By Associated Press
Published August 20, 2004
CARACAS, Venezuela - A U.S. pollster whose firm wrongly predicted President Hugo Chavez would lose a recall referendum on Thursday defended the exit poll, which has landed in the center of a national controversy....
Former President Jimmy Carter and the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria, both monitored the vote and endorsed the referendum results.
The exit poll, released 4 1/2 hours before voting stations closed, said 59 percent would vote Chavez out of office. But in fact, the opposite was true - Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/20/Worldandnation/American_backs_his_Ve.shtmlNow, heck if I know what happened with that poll -- there are lots of theories. But it's sort of funny that the people who trumpet the authority of exit polls almost never mention this one. I can't help wondering, if the U.S. exit polls had shown
Bush ahead and Kerry had won, whether some folks would point to Venezuela to support the exact opposite of their current position on exit polls.
Last year I wrote
this post on what the Carter Center has said about exit polls over the years, although unfortunately it then changed its site and broke the links (but hey, what is Google for?). Here's a sound bite:
Carter Center recommendations for Mexico, 1994: "Avoid exit polls, which are unreliable in a climate of suspicion and which will create a negative atmosphere if the voters feel they are being watched. Quick counts, however, are essential, but they must be well coordinated and the public needs to be informed of their significance."
http://www.ciaonet.org/wps/car29/
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