At 11:35 AM 8/31/2006, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > > > But the issue, really, was independent analysis of election results > > using different election methods. For this purpose, it is not crucial > > what polling method is used; I'd expect that telephone polls, > > however, would be more satisfactory, because they could be more > > complex. > >Wouldn't exit polls have some major advantages as well as some >disadvantages?
I think I implied that in my complete message. What I'm saying is that, on balance, I think that phone polls might have the advantage. People leaving polls are often in a hurry to get back to work or the like, maybe to pick up the kids or whatever. So relying on exit polls could skew the results in some direction or other. However, note that it might be possible to deskew results, if there were sufficient experience with thoroughly validated elections vs. whatever method of polling were used. And to do this, it would be useful to make both exit polls and telephone polls. One thing that is apparently missing from the U.S. election system is monitoring of election accuracy. I've had occasion to discover, myself, a rather disturbing level of error in a small town, where ballots were counted by hand. Statistical verification of elections would then make it possible to measure, far more accurately, how well exit and other polling matches actual voting. Election *results*, unless vote counting is quite accurate, seem to be relatively unreliable, compared to what we would expect. This is quite aside from fraud! Polls of those who voted are likely to miss when there is some systemic cause of voter error, such as in Florida. Florida law required that votes be counted where voter intention was manifest, but this was roundly ignored, in many cases, it appears, where the voter incorrectly punched the ballot, due to confusing ballots, and then wrote in the desired vote. Where the voter had, for example, voted for Gore, and had, in addition, written in Gore, to make sure that the ballot was clear, ballots were discarded as being overvoted and spoiled..... Republicans have no monopoly on election fraud.... indeed, the party in power, quite commonly, is the one conducting the fraud. After all, parties not in power don't have privileged access to the means of setting up frauds.... ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
