U.S. Citizens Vote

I'm sure you're aware of an election coming up.  That's right, there are still elections, even when we're not voting for the president.  I wanted to share some interesting numbers from 2000 and 2004.

The exit poll statistics, from CNN, for the year 2000, for the presidential election:

Republicans voting Democrat: 8 per cent
Democrats voting Republican: 11 per cent

So that's how things were in the year 2000.

Now let's look at 2004, still from CNN:

Republicans voting Democrat: 6 per cent

This I find hard to believe.  The number of Republicans voting Democrat went DOWN?  Never before this election had I ever heard a Republican say he or she would vote Democrat - but during this election I heard it from more Republicans than I can count.  They were fed up.  They were Republicans, sure, but they were sick of Bush.

Democrats voting Republican: 11 per cent

Bogus!  Democrats voted for Bush at the same rate as 2004?  No way.  I don't buy it.  Bogus.

So...what happened?  Are the exit polls simply bogus?  Are Democrats that stupid?  Do Republicans feel pressured into claiming that they are anti-Bush when in fact they are not?  (And if so, if there is that much of a consensus that Bush is evil, why is he still in office?)