Cue the mea culpas… surveys are not a good way to measure turnout. Who woulda thunk it?

Turns out that the much advertised CIRCLE report that 35% of Oregon’s 18-30 turnout rate overestimated by 50%. The original story was, of course, followed by credit claiming, most commonly various GOTV organizations and VBM. Folks are oddly silent about todays story …

I have to give Scott Moore props for an attempted save, see below:

But Moore contends that even if young voters wildly overstated how many of them actually filled out and mailed their ballots, the zeal they display in wanting others to think they voted shows the positive connotation that voting holds in this state, compared to other states such as Nebraska, where only about 14 percent of young voters told researchers they voted.

“The information Tufts gathered shows what people said they did, not what they actually did,” Moore says. “But the numbers show that there’s a social value in voting here, and that’s a testament to the hard work that people do engaging young voters.”