During the 2000 presidential election, media outlets relied on returns from exit polls and prematurely called the election. Yet as ballots were counted, many news organizations had to rescind earlier claims.
Although news outlets were more cautious regarding former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and President Bush in 2004, exit polls still proved to be a misleading source. Many major news organizations, such as CNN, were quite cautious before calling any states because of the 2000 debacle in Florida. CNBC, however, presented the facts earliest, and was forced to retract previous statements.
According to many political science experts, problems with sampling are major reasons why such polls inaccurately predict elections.
Americans who followed exit polls early Tuesday likely saw a stronger support for Kerry, according to Boston University political science professor Katherine Silbaugh. She said she thought this somewhat unusual, since in past elections Republicans have made up the majority of early voters.
\Communities with a large student population might account for the early lead because many students voted before classes to avoid crowded polling places,"" said UW-Madison political science Professor Stephen Lucas.
Silbaugh said Americans were first aware of the inaccuracies of the exit polls when officials tallied Georgia's electronic votes early during the day. The eventual outcome contradicted the statistics of the exit polls, with Bush securing the state's 15 electoral votes. The exit polls also predicted that Kerry would win Ohio and Florida by one percentage point, yet Bush also pulled ahead in these crucial swing states. The trend continued for the rest of the night. According to Boston University political science Professor Betty Zisk, this came as no surprise.
""This has happened in almost every election because exit polls are notoriously bad,"" she said.
Lucas, Silbaugh and Zisk all agreed exit polls are unreliable due to problems with voter sampling. Experts agreed the chosen subsets of the population clearly did not represent actual ballot returns in 2004.
Yet, despite such inaccuracies, Lucas said the country was able to avoid the confusion that ensued in 2000.
""There do not seem to be the kinds of breakdowns [in 2004] that there were in the last elections,"" he said. ""The polling process was done with integrity.\
