voters wait in line to vote early tuesday, nov. 8, 2016, in phoenix.  | ap photo by steven shepard 11/08/16 11:47 am est don't expect the first numbers from the official network exit polls on tuesday to reveal much about whether it<u+2019>s more likely hillary clinton or donald trump wins the presidential election. that<u+2019>s by design: the five major television networks, along with the associated press, have pledged that they won<u+2019>t characterize the outcome of the election until all the polls have closed in a particular state. story continued below instead, shortly after 5 p.m. eastern time, the networks will discuss preliminary statistics about the demographic makeup of the electorate thus far, or how voters viewed the issues or the candidates<u+2019> personal characteristics. like everything about the exit polls, they are more useful as a record of who voted and why than as a predictive tool for who will win later that evening. but even though the networks won<u+2019>t discuss whether the exit polls have clinton or trump ahead in key states <u+2014> or democratic or republican senate candidates <u+2014> they have that information in their possession. and that information is likely to leak out, whether on other websites or on twitter. even if the genuine exit-poll numbers are posted somewhere, there are a multitude of caveats that apply to that data. the exit polls are a constantly changing estimate of the vote, and the data online could very well be outdated. moreover, these are estimates <u+2014> and early in the night, crude ones at that. one thing that makes the exit polls successful as a close-to-immediate record of who voted and why is that they can be pegged to the election results statewide and in the sample precincts where 933 trained staffers are administering interviews across the country. even by the time the polls close in one of the 28 states where enough interviews are taking place to produce state-level estimates, the topline result at the moment the polls close could be off considerably from the eventual outcome. 2016 by nolan d. mccaskill when the polls do close <u+2014> the first states close at 7 p.m. eastern <u+2014> members of the national election pool and its subscribers will release the state-level estimates. some will report a topline number <u+2014> say, clinton 48 percent, trump 47 percent <u+2014> while others will only provide the results according to certain subgroups. (you can easily discern the overall number from the vote breakout by gender or other roughly evenly divided demographics.) but even after the polls close, these numbers will fluctuate. they could move decisively in the opposite direction of the initial results. that<u+2019>s because exit pollsters are adding in interviews conducted right up until the polls close, and then they are re-weighting the exit polls throughout the night as actual votes are tabulated. the better indicator of which candidate is going to win is more evident in the vote tabulation. is clinton blowing out trump in suburban precincts in key states? is turnout higher in precincts with large numbers of blue-collar whites who stayed home in 2012, potentially boosting trump? those questions are better answered by the early election returns than the exit polls. at 9 p.m. eastern time, pool members and subscribers will also begin publishing results from the national exit poll for both president and congress. by then, it could be clear by the state results which candidate is poised to win, and by what margin. those results, which will also be adjusted throughout the night, will serve as the best record of who voted and what they thought about the election <u+2014> at least until voter-file data and census turnout reports are available months later. by bill scher by thomas wright by joshua zeitz by jack shafer
how to read the exit polls - politico
steven shepard nolan d. mccaskill jack shafer