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Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., left, looks on as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a national security meeting with advisors at Trump Tower, Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Dr. Jess Brown is a retired professor of government and public affairs at Athens State University.

By Jess Brown, Ph.D., a retired professor at Athens State University who taught courses about elections and public opinion for many years, and has served as an election day commentator for media since 1976

Since November 8 numerous stories from regional and national media sources assert that the polls were systematically "wrong" regarding the presidential election. Admittedly, there was a large number of pre-election polls publicized via sites, such are Real Clear Politics, and they varied in methodology and results.

There were obviously a few polls from individual states that missed the mark by a wide margin, but even most of these state polls conducted by well-established polling firms correctly predicted the popular vote in that state within the margin of error associated with the sample size of their poll.

Nevertheless, it is simply incorrect to conclude that the final polling percentages based on national samples in the presidential contest, as presented to the American public by the major television networks and many print outlets immediately prior to election day, were wrong.

Admittedly there are reasons to be more inquisitive about polling results. Polling has become inherently more difficult primarily as a result of cell phone usage. Pollsters are now recognizing these limitations and are experimenting with relatively new techniques in the acquisition of interviews. Some do not use live interviewers; others are engaging in the statistical weighting of results to an extent not utilized in prior election cycles. In recognition of these limitations, the nation's most prestigious polling firm, the Galllup organization, decided to forego polling in the presidential contest for the first time since the 1930s.

So, why is there a widespread perception that the polls got it "wrong?" Voters, pundits, and media folk instinctively assumed that the winner of the popular vote would win the vote in the Electoral College and acquire the presidency. Is that not a safe assumption? The nation has had 58 presidential elections, and in 53 of them, the winner of the popular vote also acquired the office via the determinative vote of the Electoral College.

But, that is where the problem occurs. Pollsters do not survey members of the Electoral College or make any effort to project the geographical distribution of the Electoral College vote among the states. To do that, the pollsters for the networks would need a large sample from every state. Time and funds prevent that effort. Instead, pollsters for the national networks typically generate data based on a single national sample (although some exclude Alaska and Hawaii). Their objective on election eve is to estimate with reasonable accuracy who will win the popular vote in a day or so.

Let's review the final pre-election polls issued by four of the five major news networks - CBS, Fox, NBC, and ABC. CNN tended to rely on an amalgam of polls (i.e., Poll of Polls) in its data presentation near election day and is not included in this evaluation.

These were the four polls actually consumed by the lion's share of American voters prior to election day. If other select pollsters had numbers which substantially varied from these, they were not the polls of large-scale consumption by press and public.

Please note that in every insistence these polls correctly assessed who would receive the most popular votes. All assumed that Clinton would win the popular vote, and she did.

Remember that in every instance the difference between Clinton and Trump reflected in the polling numbers was within the statistical margin of error of the poll. In other words, the media folks and pundits should have shown the numbers and then said: "Based on the number of interviews in this poll and the small difference between the candidates, we cannot say with sufficient statistical certainty that either candidate has a lead in the presidential contest." Obviously, that is generally not what you heard from the anchors or "talking heads" on the networks, although a review of the readily available information from each of these pollsters in the methodology section of the poll's report would have made this evident.

And, more importantly, pollsters for the networks reported that three to seven percent of the folks interviewed claimed they were undecided (UND) in the last pre-election poll. Voters at the ballot box cannot vote "undecided." Voters must select a candidate or not vote. Having "undecideds" in the survey results guarantees some variation between the survey results and the actual popular vote.

If one takes the "undecided" block of voters in each poll and redistributes them equally between Clinton and Trump, as the rest of the electorate was basically distributed, then it is amazing how accurate these pre-election polls really were. These particular polls were, in fact, more accurate, not less accurate, than many of the high profile pre-election polls of recent presidential elections.

For example, if you redistribute the "undecideds" equally between Clinton and Trump, the CBS poll missed the national popular vote for the two major candidates by approximately two percentage points. The Fox poll missed Clinton's and Trump's national popular vote percentage by less than two percentage points. Likewise for ABC. The NBC poll would have had the most serious "error" by missing the Trump vote by 3.19 percentage points. Clinton will actually win the popular vote by approximately one percentage point.

If one has an even cursory understanding of the inherent logistical difficulties of contemporary polling in a large socially diverse county, the basics of probability sampling, the reporting of polling numbers and methodology, and the concept of margin of error, he or she would give these pollsters a pat on the back. There would be praise, not criticism in post-election coverage.

This whole situation smells of a follow-the herd mentality by the media. It also manifests in lazy journalism based on a pile of inaccurate assumptions stemming from ignorance of polling and inattentiveness to the readily available facts. Even someone without expertise in polls or statistics, just an ounce of adequate forethought, would have gleaned that the polls are designed to assess the popular vote, not a vote by the Electoral College or a state-by-state distribution of the popular vote.

The pollsters for the networks did their job well. Can we say the same for press and pundits regarding this aspect of election coverage?