Reply #15: Some answers: [View All]

The numbers were weighted because:

a) one purpose of the poll is to predict the counted result reliably, so that a state can be "called" even if not all the votes are in
b) another purpose of the poll is to enable people to figure out who voted for whom and why, and as pollsters do not share your faith in their polls (but do, possibly mistakenly, have faith in the counted result) they weight the poll to the count, not the other way round.

The "collection of numbers" is not useless: it fulfils both its stated purposes. It correctly predicts the counted result (before the full result is in); and even if the count is wrong and the poll is right, the weighting adjustment does not hugely change the values in the crosstabs. In any case, the weights are provided in the raw data, which is indeed available, and you can ignore the weighting if you want to.

What the exercise does not do, of course, is give you an estimate of the result derived from the poll that is uncontaminated by vote count returns (although on this occasion, E-M did actually release these estimates in their January evaluation). So they don't do the job you would like them to do - instead they do the job they were commissioned to do.

However, even though they were designed to do a different job from the one you want them for (to provide a check on the count) it is arguable that they can be reverse-engineered to do this. OTOH and I have both worked pretty damn hard to find ways in which this might be done. For all your sneers about statistical jargon, it's not as easy as it looks.

As for your question: "Why weight the numbers AFTER official results were available?" - well, part of my reason is given above. If we assume the count is correct then we will get better estimates from the crosstabs. So that is why. If you don't believe the count was correct, then obviously that won't suit your purpose. But it is perfectly rational. But the other reason is that it was a dynamic processes - as the vote-returns come in, the projections are weighted to the count. The exit polls had Bush winning long before all the counts were in. Sure, that might because there was massive fraud.

Here's an analogy: at the beginning of a race, the bookies predict that KerryMeLad is going to win; and BushyBoy is going to come second. Half way through the race, KerryMeLad slows up. The bookies shorten the odds on BushyBoy. Eventually KerryMeLad is so far behind that BushyBoy is a dead cert. So they close the book. Even though the race isn't actually finished.

Afterwards, everyone suspects that KerryMeLad was nobbled. So that throws the whole question as to who really won wide open. But it doesn't render the bookies' actions irrational.

As you say, the polls could be wrong. So, most of us around here believe, could the count. We want to know which. Frankly I don't find that circular firing squads help much.


Oh - and yes, both OTOH and I have seen the "raw numbers". So can you:

ftp://ftp.icpsr.umich.edu/pub/FastTrack/General_Election_Exit_Polls2004/

The cookery recipe (marked "weight") is also provided. Salad or ragout, it's your choice.