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The University of Pennsylvania's Steven F. Freedman has updated his exit poll research. Dated December 29, 2004, the piece is available on his website here.

Choice quote:

In this report, I have: (1) documented that, in general, exit poll data are sound, (2) demonstrated that it is exceedingly unlikely that the deviations between exit poll predictions and vote tallies in the three critical battleground states could have occurred strictly by chance or random error, and (3) explained why explanations for the discrepancy thus far provided are inadequate.

The unexplained discrepancy leaves us with two broad categories of hypotheses: the exit poll data are wrong (or misleading) in ways that have yet to be documented, or the count is off. The most important investigations concern verification of the tallies and allegations of fraud on one hand; and the exit poll data and methodology on the other. Particularly useful statistical analyses would compare the “shift” in states, counties and precincts where safeguards are strong vs. those where they are suspect, but such analyses require NEP’s raw data.

Given that neither the pollsters nor their media clients have provided solid explanations to the public, suspicion of mistabulation or even fraud is running rampant and unchecked. The fact that so many people suspect misplay undermines not only the legitimacy of the presidency, but faith in the foundations of the democracy.

Systematic fraud or mistabulation is as yet an unfounded conclusion, but the election’s unexplained exit poll discrepancies make it an unavoidable hypothesis, one that is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies, and the public to investigate.

These are the issues that keep hold of me. I am no statistician. You don't need to be one to ask yourself why, for the second straight national election, all the data has broken one way - in favor of *. How can anyone believe that this happened by chance?