It's a Secret Ballot 

Tom Paine has yet another column on how Ohio wasn't stolen in 2004 (H/T to Michelle Malkin):

Liddle explained to me that, since 1988 at least, voter sampling has consistently over-polled Democrats. I've heard a variety of explanations for this, but in general, it's not hard to imagine that Democrats might be at least marginally more inclined to explain their political decisions to exit pollsters, who, after all, are representatives of the often-reviled "liberal" media.

In fact, it seems that Republican voters are overall slightly less likely to accurately express their preferences to in-person interviewers, even in precincts where they constitute a sizable majority. For fairly complex reasons, a slight undersampling of Bush voters produces a larger gap between exit polls and final results in (A) evenly split precincts than in highly partisan precincts, and in (B) highly Republican precincts than in highly Democratic precincts. Not knowing this, says Liddle, one could look at certain precincts and immediately, if incorrectly, smell something foul.

First of all... why is it that people have to keep bringing this up? Honestly... the election is over... Bush is making decisions. It's done. However, more than that I'm always enamored by how people think that exit polls are somehow more reliable than... well... the actual polls. Only one counts every single vote (insert complaint about hanging chads and disenfranchisement here)... the other just samples. Only a desperate person would look at the discrepancy of exit polls and polling booths and decide that we need to re-examine the polling booths. I say if there's a discrepancy, it's time to re-examine exit polls.

But onto the discussion of how you sample, which is what Tom Paine talks about. He talks about the fact that Democrats tend to be over sampled in these polls which skews them. This seems utterly obvious to me, just by examining the general profile of someone who votes Democrat vs. someone who votes Republican. Democrats tend to be activists more often than Republicans. Activists love to tell you what they're thinking and why, which is what exit pollsters want to hear. Republicans tend more often than Democrats to be secretive about their decisions. I think they're more apt to say "It's none of your business."

In fact I can say it's probably the earliest voting experience I have in my memory. I can still remember my dad taking me with him when he voted in California once when I was a kid. As we left the local Baptist church where he voted, he was approached by an exit pollster... and that was exactly what he said... "It's none of your business". As we walked away, he told me "That's the best response you can give them. It's a secret ballot for a reason." That has always stuck with me... some 20 years later. Granted we don't live in Cuba, where making the wrong vote can get you shot... but I still think the secret ballot is the most important tenet of our democracy. Only when you are behind that curtain, private in your thoughts and decisions, are you truly fee to make your choice. Exit pollsters seek to take away that freedom, and for that reason scares away many people, probably more conservative than liberal. Besides... does nobody think that people lie to pollsters just to fuck with them... or am I the only one who does that?