News organizations are fretting about exit polling. The fear? That some citizens, in their enthusiasm for their candidate, will actually seek out pollsters and try to weigh in with their proudly-cast vote. Another variable in the mix is the now widespread practice of allowing early voting. It’s an inexact science at best, and the presence of young, enthusiastic voters tends to overwhelm older voters for whom the process is not a shiny new toy. Major media corporations have pooled their resources for the purpose of exit polling, with the job being executed by the National Election Pool, formed by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox and the Associated Press.
RBR/TVBR observation: We can’t remember the last time we were even remotely impressed that one network called a given election before another did. In fact, we tend to pick a channel to watch returns and just stay there, so we usually don’t know what any other news source is doing. We have noted a certain caution in calling races after the Florida 2000 debacle, and that caution is just fine with us.
