majorities

Nobidicus nobidicus at chilton.com
Sat Nov 9 11:17:21 PST 2002


Apropos of exit polls, has there been any discussion there of the role exit polls might play in detecting irregularities in the official vote counting?

I've wondered if the initial, "incorrect" call of the 2000 Florida presidential election wasn't because the exit polls sampled the way people thought they'd voted instead of how their votes got --or didn't get--counted...

/jwc

----- Original Message ----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2002 12:36 PM Subject: majorities


> I finally rejoined the American Association for Public Opinion
> Research after letting my membership lapse for a year or two. This
> gem was just posted to their listserv by the holder of an endowed
> chair at a major school of journalism. Commenting on the risks of
> early release of exit poll data influencing voters who haven't yet
> cast their ballots, this distinguished professor observed:
>
> >If you want to jump on the winner's bandwagon, that's good,
> >because democracy needs consensus and those willing to go along with the
> >majority just because it is a majority should be encouraged.
>
> Doug



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