Sherrill Poll successfully forecasts all five races

?I conducted four samples outside early voting, polling a total of 170 people who had just voted,? said Standard reporter Duane Sherrill. ?In addition to taking the random exit samples I was looking for voting trends and talking to people about what they thought were the important issues.?

The poll was the first poll conducted entirely of exit samples. The August poll of four years ago, which also forecast the winners but was not as close on percentages, combined a random poll with an exit poll and included around 100 respondents.

?Random polls where you walk around and poll people are somewhat hit or miss since a likely voter doesn?t always vote,? Sherrill said. ?When you exit poll, you?re talking to folks whose votes are already in the box.?

The poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent only had three candidates fall outside the margin. However, all three of those were still correctly forecast in the order in which they finished.

The county executive?s race was an exact hit forecast at 57 to 42 percent. The sheriff?s race was within 1 percent, while the district attorney?s race, forecast as a dead heat, ended with a 1 percent win by Lisa Zavogiannis in Warren County.

As far as the poll giving candidates an advantage or disadvantage, Sherrill said it is very unlikely.

?A voter who says he or she did not to go to the polls because their candidate is ahead or behind in the poll probably wasn?t going to go at all,? Sherrill said. ?People vote on more than just one race so they plan to go to the polls regardless of who is in the lead.

?As for people voting for who is winning in the polls, I think that?s a wive?s tale. You have to be pretty weak willed for a poll to tell you who to vote for.?