Election Day and Night

This is a page for students of PS 240. On November 3rd we discussed two articles, one about exit polls and one about media reports of results.

Possible Exam Questions

1. Nobody has suggested any yet.

Readings

S. Sudman (1986). Do Exit Polls Influence Voting Behavior? The Public Opinion Quarterly, 50, 331-339.

Summary:This article examines whether or not exit polls influence voting behavior. The article examines other papers written on the subject from various elections, and comes to the conclusion that the effect exit polls have on voting is small, but existent. and that people are possibly less likely to vote the later it gets if the exit polls suggest a clear winner

J.E. Uscinski (2007). Too Close to Call? Uncertainty and Bias in Election-Night Reporting. Social Science Quarterly, 88, 51-67.

Summary: This article analyzes the election-night presidential projections of the three major cable news networks in 2000 and 2004 to examine the forces that lead to the timing of election-night calls. The results of the study indicate that although the networks timed their state projections by the competitiveness of the presidential race in each state, network competition was the primary driving force for projections in the beginning of the night. In 2000, the networks tended to call states earlier for Gore, while waiting to call states for Bush, even when controlling for the competitiveness. This provides support for accusations of biased election night reporting in 2000, but because the networks revised their election night procedures, the same did not happen in 2004.