Simon and O'Dell cite some other figures from the weighted table that they regard as anomalous, but no more convincingly. For instance, they note that Bush's 43 percent job approval rating in the weighted tabulation was higher than in other surveys; CNN put it at 35 percent using the same question. However, Bush's approval rating in the unweighted tabulation is 42 percent—just one point lower. (To obtain a Bush approval rating in the mid-30s would require truly astonishing weights: Would you believe that the Democrats won the House by over thirty points? Apparently, the authors had abandoned exit poll accuracy entirely by this point in their analysis, but if so, they could have told us.)

Why is Bush's job approval rating so high in the exit poll? The response categories probably make a difference. Whereas CNN asks respondents whether they approve or disapprove, the exit poll offers four categories—"strongly approve," "somewhat approve," "somewhat disapprove," and "strongly disapprove." The "somewhat approve" category may attract some voters who would otherwise opt for outright disapproval. Indeed, Scott Rasmussen reports that in split-sample experiments, offering all four choices has yielded approval ratings three to four points higher than a two-way choice. The survey population may matter, too. Most approval ratings are based on surveys targeted at all adults, not just likely (or actual) voters. Charles Franklin noted in September that the differences in approval across these populations are unpredictable and typically small. However, the pollingreport.com approval trend table at least hints that the gap may have been wider in November. Whatever the reason(s), attributing Bush's high approval rating to fraud-concealing weights looks like a nonstarter.  

Similar arguments apply to Simon and O'Dell's second anomaly: that congressional approval seems too high in the exit poll. Their third anomaly is a supposed excess of "born-again or evangelical" Christians, but actually the 2006 exit poll figures—weighted or unweighted—seem consistent with past exit polls and other surveys.

What about the preelection "generic" polls that showed Democrats leading by double digits? The generic polls ask whether respondents would vote for the (unnamed) Democratic or Republican candidate in their own district. Some fraud-minded observers have selectively quoted Bafumi, Erikson, and Wlezien's statement that the "generic polls turn out to be very good predictors" of the actual vote. But Bafumi et al. do not mean what these observers want them to mean. On the contrary, they argue that the polls "perform poorly as point estimates," and must undergo further analysis to "discount the exaggerated sizes of the generic poll leads." In fact, if we use Bafumi et al.'s model with Simon and O'Dell's estimate of the generic Democratic lead, the model projects an actual vote margin of about 7.8 points, close to the official returns. Bafumi et al. also report that their margin of error (95 percent confidence interval) for vote share is about 3.7 points—which means that their margin of error for vote margin is over 7.0 points. A predicted Democratic margin of "eight points plus-or-minus seven" hardly supports suspicions of massive fraud.

While generic polls on average tend to overstate Democratic margins, final Gallup polls have (on average) been more accurate. David Moore and Lydia Saad reported that for midterm elections from 1950 through 1990, the final Gallup poll had an average absolute error under 1.3 points on vote share—a record that continues through 2006. For what it is worth, in 2006, the final Gallup poll projected a 7.0-point Democratic margin, again close to the official returns.

Thus, generic polls actually don't support Simon and O'Dell's inference of massive vote miscount. Nor do polling results in individual races, where the polls name the candidates. Among all House races for which pollster.com reported poll results, the median Democratic vote margin was about 0.3 points larger than the pollster.com five-poll average. Limiting the analysis to competitive races yields similar results. In Senate races, the median Democratic candidate did 1.7 points better than the pollster.com average. Of course miscount is perfectly possible in individual races. Indeed, the evidence for miscount or some other frustration of voter intent in Sarasota County is very strong. But survey-based evidence of a "landslide denied" is hard to descry.

Warren Mitofsky took a dim view of various people who cited the 2004 exit polls as evidence of fraud. He wrote to me in December 2005 that, in his view, they "do not want to know the truth. They are on a 'cause.' They are advocates, not scholars and nothing anyone says will interfere with their mission." At the time, I argued with him; now I might not bother. Still, I have no warrant to doubt the subjective sincerity of many of the analysts, much less the people who have accepted their arguments as authoritative. I do worry that such weak arguments detract from far more credible concerns about election integrity.

Apart from the new (yet strangely familiar) round in the "exit poll debate," the 2006 election also saw the advent of an effort to use exit polls systematically in election auditing. Steve Freeman and Ken Warren piloted "election verification exit polls" in twenty-eight selected precincts in two Pennsylvania congressional districts. Other exit polls and "parallel elections" took place around the country, and several—including Freeman's—elicited apparent discrepancies with the vote count. At first glance, the results I have seen could readily be attributed to poll bias rather than miscount. Nonetheless, Freeman notes that the discrepancies may indicate "possible election fraud," and, of course, this is true. Exit polls ought to register massive vote miscount if it occurs. Unfortunately, their false-positive rate seems exorbitant.

I have little enthusiasm for the task of using exit polls systematically to audit elections. I see no reliable way to eliminate participation bias in exit polls, especially if they have the explicit purpose of detecting election fraud (which, as Freeman notes, presently worries Democratic voters more than Republicans). So I offer this modest proposal: To verify election results, let us focus on adopting secure, verifiable, and trusted voting systems. Despite my morbid fascination with exit poll debates, I would just as soon skip the next one.

Mark Lindeman is an assistant professor in the political studies program at Bard College.