polls (when averaged) sadly - predicted a Bush win.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2004/president/us/general_election_bush_vs_kerry-939.html

After people already voted.
Kerry was ahead in a large number of states in exit polls. All of these states went to Bush.
All of them. It never made any sense to me.

stolen elections - in the larger context.

My very liberal boss, who has been open to believing other conspiracy theories and who is an expert on polling, said that even he would never claim that an election had been rigged based on early exit poll numbers. He explained how they reweight it as the real numbers come in, because as they are conducting them they don't know the exact demographics of who is turning out. I don't remember exactly what he explained, but he is enough of an expert that if he says early exit polls are not evidence of rigging, I believe him.

I recall reading that part of the problem with some of the leaked early exit polls is they oversampled women, who were more democratic, since Kerry supporters were much less shy about telling anyone their support for him, while Bush people were more embarrassed and just walked away from pollsters without saying anything.

I say look at it this way from that, Bush's supporters were idiots who knew they were making a big mistake, but did it anyway, and were too ashamed to admit it to a pollster. It's a moral victory for us in 2004 at least when we look back.

... there were also polling places in the urban areas where the Dems were successful at having hours extended because of the lines. At that time I'm pretty sure we had a Democrat SOS. Most of the judges in those areas also "lean" Democrat. This year it's a Republican SOS again, but I think the Obama camp knows what to expect and how to play the game if access becomes an issue. They will be watching in the big Dem turnout areas, perhaps not so much in Red counties, and they are really pushing hard on the vote early option.