1 | Jay

January 9th, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Some overlooked things on the NH primary…

Not only were the polls wrong on the NH primary but so were the initial exit polls. One possible reason not heard in the MSM is New Hampshire’s same day voter registration law. How can you rely on opinion polls when anyone can change their party voter registration or even register to vote on the day of the election. This is a new argument against same day voter registration laws, they mess up the exit poll statistical models and the polls as well. They allow a constantly changing electorate vulnerable to potential voter fraud up until the last minute. The shifting of independents from the Democrat to the Republican contest (probably based on polls showing Obama winning easily while the GOP race was tightening) caused Obama to go down while McCain went up.

Also part of the problem with having only one exit poll is that you get a very limited view of what happened in the election. For example, no one thought to include a question on the impact of the usually conservative Manchester Union Leader’s endorsement of John McCain and the constant media assault from the NH press on Romney. If the Manchester Union Leader had stuck to its original mission of helping the most viable conservative candidate then McCain might have lost. Exit polls reflect the bias of the person who makes up the questions so they are usually slanted to a MSM liberal viewpoint.