It looks to me like they were pretty close to actual. Yesterday, I was admonished by many for not reading other diaries before I posted my question. And I had read plenty, but I was not satisfied with the reasons given.
Today I used the numbers listed at CNN for comparison.
For exit polls, they show:
Male (47%) Obama 49% McCain 48%
Female (53%) Obama 56% McCain 43%
Which yields:
Obama 52.71% McCain 45.35%
For actual results, they show:
Obama 52% McCain 46%
That puts the exit polls within roughly 7/10 of a percent.
Is this a fluke? I understand that the accuracy of results in this one instance does not prove that exit polls are reliable. But over time, with the exception of 2004, they have been accurate.
So again, I ask, why should we ignore exit polls?