Why are exit poll numbers changing in the middle of the night?
According to the Washington Post's story, there was a server crash at the organization doing the polling, and they didn't get the backups up and running until 1:30 am. Here's the money paragraphs...
To compound the problem further, a server at Edison/Mitofsky malfunctioned shortly before 11 p.m. The glitch prevented access to any exit poll results until technicians got a backup system operational at 1:33 a.m. yesterday.
The crash occurred barely minutes before the consortium was to update its exit polling with the results of later interviewing that found Bush with a one-point lead. Instead, journalists were left relying on preliminary exit poll results released at 8:15 p.m., which still showed Kerry ahead by three percentage points.
It was only after the polls had closed in most states and the vote count was well underway in the East that it became clear that Bush was in a stronger position in several key battlegrounds, including Ohio, than early exit polls suggested.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2004-11-04 05:31 am (UTC)According to the Washington Post's story, there was a server crash at the organization doing the polling, and they didn't get the backups up and running until 1:30 am. Here's the money paragraphs...