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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

Stanton:

Oh, exit polling. Well, that's something that really came along after me. It was in existence at the time I was president -- I guess my professional training and my rudimentary information about computers led me to believe that we didn't have to wait until the whole election night was over before we knew who was going to be the winner. Not to insult you by even suggesting that you saw these programs as a child, but on election night we had enormous walls of names of the candidates and little windows through which numbers would move, and you could see how the vote was going. Now, those numbers weren't done by computer. Those numbers were done by boys standing behind that screen, with numbers on tape, moving them around. It was jackass power. I remember saying to the news people after one of those campaigns, “The day is going to come when you'll take your numbers right to the screen, from a computer.”

“Oh, forget that.” That was rocket science, etc. But, I did know enough, I was at least familiar enough with what was going on in the computer world to know that was going to happen. I also knew enough about sampling to believe that you could pick precincts all over the country, and if you had the money, put people out there, your representatives, to get the raw information, phone it in to New York, put it in a mix and come up with a national figure. I didn't actually do any of that work, I simply fostered it by providing the funds and pushing it hard. So, we were the first to do -- what did they call it? VPA. Voter precinct analysis, I think.

Q:

And that started about when?

Stanton:

Oh, that started, I guess, in the '60s. We had good statistical people working on





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