THE TRUTH ABOUT EXIT POLLS

While the blogosphere and the news websites go around in circles over the exit poll information that is trickling out, Mystery Pollster reminds us why we should take them with a grain of salt...

2) The mid-day numbers do not reflect weighting by actual turnout – the end-of-day exit poll used to assist the networks in determining winners will be weighted by the actual turnout of voters at each selected precinct. The weighting will then be continuously updated to reflect turnout at comparable precincts. In the past, mid-day numbers have reflected a weighting based on past turnout, so the leaked mid-day numbers may tell us nothing about the impact of new registrants or the unique level of turnout this time.

One point needs emphasis here: even in past elections, networks never called an election based on raw exit poll numbers alone. They were first weighted by a tally of the full day's turnout at each sampled precinct. This end-of-day data is (obviously) not available at 12 noon.

3) Voting patterns may be different early in the day - People who work full time jobs typically vote more heavily before or after work. Even a perfect mid-day exit poll – and there is no such animal – may not be any better at picking a winner than the half-time scores in any given football game on Sunday. Also, despite what you may have heard on the West Wing, I know of no serious study showing a consistent Democratic or Republican tilt to the morning or evening hours (if anyone does, please email me).

Read the rest as it is a primer on how these polls work.

Updates....Jonah Goldberg at NRO is convinced the Wonkette numbers posted below are not exit poll results. Drudge is reporting that exit poll information he has been posting on his site is based on a sample that is heavily dominated by women.