That said, the early exit polls that seem to be making the rounds have Obama up 4 in PA, up 2 in Virginia, up 1 in Florida and Ohio, and down 2 in North Carolina. It’s pretty meaningless, yes, but there’s really not much else to report right now, so what the hell.
FYI, I’ll start blogging live from the Montlake Ale House at around 4PM.
Exit polls my Ass! this election is such a big deal that whatever restraint the media (mainstream or otherwise) might show regarding the fact that we’re 3 time zones away and maybe haven’t voted yet is right out the fucking window.
I hate the exit polls and if i were ever asked to take part in one I’d lie like hell.
Fuck the pollsters and the marginalization of the western vote they engender. Fuck ’em!
(oh, by the way… first.)
What happened to Nobama’s double digit lead?
Now the exit polls are meaningless???
Exit polls are not meaningless. EARLY exit polling results shouldn’t be reported, because it’s still a work in progress – not all the numbers are in.
But within fifteen minutes of the polls closing, the exit polls in most states will have a high degree of reliability.
That being said, we shouldn’t get complacent. There’s still voting to be done here in Washington State. While it’s unlikely Obama could lose here, we’ve got local races which need everyone to turn out and vote. Just because Obama wins nationally is no excuse for not voting – if Rossi wins, our state could be stuck in reverse for four years.
I am curious how they handle exit polling in early-voting states, and in states where they have mail-in ballots or high absentee-ballot voting.
Early voting and widespread vote-by-mail have gone a long way to solving the problem, but it was pretty bizarre the couple of times the “big three” TV networks all called the election before the polls even opened in Alaska and Hawaii.
I don’t think the talking heads should be allowed to go on TV and declare this guy or that guy the winner when the polls haven’t closed in all states. I think media has no business trying to influence elections with their TV babble on election night. Let’s not let the talking heads say jack-shit about who’s projected to win or lose until the last poll closes – in Hawaii.
After all, why mess up Tuesday programming so the talking heads can preen themselves on live TV and pretend they’re what’s important, not the election? We can wait until all the polls have closed to see the results. We don’t need a bunch of over-paid talking heads giving us their “take” on the voting in some obscure county in Ohio.
Kindof quite here, without Roger Rabbit chiming in….
I hope things are going well at his precinct.
Indiana is reporting Obama ahead 50% to 48% – but with only 2% of the precincts reporting. Kentucky is going to McCain by big margins (predictably).
Georgia, S. Carolina, and Virginia polls close in less than 10 minutes. Virginia is the one everyone’s going to be watching. If Obama loses Virginia, then he’s still got several different routes to reach 270. But for McCain, it becomes very hard to do so – he will need nearly all of the contested states to make 270 electoral votes.
The exit polls are starting to come in but I’m not going to link or pay any attention to them.
IF YOU HAVEN’T VOTED,
PLEASE VOTE:
https://www.metrokc.gov/elections/voterlookup.aspx
http://matterhorn.co.pierce.wa.....ba=auditor
Speaking of not paying attention to the exit polls:
MSNBC just declared Vermont for Obama (3 electoral votes) with 0% of the votes recorded.
Exit polls have problems. They have problems with randomness, margin of error, and a bunch of other stuff. If you were really interested, which you’re not, I could point you to some interesting stuff about them. But you don’t care.
CNN calls it 207 confirmed for Obama (on counted votes, not exit polls), and California + Oregon + Washington = 73 electoral votes, which means it’s over. get it?