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During the elections of 2000 and 2004, exit polling suddenly came into disrepute. Somehow, it was off by multiple percentage points. Interestingly, nearly invariably, the exit polls showed Democrats to be far ahead of Republicans compared to the actual vote count.
Although we interfered in the Ukraine elections in 2004 because their exit polls were far off the mark - just as ours were - we were all wringing our hands that exit polling, which had been nearly exact for so many years, was inexplicably and hopelessly broken in our own elections.
During this year’s primaries we began again to hear about exit polls, and they again appeared right on the mark. I could only think that if we were again hearing anything of them in this election it would tell one of two things: If they were again completely off (again, highly favoring Republicans), then another fixed election was about to be delivered to our nation in favor of McCain. If we heard of them as being on-target, then we could be assured of a good year for Democrats.
I always figured that Obama had to win by 8% to 12% to actually win. Between caging lists, felon lists, ID battles, fixed voting machines and all the other machinations developed by the spawn of Atwater and Rove, the Democrats would never prevail in any close election.
Happily, we are hearing about valid exit polls and Democrats have done well. Hopefully, we will create the machinery in the United States within the next two years to actually insure that the winner in any election will be the one who actually had the most voters cast their ballots. And we will see that exit polls are again as precise as they have been in most election years of the past before 2000.
