Expect the Exit Polls to Skew Heavily in Obama's Favor

The Politico has some interesting information about exit polls and what we can expect on election day:

Media outlets are preparing for the possibility that their Election Day surveys could be skewed because of overstated support for Barack Obama, largely because of the enthusiasm of his supporters.

While exit polling is a notoriously inexact science—early exit poll results suggested John Kerry would be elected president in 2004—the introduction of several new variables, ranging from the zeal of Obama’s supporters to his racial background to widespread early voting, is causing concerns among those who charged with conducting the surveys and the networks that will be reporting them.

“It’s in some ways the flip side of non-cooperation,” said one pollster involved in preparations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “It’s over-cooperation by certain people.”

Unlike a traditional poll that asks voters who they intend to support, exit polls are taken outside the polling place immediately after voters have cast their ballots. The interviewing begins when the polls open in the morning and lasts throughout the day until shortly before the polls close.

The exit polls are conducted by the National Election Pool (NEP), a consortium of ABC News, Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News formed in 2003.

In theory, exit polls should match election results. But for all the care that goes into conducting accurate exit polls, errant results aren’t completely uncommon. Respected polling analyst Mark Blumenthal found that during the Democratic primaries this year, preliminary exit polls overestimated Obama's strength in 18 of 20 states, by an average error of 7 percentage points, based on leaked early results.

The reason? Obama’s supporters were younger, better educated and often more enthusiastic than Hillary Clinton's, meaning they were more likely to participate in exit polls.

This poses all kinds of risks for media malpractice on election night. Everybody in the mainstream media will be rooting for an Obama victory and will be sorely tempted to call states for Obama as quickly as they can. Those early calls can have an effect on voting in Western states where polls are still open. Incorrect calls, such as we saw in Florida in 2000, can literally change the election.

Given this information, will the networks be a little hesitant to make quick calls? I hope so, because when you add the information above to the possibility of the "Bradley Effect" in which voters purposely mislead pollsters, the raw vote totals could look markedly different than the exit polls, and even result in a completely different winner.