| |
|
|
from the issue of November 4, 2004
|
| |
|
|
| |
Professor helps track election results, projections
BY TOM HANCOCK, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
The frantic pace of the recent Election Day has especially been felt by UNL's Allan McCutcheon, who was one of 12 national experts who gathered in Somerset, N.J., to collect election results and pass projections on to electronic and print media earlier this week.
McCutcheon is professor of statistics and sociology at UNL, a survey research scientist and director of the Gallup Research Center. He also chairs the graduate program in survey research and methodology at UNL. He has worked on pre-election polling for The Gallup Organization, as well as conducted polls in Europe.
McCutcheon was part of the efforts of Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International to provide exit poll analysis this week. Warren Mitofsky is the developer of the field of exit polling and was the founding director of the CBS News poll.
The effort is funded by the National Election Pool, composed of ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN and more than 1,500 newspapers nationwide. This national pool was responsible for getting Mitofsky to come on board, McCutcheon said. In the 10 U.S. presidential elections Mitofsky has overseen, his group has never called a state wrong.
This year, to prevent problems that occurred with polling in 2000 in Florida, more supplemental information was gathered, McCutcheon said. Information from exit polls, which was compiled first, was paired with actual vote tallies from precincts and counties. Projections were made for each race in a state after all the polls in the state are closed.
Nearly 5,000 people were needed to perform exit polling, gather information from the workers in the field, analyze the computations and perform many other tasks.
McCutcheon and his fellow researchers expected to take information from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and call 34 senatorial, 11 gubernatorial and state-level races.
McCutcheon and the team began meeting on Oct. 31 in Somerset. Before the meetings, analysts were warned they would get only two to three hours of sleep in 36 hours.
GO TO: ISSUE OF NOVEMBER 4
NEWS HEADLINES FOR NOVEMBER 4
Alumna Donates Flags That Flew in Afghanistan
Cather scholar Rosowski dies
Professor to speak on Muslim cultures
Study looks at oxygen in our past
Teaching project builds on successes
A Piece of University History
Lessons of Afghan conflict are topic of Forum
Professor helps track election results, projections
731889S33863X
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|