For those interested, this site http://www.exit-poll.net/pool.html seems to have the info on exit polls – although it seems to be crashing at the moment.
Of course, this pollster says early exit polls aren’t worth all that much, as they aren’t weighted by precinct turnout, which is apparently important – especially given they don’t call elections on raw exit poll data, even at the end of the day:
Exit Polls: What You Should Know – MysteryPollster [And this link isn’t even crashing]
Another thought on voter turnout, courtesy of the Horserace weblog:
Since everybody is talking 'bout high turnout…
I thought I should answer this question: Does it favor Democrats this year?
Not necessarily! The principle behind the idea is that marginal voters (i.e. people who are not necessarily going to vote every year) tend to be marginal Democrats (i.e. people who generally, but not always and not commitedly, favor Democrats). Thus, the more people that come out to vote, the more marginal voters that are coming out to vote, the more Democratic votes there are.
But let’s think about this marginal voter for a second. This would be the voter whose expected utility from voting is lower than the expected utility of a committed Democrat or committed Republican.
Game theorists would argue that people vote based on a cost-benefit analysis. There are inherent costs to voting (information costs required to learn about the candidates, transportation costs, time lost costs) and these can be compared to the psychological benefits (i.e. fulfilling civic duty, following tradition). Now, in 2000 the benefit from voting was greater than the cost for voting for about 54% of eligible adults. In other words, about 46% of America decided that the costs were too great, 54% decided that they were not.
Suppose that these early turnout indications are true, that the Democratic and GOP faithful are coming out in droves upon droves.
What happens to the marginal voter? The probability that he will vote actually declines, as his time costs are going through the roof. He gets to the polls, sees a wait of up to two hours and decides, “Awww…forget it! I don’t like either of those bozos, anyway!”
This is what would be called by game theorists a “tipping model.” Predicting turnout is a very complicated matter – as a high turnout at time X might indicate a low turnout at time X+1 because people coming at time x+1 see the long wait as too costly. This, in turn, indicates a high turnout at X+2, lower turnout at x+3, etc. What happens is that the new arrivals at the polling place at each point in time calculate the cost of voting and compare it with the expected benefit from waiting.
In general, though, suppose that the GOP has boosted its GOTV effort to rough parity with the Democrats. Turnout during the day will rise and fall according to the above model, but in general it will be higher than in elections past, as there would be more committed/energized Republicans coming to the polls than there were in 2000. In other words the wait to vote at time 2000x<2004x,>
That means that, in general, the maginal voter becomes that much less likely to vote. It does not matter when he arrives, he faces greater costs relative to voting in 2000.
This is perhaps what we have seen in the ABC News/ Wa Po tracking poll, which has noted that the people who are “definitely going to vote” has fallen (outside the MOE) over the last week. In other words, the marginal voter has prudently calculated that there will be longer-than-normal lines and has decided that the costs simply outweigh the benefits.
If we presume that the “marginal voter” leans Democratic, and that the GOP has increased the number of its base supporters, higher turnout would actually benefit Republicans.
This general principle is, incidentally, why bad weather hurts turnout. It does not really affect the base of either party. They’ll come out to vote regardless the weather, wait, etc. Rather, it affects the marginal voter. Bad weather increases the cost of voting (i.e. you suffer the cost of getting wet, poor driving conditions, etc). As this marginal voter leans Democratic, we can say that bad weather helps Republicans.
Also, this, also from the Horserace Blog (FYI, a weblog run by a University of Chicago doctoral student in political science) which buttresses my hypothesis about the lines people faced this morning:
"Don’t put too much stock in the anecdotal evidence about early voting. Remember Thomas Schelling! Micro decisions can have macro consequences. If everybody woke up thinking that turnout was high, and that it would be wise to get to the polls early, i.e. before work, the decision will be self-defeating, as everybody goes to the polls early. It is like being stuck in traffic due to construction that closes one lane. Everybody jumps over to the unclosed lane because they do not want to get stuck at the merge point. The result is that everybody gets stuck in the un-closed lane.
Thus, it might be that turnout will be high. Or it might be that morning turnout is high with lower evening turnout. We will have to wait and see."
same situation as you, cdn guy voted conservative, damn stealin libs won, go bush!
Kerry, all the way baby!!
Factor in cell phones, young voters, discontent for Florida in 2000, and the fact that more of the population identify themselves as Democrats, and we now will have a positive change in world relations, the Arab world, and here at home!!!
Sheesh, talk about over analysis!
Underanalysis: I’m thinking Bush pulls approximately 53% of the raw vote – I think that will translate to a comfortable electoral win, but couldn’t tell you how it will play out precisely…
Hey vroom! Don’t you have a hockey game to get to or something? 
Well, it seems Bush has won, good, bad, or otherwise. Finally we can get back to discussing important issues.
[quote]emckee wrote:
My guess is a 55% chance of a Kerry win.
The odds of Bush carrying NJ are low; the only pollster which has had it close has been Strategic Vision.
Pennsylvania is probably (4/3) going to Kerry. Ohio is likely (5/4) Bush. Wisconsin and MN are likely Kerry. I think NM will go by a hair to Kerry and I would be quite surprised if Hawaii went to Bush. I’d give a slight edge (6/5) to Kerry in NH based on the recent polling although it is a republican leaning state, and I’d say the same-- same odds too-- for Iowa.
That leaves Florida. In both cases there seem to be a minimal number of undecideds and the more reliable pollsters are not only within the margin of error on nearly all of the polls of the last couple weeks, but within a point or two. Comparing the data to last election is difficult since there are far fewer undecideds at this point than last time, which would seem to be a minor plus for Bush, given how they broke last time. Since I don’t want to be another asshole who says that turnout will decide it, I’ll guess Kerry by a 47 votes but with near even odds.
These are my guesses. It’ll be fun to how inaccurate (or maybe even accurate?!?) my guesses were.[/quote]
wow. dead on.