Should Exit Polls Be Released Before Voting Ends?
Scott Shuger is a Slate senior writer and author of "Today's Papers." Jack Shafer is Slate's deputy editor, "Press Box" columnist, and resident embargo-breaker (click here to catch up on the controversy and here to read Shafer's op-ed that ran in the Wall Street Journal).
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponHi again, Jack:
I have not read the Plissner book, but I'm familiar with the California-in-1980 scenario, and all I can say is that CBS didn't contact me. Because I was then a California voter and upon arriving at my polling place and seeing a long, slow line and having just heard that Reagan was the projected winner, I moved to the next thing on my to-do list. Now, granted, if I'd been more committed to other state and local races (partial excuse: I had just come back from being out of the country for the entire year and hadn't been able to learn about them), or if I'd been a better game theorist, or if I'd simply gone on to my next errand and then come back when no doubt the line would have thinned because other people would have left because they were probably going to reason like I actually did, then I still would have voted. But instead I did the human thing—I reasoned to a predictable level and no further. The point is that our reasoning about voting and the press should take account of what, being human, people are likely to do and how they're likely to feel. Hey, people don't turn out to vote as much when it rains either. Hmmm, war and peace and jobs and education on the one hand vs. wet shoes on the other. That makes utterly no sense, but if there was some sort of cloud-seeding program going on, I'd still tell the seeders to skip Election Day.
It's plausible that my 1980 experience was generalized, and it's incumbent upon your position to show that it was not. But in all your writing on this topic up through Plissner, I haven't seen a detailed reference to a definitive empirical study of the relationship between election projections, particular outcomes, and turnout. I don't know if there is one. If there is, let's get it out there and if there isn't, there should be. If such a study were to show that the projection effect is negligible, then I would accept both the early release of exit polls and the networks' publicizing of them. If not, then not. In short, I think this is an empirical issue and (until now at least) you seem to think it's a priori. And because voting is a messy affair tapping into all sorts of motivations, perceptions, and misperceptions, I don't think there are too many a priori arguments about it that are worth much.
You're right to point out that there are some alternatives to the current scheme of things that would moot this controversy: Everybody could move to the East Coast; everybody could vote early; everybody could vote by absentee ballot; and, eventually, everybody could vote online. Regarding the most plausible of these, I'm not sure I'm thrilled about eliminating voting's public profile. There's something reassuring about seeing our schools, churches, and libraries periodically filled with voters. On most days in most courtrooms, there are no spectators, but it seems important to our legal system that there could be. But this worry isn't a deal-breaker, and so I suppose I could endorse all-online voting. But that's many years off, don't you think? (I'd also endorse just banning exit polls and indeed banning polls for a while immediately before an election, as is done in some European countries.) And so, until the electorate can be convinced to vote absentee en masse, that leaves us with the current problem.
To address your other comments: 1) My position is that, at our level of democracy, I think the press should abstain from suppressing turnout but isn't required to boost it, although in more dire circumstances (as in 1933 Germany) it would be. 2) You seem to imply that a Gore voter is a Gore voter only if he actually votes for Gore. That's like saying only burning matches are a fire hazard. Democracy and the press, like fire safety, need a more inclusive sense of possibility than that. 3) You say that my prior examples only show that the press ought to suppress the truth where lives are at stake. Well, first off, in my example where the press should not publish a fact about a murder, if the state doesn't have the death penalty this is an example of justified suppression where no life is at stake—suppressing will not revive the victim. Another similar example: In the case of a plane crash, newspapers routinely withhold publication of the names of the victims until their next of kin can be notified, even though publishing them would not cause any deaths. Or are you against this practice too? And finally and most important of all: In every presidential election, lives are at stake, many more than in a murder case or plane crash.
Best,
Scott
When Congress Sends a Bill to the President, Do They Use E-Mail?
Gov. Haley Barbour's Strange Habit of Pardoning Murderers Who Work on His House
Slowpoke Directors Explained: Why It Took 12 Years to Make Avatar
The Surprising Reason Banks Are Suddenly Repaying Their TARP Funds
How Come You Don't Hear About the "War on Christmas" Anymore?
Jeff Bridges Gives the Performance of the Year in Crazy Heart
Highlights from The Fray:
[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)