Question re- the Palestinian elections & exit polls --

[snot]

I've been very concerned curous about the possibilities for export of paperless voting/tallying.

Does anyone else find it interesting that in Palestine, there was (I understand) a big gap between the exit polls and the final vote tally?

Does anyone know anything about how either the vote or the exit polls were conducted?

[applegrove]

1. Is that why the Scotsman had the F? party winning and Hamas loosing?

Is that how they were wrong?

[punpirate]

2. You might include the source...

... for your "understanding" that the exit polls and the final vote were at great variance. I doubt that any of us here can add to your estimation without that basic information.

Cheers.

[snot]

5. NPR (which might include the BBC)

Sorry I can't be more precise -- but I haven't heard or seen any other news sources, so must be one of them. Heard it last night and today -- that Fatah (sorry if I've misspelled) was already celebrating because exit polls gave them a definite lead, but somehow by today Hamas had won a substantial lead in the vote.

[OnTheOtherHand]

9. here is a useful roundup of Pal. exit poll results

http://www.mysterypollster.com/main/2006/01/palestinian_exi.html

drawing upon

http://politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com/2006/01/palestinian-exit-poll-votes-and-seats.html

and other sources.

NYT had a nice big picture yesterday of someone counting ballots with tallies on a blackboard. However, I couldn't tell whether he was using Diebold chalk ;)

Here is an odd source for an AP story -- I've seen the story elsewhere via Lexis-Nexis, but don't have time to find another link.
http://www.cjp.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=173791
Basically, Israeli pollsters saying that respondents probably lied. (I imagine that what the experts actually said is more complicated than what made it into the story -- that is how it generally goes.)

[EST]

3. The story, as I partially understand it, is that votes for one

group could, under some conditions, "fall through" and become support for another group even though that wasn't what you voted for. Because of the multiplicity of competing elements and their connections, as well as the sheer complexity, the modeling via exit polling was not up to the job. Could have been done properly but was not well thought out, poorly executed and poorly designed.

[applegrove]

4. I would imagine exit polling would be very vulnerable to misinterpretation

in a place where elections themselves are new.

[EST]

6. And where the US spent a couple million to subvert

said election. The stench arising from this government is choking the world.

[applegrove]

7. The explanation of the complication of accurate polling sounds good

to me. Would have to be a long pattern of polling and elections to wonder at a new pattern. right now there is just the confusion at 21st century polling in an election which is new in nature and practice.

[Febble]

8. Doesn't look like DREs to me:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8542,1693829,00.html

And would you expect an accurate exit poll in a place like Palestine? Would you expect voters for Hamas to be unconcerned about telling an official-looking person that they had just voted for a party that supports suicide bomb attacks?

In Palestine?

My guess is: shy Hamas voters.

The idea that surveys include no error other than sampling error really needs to be put to a merciful end. Surveys are prone to bias, and the more burning the issue, the more biased any poll is likely to be. Especially in a climate of fear.