June 27, 2004
CBC to do exit polling
The National Broadcaster will be doing something different on Election Day - exit polling. This, despite the fact that they made a big deal of not commissioning any polls.
The stated reason is to give Canadians some context to the collective decision they will be making tomorrow, but it is more likely that they are trying to get a jump on the other networks by using the exit poll to augment riding-by-riding data as is comes in. That should enable the CBC to make their outcome declaration earlier than their competitors.
Exit polling has developed a bad reputation. In the 2000 Presidential election in the United States, networks use exit polling to predict that Al Gore had been elected President. In the 1992 United Kingdom General Elections, media outlets using exit polling erroneously declared that the Labour Party had won the election. Most recently, in the 2004 Indian general election, exit polls had media outlets saying (for days) that the government had been re-elected, when it had actually been defeated.
A word of advice to the CBC, exit polls should come with a warning label that says, "USE WITH CAUTION."
Posted by maxthecat at June 27, 2004 10:34 PM
http://www.maxsmewsings.com/mt/archives/2004/06/cbc_to_do_exit_polling.php