Word: exitement
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...first round of data from exit polls is out, and there are some demographic trends that may (or may not!) tell us something about what to expect tonight. But remember: Exit polls are compiled from interviews with voters as they leave polling places. They are notoriously unreliable...
...Exit polling - surveying people leaving voting locations about the ballots they cast - debuted in the 1960s, as news organizations (and on a small scale, candidates) sought to gather demographic data about voters that could be used to predict election results. Legendary polling pioneer Warren Mitofsky conducted the first major exit poll for a network during the 1967 Kentucky governor's race and by the 1970s, exit polling had become an industry practice. But in 1980, NBC reported Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory over Jimmy Carter nearly three hours before polls closed on the West Coast, leading to a large-scale...
...embarrassing computer glitch in 2002 sealed the consortium's fate; it was shuttered soon after and replaced by a different set of pollsters that serve the National Election News Pool. But this organization suffered its own scandal in 2004 when exit poll data was leaked online around midday on Election Day, prompting bloggers to declare John Kerry the presumptive winner. In 2006, the pollsters began quarantining representatives of the NEP to prevent such leaks from occurring...
...current exit poll system uses a careful methodology that includes sampling voters during various periods of the day (certain demographic groups tend to vote at different times) and conducting telephone surveys of those who voted early or by absentee ballots. The pollsters for this year's election also say they are making an effort to ensure the organization's more than 1,000 surveyors are diverse - in previous elections, surveyors tended to be young, and presumably attracted younger participants (who are more likely to be Democratic). The questionnaires are filled out anonymously and deposited into boxes, which pollsters say helps...
...Actual projections are made by "decision desks" at the networks - small groups of journalists and polling experts who use exit data and actual returns to decide when to announce winners. So even though all the networks have access to the same exit poll data, they often don't broadcast projections at the same time. During the primary season, the networks used exit poll data to slice the electorate into various demographic groups - giving viewers proof, for example, of Barack Obama's strength over Hillary Clinton among black voters and Clinton's popularity among older voters. These tidbits help fill airtime...