Election day is next Tuesday, November 5, which means that you’ll soon start to hear about exit polls and what they tell us about how voters nationwide cast their ballots.
Exit polls are meant to take a snapshot of voters’ political choices and opinions immediately after they leave the polling place. Unlike most other election polls, which ask people to state in advance which candidates they speculatively plan to support (usually by asking, “if the election was held today, which candidate would you vote for?”), exit polls ask them on election day who they voted for, once their vote is a done deal.
Many exit polls are sponsored by major media outlets. Several of these outlets pool their resources to conduct their exit polls, which is known as the National Election Pool. Under this arrangement, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, and CNN contract with Edison Research for their exit poll data. Meanwhile, FOX News and the Associated Press join together to contract with the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center for their exit polls.
For all of these media outlets, the exit poll data gathered on election day helps them decide when to “call” a state and announce its winner during news broadcasts on election night. Political analysts also use exit poll data in the weeks and months (or even years) after election day to study trends in voting behavior.
Exit polls have had a long and sometimes controversial history in this country’s elections. The main controversy has to do with exit poll results being leaked or released during election day before polls have closed in a given state. These leaked results can then influence voters – sometimes leading them to stay home when they originally had planned to vote – and potentially even affect the outcome of an election. It’s not illegal in the United States for exit poll results to be released early (it is illegal in some other countries, however). But the media outlets that sponsor exit polls have entered into binding agreements to not leak exit poll data and have strong security protocols in place to keep it from happening.
While the national media outlets don’t usually exit poll locally, this year Montgomery County voters can participate in an exit poll designed by the students in Professor Shamira Gelbman’s “Election Polling” course, a political science course she teaches at Wabash College.
The students’ exit poll will contain approximately 20 questions for voters to answer anonymously. They will include several questions about voters’ choices on the 2024 ballot and their turnout in previous elections, as well as questions on their opinions about important issues in American politics. There will also be a few questions about demographics – age, gender and the like. The purpose of these questions is to enable the students to analyze the results to see if, for example, younger voters on average are thinking similarly or differently from their elders about this year’s political candidates and issues, or if men and women approach this year’s politics in similar or different ways.
The student pollsters will be stationed outside near the vote centers at the 4-H Building, North Montgomery High School and Rock Point Church from about 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
All voters in Montgomery County are invited to participate in their exit poll, which should take under 10 minutes to answer on a pen-and-paper clipboard form.
If you voted early, you can still stop by on Election Day to fill out the poll. And everyone – voters and non-voters, and those who choose to participate in the poll and those who don’t – is welcome to stop by their exit poll tables to learn about election polling and receive stickers and snacks.
Unlike the national media’s exit polls, the Wabash students’ poll results will not be used to predict local results on election night. Instead, Gelbman said that the students will analyze them in class the week after election day. She added that their analysis will not look at any individual’s opinions or voting behavior – instead, they will focus on the aggregate results, which means that they will try to understand the political choices and concerns of the community as a whole.
Once they have done their analysis, the students will give a presentation during a lunchtime event on the Wabash College campus, in Baxter Hall room 101 on Friday, November 15th. This event is open to the public, and all are welcome to come and hear about the exit poll results.
This is the third time Wabash students will conduct an exit poll in Montgomery County, said Gelbman, whose students also polled Montgomery County voters in 2012 and 2016. She said that it’s a great educational opportunity for the students, who will be practicing what they learned about how to design a poll and to learn more about the community they live in during their college years. It’s also a good opportunity for the community to experience an exit poll in action and learn about how exit polling is used in American presidential elections.