Whenever I used to hear the term "exit poll" in previous elections, I never really understood their purpose--we're going to find out who wins for sure soon, what difference does a few hours or days make? I now see a single good reason behind it: measuring how different demographics voted. But if that was the only reason people were being asked who they voted for, there would be no reason to publicize the results on 24/7 news shows. These media outlets are all competing to report major news stories first, before any other news station can, so they can get the ratings from everyone who wants to know the results as soon as humanly possible (even if those "results" aren't the true vote count).
There's also some problems with responses in this poll method. We've already talked about the possibility of people lying out of spite or embarrassment. However, I would guess that when a stranger asks "Who did you vote for?," there's probably a lot of non-responses as well. People might highly value their right to a secret ballot, feel that their vote is nobody's business, or associate the question with an impending argument or judgement, as is often the case in the months before an election. Although there isn't exactly self-selection in these polls, there could be a similar effect based on what kinds of people readily answer the question, and what kinds of people would decline to answer.
Finally, there's the fact that when it comes to the presidential election (which is really the only one with an exit poll problem), it's electoral votes, not the popular vote, that matter most. I'm sure some of you remember the fiasco last year, especially in Rio Rancho, when people read on their phones that Obama had won the 270 electoral votes and the presidency while they were still in line to vote. So again, why bother with exit polls except for the sole purpose of measuring demographic data?
It's not that I hate the existence of exit polls; I just don't see their usefulness in the media for anything besides ratings.
Emma,
ReplyDeleteYou make some really interesting points about exit polls in this post. While I too believe that valuable information can be gained from exit polling, I don't believe that this information needs to be available to media sources right away. Perhaps a solution to confront some of the problems of exit polling would be to put a ban on releasing any of the information from exit polls until after the results of the election were known. If this were the case, valuable demographic information could still be gathered without risking influencing the results of the election.