The pollsters who overestimated Mr. Obama's margin ranged from CBS and Gallup (who have the most rigorous voter screens and sampling designs, and have sterling records in presidential elections) to local and computerized polling operations, whose methods are a good deal less refined.
In the name of correcting the undercount of people in our cities, Democrats want to implement so-called sampling, a computerized polling method that adjusts population counts.
You can participate in computerized straw polls.
Lobbyists not only have ever greater resources at their disposal, they are also armed with the sophisticated technology of influence — polls, television, focus groups, computerized data banks, micro-targeting, each of them important in itself, and devastating when deployed in effective combinations.
1. Voting: Vote on a bill that authorizes the federal government to spend up to $3.9 billion over the next three years to help states buy new voting equipment, train poll workers and establish computerized statewide lists of registered voters.
That way, ballots can be quickly counted, but if the computerized vote tally comes under suspicion, poll workers can always recount the paper itself.
For all of Karl Rove's vaunted organizational genius that is supposed to deliver Republican voters to the polls next week - and his computerized, carefully targeted system is truly impressive - up until now the GOP "messaging" effort has not been tremendously effective.
The board came under criticism during the primary last month for problems with a new computerized voting system that contributed to some polling precincts opening hours late.
The law authorizes $3.9 billion of federal spending in the next three years to help states replace punch-card and lever voting machines, to train poll workers and to establish computerized statewide lists of registered voters.
Under the law, states will have to create computerized voter registration lists, improve access to the polls for the disabled, define what constitutes a vote on various machines, and allow people to check their ballots and correct errors before the votes are cast and counted.
