Reply #15: Um - Raul

[bigmustelid2]

you are aware, of course, that US has secret ballot voting. This means that no one can tell you how anyone has voted. The only thing that can be done is to poll people and *ask* them how they voted. Just like exit polls (as I showed in that article I cited) this methodology is only as accurate as people are honest.

I will give you one example: let's say, for argument's sake, there is a Democrat who, for whatever reason (let's say momentary weakness or fear), voted for Bush in 2004. He gets called or visited by a pollster and asked who he voted for. He tells them Kerry. Why? Who knows. Maybe his wife is nearby and he doesn't want her to know. Maybe he is afraid his response will get recorded somewhere under his name and will hurt him somehow.

Enough such people (and how would you know that there weren't?) and you get a poll that shows landslide for Kerry while the "real" results were for Bush.

The only legitimate "poll" is the ballot. Anything else and you run into weighting problems, sampling problems, people lying, question skewing, etc. etc. etc.