Say it's NOV 08. Dem nominee up by 10 percent in all polls. Repub wins by 4 percent.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

How would you feel? What would you be thinking?

Just something to chew on for all those crying "sour grapes" on disappointed Obama supporters.

I'm still chewing on last night's result, but it's pretty hard to come to other conclusions than "polling (as a general phenomenon) is invalid" or "voting results (for NH) are invalid".

I wonder if there is ANY discussion about this aspect of things in the media, "How could (all) the polls have gotten it SO WRONG?"

[Demeter]

1. NH People Don't Trust Pollsters

They like to mess with the minds of the non-natives.

[peacebird]

2. here's a link to consider.... very disheartening.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4008396

[Mass]

3. Not so hard. The results were extreme that some Obama people stayed home thinking

their votes were not needed or did something else, given the extraordinarily good weather today.

The Clinton people, on the contrary, were trying to minimize a loss and did a great job at getting people to the poll.

Between that and the fact that Obama split the independents with McCain, it gives Hillary Clinton a close victory.

This has to be a good lesson for people who think there is NO WAY a REPUBLICAN WINS Because of the polls. It's not over until it is over.

[iamjoy]

4. I'm Suspicious Too

I wanted Clinton to win NH (even though she is not one of my top choices for nominee), but I'm a little suspicious because weekend polls had Obama up by double digits. Were the people polled lying? Did they change their minds? Did Clinton's candid moment help her? Was it last minute registrations and independents breaking for her?

Or, is it something more sinister?

[Tesha]

14. Would it be too cynical to observe that people routinely tell the pollsters...

Would it be too cynical to observe that people routinely
tell the pollsters "Sure, I'll vote for the racial minority
candidate" and then don't?

Tesha

[leftynyc]

18. That's exactly what my dad thinks happened (eom)

[the other one]

5. If it were to happen, there could be no challenge.

A challenge to the November results would call the NH vote, and perhaps subsequent votes into question. Thus if Clinton were to get the nomination and the scenario were to play out as you suggest...

Anyway, that scenario is exactly what I expect to happen.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Stop eating those grapes, they are sour.

exit polls are what are considered the best tool for validating what actually happened at the ballot box, not opinion polls. Exit polls ask people what they just did, not what they might be planning to do. The exit polls, as far as I know, confirmed the ballot count.

[annabanana]

10. Do you have any links to those exit polls?

(really curious)

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Actually I don't. But I do intend to find them today.

The claim has also been made that the exit polls have been post-adjusted to reflect the actual vote counts, but I can find no information on that either.

The pre vote opinion polls are not evidence of anything.

[Labors of Hercules]

21. spot on. The media got it wrong...

And they need to stop trying to project a winner before the votes are cast. Period.

[arcos]

7. Polls have been notirously unreliable in the last few years, worldwide...

Thanks to the Internet and cell phones, now word of mouth spreads faster than ever before, and there are people that just don't have or don't answer their landlines.

There are hundreds of recent cases where polls have been wrong and there have been upsets... and it has favored both right wingers and left wingers.

That doesn't mean fraud is non-existant, there is blatant fraud (especially in the most "subtle" ways, not ballot stuffing) around the world, but sometimes people (and I'd say especially people here) tend to claim fraud and use polls as evidence. I certainly think polls are a good instrument, but you cannot believe blindly in them, much less pretend that they will predict an election outcome.

[annabanana]

8. They are MORE unreliable in places that have

proprietary software in machines made by partisans without paper ballots. . .
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4008396


just sayin'

[arcos]

13. I agree with your concern...

I have yet to find one good reason to use electronic voting machines instead of paper ballots, but I don't think polls are more unreliable where these are used.

Nearly two years ago we had a general election in my country (Costa Rica), where the right winger was at least 20% ahead in every single poll. Even exit polls gave him a 45%-30% lead, and when every vote was counted, he ended up winning 41%-40%. Exit polls had never been so unreliable here, and we have always used paper ballots.

[EV_Ares]

9. There is something really weird about it. eom.

[Perry Logan]

11. As someone has already pointed out, people are mixed up about polls vs. EXIT polls.

[MadHound]

15. Yeah, I have my suspicions too. And I'm not an Obama partisan either.

One of the most disheartening things that I've witnessed over the past eight years is how polling, both pre election and exit polling, has failed so badly, time after time. Polling used to be a pretty damn accurate gage of what's going on. Now time after time we see polls getting it wrong, not just by a few points here or there, but vast wild swings. I don't think that the pollsters have dropped in quality, so what does that leave? Vote manipulation.

[spanone]

16. the media will not probe their own polling

[Marrah_G]

17. The exit polls match the results- It is very different from Ohio '04

There is a very logical reason for what happened.

The Obama supporters are being incredibly nasty and horrible to people who worked on the CLinton Campaign just as hard as they worked on Obama's.

It is pathetic and disgusting and has no place on DU.

[Toots]

19. ALL of the polls did not get it wrong

EXIT Polls which are really the only ones that count, got it exactly right.

[Junkdrawer]

20. "Well, it looks like voters may have SAID they support a black/woman candidate"...

"But the number just don't lie."

Script's been written for quite a while now.

[INdemo]

22. The national polls will be more accurate because any pollster that

takes a serious poll will or should have at least 1000-1500 voter samplings...the polls we have been seeing are at max 500 voters and many polls far less than that....these polls were taken almost on a daily basis and were good for mostly media speculation only and it was obvious they were wrong....So a really good national scientific poll and we lead by 10 points and lose by 4 well then we have a problem and the Repukes steal another one...

I would like to see a poll taken nation wide among Democrats with the simple question asked "Do you believe we will have honest vote counting in 2008 general election" ,,,, My answer would be no......