The Media Myth Is that Ted Kennedy's Seat Was Lost to a Right-Wingnut because of Democratic Mistakes. But What If There Had Been an Exit Poll?

Recall Why NOT to Believe the MA Election Results

by Kathy Dopp

National Election Data Archive

I've reposted this exit poll analysis of the MA Super-Tuesday primary
election to remind us that MA had the highest early unadjusted exit
poll discrepancies of any state, and to recall that MA makes *no
attempt whatsoever* to check the accuracy of its election results
after the election, choosing to blithely trust all the programmers,
technicians, and election officials not to make any deliberate or
innocent mistakes.

Here is the Super Tuesday exit poll results, including MA. It is not
surprising that a state that does nothing whatsoever to ensure that
its election counts are accurate after the election has the highest
exit poll discrepancies of any state on Super Tuesday.

http://www.electionmathematics.org/em-exitpolls/SuperTuesday2008DemPrimary.pdf

No one can tell us whether or not the MA election outcomes are
accurate due to the lack of any post-election auditing procedure
there.

Notice that if Rep Holt's Voter Confidence bill had passed (which it might have if we all had supported it), this would not be an ongoing problem at the level it is today because all states would be required to use paper ballots and count at least 10% of randomly selected publicly reported precinct counts manually and independently after each election that had margins this close.