A look back at the SWS Exit Poll fiasco

Remember how the SWS screwed up on it's exit polls sa NCR. Sabi ni Mahar Mangahas at ni Mercy Abad na "nanalo raw" si GMA by "half a million votes."

But the truth came out later na si FPJ PALA ang nanalo sa NCR by a landslide of 500,000 votes!

Now, pati sa US, may controversy na rin over how the exit polls got it so horribly wrong. And people are talking about it.

Ito ang sinabi ni Dick Morris sa column niya:

Why did the exit polls show such a Democratic win when the Republicans were ahead all along? Why did they bias the coverage in the favor of the Democrats when Bush was winning from the beginning?

Exit polls are almost impossible to get wrong this way. They are based on interviews with voters as they leave the polling places having just cast their ballots. They don't reflect absentee, mail-in or early-voting ballots, of course — but these voters generally tend Republican. When you combine military votes with those of voters who are likely to travel and need absentee ballots, the bias is all pro-Republican.

So why were the exit polls wrong?

That an exit poll is always right is an axiom of politics. It is easier to assume that a compass is not pointing north than to assume that an exit poll is incorrect. It takes a deliberate act of fraud and bias to get an exit poll wrong. Since the variables of whether or not a person will actually vote are eliminated in exit polling, it is like peeking at the answer before taking the test.

But these exit polls were wrong. And the fact that they were so totally, disastrously wrong is a national scandal. There should be a national investigation to unearth the story behind the bias.

I believe Mahar Mangahas of SWS and Mercy Abad of Trends (especially HER!) are guilty of bias and fraud in their exit polling as well.