On election night pundits fill air time speculating on what it means if a particular race is or is not called by the media. I have been inside the boiler rooms calling election outcomes for the media since 2002, so I know how this works in practice. While not as cool as blowing up stuff -- like the Mythbusters do -- here are some election night myths that I will bust to help you cut through the election night chatter:
MYTH 1: Exit Polls Are Used to Call Elections. The primary purpose of exit polls is to help explain why people voted the way they did. If an exit poll confirms pre-election polling predicting a wide victory margin for a candidate, they may sometimes be used to call a race at poll closing. For any of the competitive races, actual election results are used to call the election outcome.
MYTH 2: Early Exit Polls Provide a Sense How the Election Will Unfold. In the vacuum of time before races are being called, the media may report some cross-tabulations from the exit polls. This may give an impression as to how the election may play out if a key demographic group is breaking in one direction or another. While exit polls are useful because they are known to sample from the universe of voters -- unlike "likely voter" models -- there are numerous survey methodology issues beyond statistical sampling error that may affect exit poll results. The direction and magnitude of these errors are revealed when actual election results from the exit poll precincts are compared to the survey results. This error is known as "Within-Precinct Error" or WPE. Once election results are reported, the exit polls are weighted to the election results. Take any exit poll results released before election results are reported with a boulder of salt. The early exit poll results will likely change once the exit polls are weighted to the election results.
MYTH 3. The Speed of Calling a Race is an Indicator of a Close Race. This is one of my pet peeves. Pundits will tell us that we will know the overall direction of the election on how quickly a particular race is called. The premium is making the right call, not making it quickly. The folks in the boiler rooms wait for hard election data to call the high profile races, with a good cross-section of election results from throughout a state. If a heavily Democratic or Republican area of a state is not reporting, the race-callers will wait until that region reports. Sometimes a region takes their time to report their election results -- for whatever reason -- and races within that state cannot be called until they do. So, while it is true that close races are not called early, it is not true that all uncalled races are close.
Because reporting of election results may not be consistent across a state, it is possible that a candidate may jump to an early commanding lead. Yet, the media will not call the election. It may be that only results from a candidate's stronghold are being reported by election officials. If the media are not calling a race, it is likely that there is a lot of votes yet to be counted in areas that may not be as favorable to the leading candidate. I have seen many times candidates jump out to early leads only to see that lead evaporate. Be careful in interpreting what early vote tallies mean, especially if a race is not being called.
MYTH 4. The Election Can Be Called Election Night. All states will not count all of their ballots on election night. Some states count significantly less than others, particularly states with a high volume of mail ballots. States that have traditionally counted 90% or less of their ballots on election night are: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. If a race is close and the forecasted number of outstanding ballots is large, no call will be made. I flag Washington in particular since a little more than 50% of the ballots have been counted on election night in the past. If the Washington Senate race is close as it appears to be, do not expect the media to immediately call a winner.
A call in the Alaska U.S. Senate race may be further delayed. Mail ballot voters in Alaska may postmark their ballots by Election Day, with the deadline for receipt of domestic mail ballots of Nov. 12th and overseas ballots of Nov. 17th (many states require mail ballots to be returned by Election Day, so please check with your local election officials if you have a mail ballot still in hand). Alaska election officials will determine the number of write-in votes early Wednesday morning, East coast time. They will only begin counting these write-ins if the number of write-in votes exceeds the vote for a candidate on the ballot. If the election is close, we may not know who "won" the vote for weeks. And then there will be the inevitable litigation.
As a corollary, a race that may fall within the range of a recount will not be called.
Myth 5. The Media Calls Elections Before the Polls Are Closed. No race will be called before the polls are closed within a state. This is most important for states or districts that straddle two time zones. If you want to beat the press, localities within the earlier time zone will often begin reporting their numbers on the web before the polls close in the other time zone.
Myth 6. Early Bellwether Races Tell Us How the Election Will Unfold. Early in the night when there are only a few states that have closed their polls, the pundits will opine about the importance of these races and what they mean to the larger outcome. As Tip O'Neil famously said, all elections are local. Local circumstances may better explain who wins or loses in a particular race than a national wave. I suspect that the Republican wave may not wash ashore at the same height everywhere in the country, so please discount generalizations drawn from a few races early in the night.
The unconventional wisdom is that the Democrats do significantly better than the recorded vote indicates in every election. There is no reason to suspect that 2010 was any different.
It is standard operating procedure on the part of exit pollsters to force the final to match the recorded vote. The 2010 Final National Exit Poll indicated that 45% of the electorate were returning Obama voters and 45% McCain voters. The pundits will claim that this was due to millions of unenthusiastic Democrats who did not return to vote in 2010.
