Political Junkie News

The missing-in-action 2002 national exit poll data have been given to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research for public release after a panel of academic experts reviewed the survey and concluded the results were reliable.

Voter News Service, composed of CBS, CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox and the Associated Press, conducted the exit poll on Election Day last year. But the survey findings were never made public after a massive computer collapse on election night prevented VNS from tabulating the results -- a failure that led directly to the demise of VNS.

Lois Timms-Ferrara, associate director of the Roper Center, said the data should be publicly available "in a week or two. . . . We want our archivist to look it over and make sure there is nothing problematic about it."

The data will be sold by the center -- "I hope for less than $100," Timms-Ferrara said -- and made available to paid subscribers to the center's online archive.

EL - Conspiracy theorists say that VNS was driven out of business to make manipulating the electronic voting machine results less visable.