Should Exit Polls Be Released Before Voting Ends?
Dear Scott,
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StumbleUponHave you read Martin Plissner's rollicking memoir of his years as CBS News' executive political director, The Control Room, which explains the origin of the myth of the suppressed voter turnout? In 1980, NBC used exit-poll results and other voting data from the eastern states to call the presidential election at 8:15 Eastern time in favor of Ronald Reagan—almost three hours before the West Coast polls closed. A few days later, the California secretary of state claimed that the media projections turned "would-be voters" into "non-voters," and said that "election volunteers did not show up and voter information phones stopped ringing during a time when they are usually all tied up." Congressional Quarterly reported that many voters abandoned their places in polling lines when they received word of the Reagan victory.
Although the voters-leaving-the-polls story has cemented itself in our political folklore, it has never been substantiated. CBS News even assigned reporters to document the vanishing hordes created by the NBC projection and had no luck in finding them. "Newspaper reporters who wrote of such happening were queried as to the time and place," writes Plissner. "Again, no luck. They had only heard from someone else, or read somewhere, that it had happened somewhere."
According to Plissner, academic studies don't agree on whether projections change voting patterns. But the surveys seem to agree that most western voters believe that other voters are likely to change their mind about voting after hearing a projection, but not them. That's a pretty shaky stick upon which to hang your hat.
Yet the myth continued to grow. After the 1980 election, CBS crews covering California stories encountered hostility over the projection issue, Plissner reports. "On one such occasion, a CBS producer, in an aside to a colleague, muttered, 'Vote early or move,' " he writes.
Exactly! If, on a long shot, exit polls and projections do indeed suppress turnout, voters can always flummox the media by voting early or requesting an absentee ballot. There! I've solved the problem! Take my advice, Scott, and cast an absentee ballot (as I routinely do), and you'll never have to worry about exit polls tarnishing your vote. There is no reason to convene a Pew seminar to examine the ethics of releasing exit-poll data or to draft exit-poll legislation.
Even if exit polls are a civic menace, there are other, less drastic remedies than curbing the press. Internet voting would make exit interviews next to impossible, and uniform poll closings would similarly undermine the projectionists.
Before I sign off, let me take a few friendly swipes at your arguments.
1) You write that you're a minimalist on civic journalism: that it's not the media's job to boost turnout but that one of its jobs is not to depress it. Want to rethink that one? If, as you posit, the test case is Weimar Republic election of 1933, wouldn't it have been a good idea to suppress the Nazi turnout? I don't think journalists should worry about whether their stories encourage or discourage voters. That's the job of the League of Women Voters, who preach the neutral, every-vote-is-worth-casting religion. Likewise, it's the job of advocacy groups and the political parties to encourage turnout on one side and depress it on the other. Our job is to tell the truth. And if the truth hurts, society should find ways to accommodate us. (See my policy recommendations above.)
2) I'm amused by your discussion of "Gore voters" who stayed home. If they're Gore voters who didn't vote, then I'm a ballerina who doesn't dance.
3) Please don't be sore if I don't take the bait about revealing military positions or clues that might solve a murder. Those are really rotten analogies because they're about life or death. You can do better.
Lastly, let's not forget that we're discussing two issues: 1) Should exit polls be released before the polls close? I say that's up to the creators of the polls: If they don't want people gossiping about the numbers they should keep their secret secret. If I were running the exit polls, I'd run them when I got them. 2) Should news organizations project the winners of contests before all the polls close? Once again, it's up to the news organization, and once again, I'd project the winners as soon as I could do so confidently.
Regards,
Jack
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[Ed. Note: please read after most recent entry in Dialogue]
Reporters are simply not going to intentionally hold back their predictions on election day. They are in the business of selling their papers, and that is that. It is up to the rest of us to minimize the impact of the early predictions on the voting outcome. How? Well, one obvious way is to close all polls at the same time. (The same Greenwich Mean Time, certainly not the same local time). The polls should close at the same instant everywhere. This might mean keeping the eastern polls open a few more hours. So what? Another way to minimize the impact of early polls and early primaries is to hold all primaries on the same day, and close them all at the same time. The way it is now, voters in many state elections (the ones after Super Tuesday) had to cast votes after the candidates had been selected. Those states that hold very early elections are trying to unfairly influence the outcomes of elections, and should not be allowed to do it.
-- Philip Rosenblatt
(To reply, click here.)
Scott clearly wants it both ways. He wants to be neutral, except when he wants his side to win. What consequence does Scott want Dan and Tom and Peter to help achieve? If press manipulation of voters or of voter turnout had caused the "conservative positions on most of the ballot referenda" to fail, would that also be bad? Apparently not. Scott doesn't like it when media action (arguably) leads to a conservative victory. That's not because he disapproves of media action. It's because he disapproves of conservative victories.
--TomFool
(To reply, click here.)
I disagree. Shuger does no such thing. His examples about exit polling depressing turnout and possibly affecting the outcome of Kennedy v. Nixon in 1960 or the California referenda this month were merely designed to show that breaking the embargo can affect the results, either way. He just expressed his personal liberal view on these examples because he presumes that his interlocutor Jack Shafer shares these views--hence, these examples would be most persuasive. I'm sure that Shuger would also object (perhaps not as vehemently) to early projections which tilted elections to the left. I think it goes without saying that neither Shuger nor any respectable journalist would advocate early release of polling data only when its expected effect would be to help the side you personally favor. This is a straw man which is easily knocked down but completely beside the main point, which is, does breaking the embargo have a nontrivial potential of affecting election outcomes (or at least turnout)?
--Steven Mulroy
(To reply, click here.)
The key argument here is very badly reasoned. Say a study showed that exit polls cut voting by 3%. The author says 'what about 1960, decided by 1%'. If an election is that close, the exit polls will show it. In that event, they won't cut voting, they may stimulate it, as people feel that maybe their votes will make a difference.
--frank cross
(To reply, click here.)
(3/15)