A non-statistician's view of the E-M exit poll controversy

A non-statistician's view of the E-M exit poll controversy

Submitted by janw on Sat, 06/04/2005 - 8:44am.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=371726&mesg_id=371726

There has been a great deal of highly technical discussion and argument on the DU and elsewhere over the proper interpretation of the Edison-Mitofsky report http://exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005... ,which purports to explain the wide discrepancy between the E-M polling results and the official 2004 Presidential election results. This discussion and argument is needed. However, one problem with it is that much of the discussion is too technical for non-statisticians to fully understand. I believe that it is very important for non-statisticians to understand the essential issues of this controversy, because the great majority of U.S. citizens are non-statisticians, and they need to understand this issue. This post is my attempt to frame the discussion in a manner that all DUers will be able to understand (although I welcome criticism by statisticians).