Will there be exit polling this year?

[Deja Q]

Or other means to show a popular vote?

[Atman]

1. Yes and No

I tried to get this topic moving yesterday, but DUers seemed to want no part of it.

In short, after the demise of VNS last election, a band of polling organizations has come together to provide us with "exit polling" this election, filling in the void last-minute. However, the group is the same group of media pollsters giving us the fake (re: Gallup) numbers each morning. They cannot be trusted. The link below has some background on VNS; I think NO exit polling would almost be better for us than having the corporate whore-dogs doing to us again!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1106496

[mumon]

2. It might not matter

with early and absentee voting, it might be a dificult call anyway.

But it'll be Kerry.

[Virginian]

3. Why can't we organize our own exit polls?

In a precinct where there are electronic voting machines:
Position a person at the exit with a clipboard. Dress business casual or better. NO Campaign buttons, nothing to indicate affiliation or the results will be skewed. Make sure there is someone there taking a sampling at all hours the polls are open. If more than one person is taking samples during the busy times, make sure the same voter is not sampled by both.

The way it works here:
After the polls close, the election officers get tallys from each machine and from all machines combined; they call in the results and fill out a bunch of paperwork. One piece of that paperwork is a results page that is posted at the entrance to the polling place.

Compare the percentage results you get from your voter sampling with the percentage presented by the machine tally.

You might want to have it a two part question as in
Who did you vote for and why?
You might want to break down the tally by the time of day. If your polls are open like ours from 6-7: Morning rush 6 - 9 am, Mid-morning, lunch time rush, mid-afternoon, early evening 4-6, last hour 6 - closing.

Another question might be, "How long did you wait in line and how long did it take you to vote?" Note how long after the polls closed the last voter left the building. At the poll closing time, ask how many people were still in line.

Print out the questions and guesses about what the answers will be so that you can just add a tick mark next to the answers that are given. Leave spaces to add unexpected answers. Have separate pages for the different time periods.

Post your results here at DU. Maybe the moderators will keep an exit poll thread pinned so the results can all be posted together.

Any other suggestions?

In addition to the candidates, my precinct will have four bond issues and two state ammendments. I expect the lines to be long due to the candidates and slow due to the issues. I am afraid the voters may get discouraged if they have to wait a really long time. As this is a red state, and the larger the turnout the bluer the vote, I wonder if padding the ballot with issues is a legal method to discourage the voters or if it just happened that way this time.

Edited to add bold text