The returning voter split understated Obama's recorded 52.9-45.6 margin by 7.3%. If the mix is adjusted to the actual 2008 vote shares, the Democratic 2010 share is within 1% of the GOP, matching the pre-election RV polls. But the recorded 2008 Democratic share understated the True Vote share by 4-5%. The adjusted 53/45 mix includes the discount for unenthusiastic Democrats who did not return to vote in 2010.
The pundits assume that the Final NEP returning voter mix was legitimate and was not adjusted to force a match to the 2010 recorded vote. As usual, their implicit assumption was that election fraud was not a factor; it never is. Obama won the 2008 recorded vote by 9.5 million (7.3%). But his True Vote margin was at least double that.
The pure and simple fact that so many Tea Party candidates for Senate were defeated by Democrats, or a Republican, as in the case of Alaska, is the only reason that Democrats were able to hold on to control of the Senate. The American people have indeed spoken, but we did not say that we want to elect radicals, but rather that we do not trust the radicals in the Tea Party with the reins of power.
Of course, we are going to be bombarded with the message that the results of this election prove that the American people support the TPers' radical agenda, rather than that what should have been an easy GOP takeover of the Senate instead failed because the Republicans ran radicals for office.
If you watch Fox News or read any right wing publications you can easily get the impression that voter fraud is rampant and that it threatens our freedom. The reality is that the whole issue is a myth and that the real problem is GOP bullying designed to prevent people from voting against them. [...]
http://silverbuzzcafe.com/?p=14272
If you watch Fox News or read any right wing publications you can easily get the impression that voter fraud is rampant"
But there is fraud: Gov. Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris purged 20,000 people from the voter rolls, fraudulently accusing them of being convicted felons.
In 2006, the Ehrlich campaign got people to hand out leaflets giving the false impression that some prominent Democrats endorsed the Republican ticket.
Tonight, there was a report that a robocall told Marylanders that the election was decided, that people who hadn't voted didn't need to get out. (And this from the same people who whined that an early call in Florida in 2000 caused Repubs in Pensacola to stay home.)
Unfortunately, with Mr Miller running, this is true. Regardless of the outcome, if he does not win, he will no doubt start filing lawsuits and complaints that will tie up the Division of Election for months. Heck, he may start filing as soon as the polls close. He's an attorney and has been whining about unfair treatment from the media all along - inevitable that he will cry foul no matter what.
Um, they called it months ago, didn't they?
This nation is so screwed up.
I think if the Reublicans swept both the House and Senate, it would probably get our desired result sooner. Because then the Repubs will bear the responsibility of not improving the conomy by 2012, Which really neither party has much chance of doing, honestly. I believe Obama will be elected in 2012 in either case, through a general lack of competition, if he holds his own in the next couple of years.. But of course the question then is, will people just keep switching parties every 2 years until the economy improves? What we need is Obama to seize the iniative and stop ruling like he's trying to please everybody. .
I think Obama blew health care by throwing it into Congress, which unfortunately is like throwing it into the toilet. It's really hard to know after the fact, just what kind of mandate Obama had at the beginning, but now I suspect that the great mass of people believed enough in him, and were so desperate that he could have done a lot more than he did, which is still very considerable..The current Democratic strategists are just plain poor, and ended up running from their real achievments, such as Health Care, so that the average Joe assumed the Democrats crammed another hit-and-run spending program down their throats.
Cont.
They certainly never appeared to behave as if bipartisanship was a huge priority..
They certainly never appeared to behave as if bipartisanship was a huge priority.. "
How do you explain Obama acting as if a secret Constitutional Amendment raised the number of votes to get anything through the Senate to 60? If Obama had not been bipartisan, wouldn't he have demanded a straight up or down vote for the Stimulus and Health Care Reform bills? I can't imagine any theory that accounts for the Republicans getting away with their filibusters except that Obama has been too eager for postpartisan feelgoodism.
This is a trick used to disenfranchise the electorate. If your vote didn't matter, they wouldn't expend so much effort trying to get you not to use it.
I live in the CA-26, as gerrymandered a district as the MN-6 or any district in Texas.
If Jesus ran as a Democrat in that district, he'd get one vote out of every six.
If Cheetah ran as republican, he'd win (he lives in the district).
Most repuglicans can't name the Congressman. Seriously.
Mabye a 'no longer' addendum should be ascribed to this statement considering they did it with Florida in 2000.
"Day of Judgement, Voters Calling.
On their knees the TP'ers crawling.
Begging Mercies for their sins...
Boehner laughing spreads his wings!"
Just remember what happened in 2000 and 2004, and you will see what can happen when Exit Polls and early predictions are relied on too much by lazy folks on Election Night.
--RKJ
Good job.