaving the polls. The samples are much larger and more carefully planned than normal polls. So far we only have normal polls which happen to ask whether people have already voted or not.

[aquart]

4. Gosh, VNS got it right about Gore in 2000.

People keep forgetting that. People DID exit the polls thinking they'd voted for Gore.

[welshTerrier2]

5. are early voters a biased sample ??

assuming that you conducted an exit poll of those who voted early, you could only make valid projections if you understood the demographics of those who voted ...

for example, let's say (hypothetically) that 80% of those voting early in a given state were Democrats ... and let's say your exit poll showed Kerry winning 70% of the early vote ... you might not have enough information to determine what the rest of the voters will do ...

i'm somewhat inclined to ignore exit polls of early voters this year ... it seems like there are too many variables ...

[pabloseb]

9. Yes, it definitely is a biased sample

Typically, republicans vote by mail in higher number than democrats. And it seems that at least this year democrats vote in person early in higher numbers than republicans. See for example the thread about NH. A poll shows Kerry 12 pts ahead among people who have already voted, but tied among those who will vote on election day.

[confrontationclaws]

6. More right than the machines,

at least in Florida the last time around. Unfortunately, based on that precedent, you can't rely on them, since you can't be sure the person's vote was counted as intended!

[tritsofme]

7. Slightly more reliable than regular polls

Despite their large sizes they are still subject to sampling error and other variables.

[high density]

8. Has there been any exit polling going on during early voting?

[seabeyond]

10. we found they were right in florida 2000 n/t