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Thursday, November 04, 2004
Exit Polls Scandal?
Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2004 10:02 a.m. EST
Dick Morris Calls for Probe Into Exit Poll 'Scandal'
Renowned pollster Dick Morris is calling for an investigation into early exit polls run by the Associated Press that wrongly called the election results for John Kerry and sent the stock market spiraling downward.
"Exit polls are almost impossible to get wrong this way," Morris said in a column posted to the New York Post's Web site early Wednesday morning.
Because exit polls are based on interviews with people who have just cast their ballots, says Morris, they've always been considered the gold standard of polling.
"That an exit poll is always right is an axiom of politics. It is easier to assume that a compass is not pointing north than to assume that an exit poll is incorrect."
Morris pointed to possible corruption as the reason why early exit polls showed Bush losing all but one of the battleground states by 2- and 3-point margins.
"It takes a deliberate act of fraud and bias to get an exit poll wrong. Since the variables of whether or not a person will actually vote are eliminated in exit polling, it is like peeking at the answer before taking the test."
"The fact that they were so totally, disastrously wrong is a national scandal," the former White House pollster said.
He called for "a national investigation to unearth the story behind the bias."
11/04/2004 09:36:00 AM by Todd Bacon
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