How the Networks will Handle Exit Polls

[question everything]

In a change from the 2002 midterm elections, the networks promise they won't project a winner in any state until after all of that state's polls are scheduled to close. In a first, each network has also agreed to send two representatives to a "quarantine room" at an undisclosed location in New York City to comb through exit-poll data. The goal: to prevent early exit-poll data -- which is often unreliable -- from leaking to the Internet, and to monitor the results in a vacuum, without access to a bank of TV screens tuned to various pundits predicting outcomes.

From WSJ report about the "rookies anchors"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116234811740809744.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (subscription)

[Skink]

1. Those unreliable exit polls.

:scared:

[endarkenment]

2. Are they then going to blend exit poll data

with actual poll results, like they did in '04, to avoid any unpleasant surprises when the two don't match?

[question everything]

3. They certainly do not want to call any winner too early

since all three are new and do remember the 2000 results.

Plus, they say the networks' exit polls, are likely to be fuzzy as more people make use of absentee ballots.