The Exit Poll: News Before It Happens

In the old days, television brought us news soon after it happened.

The event would be captured on film and that film would be rushed to the studio where it would be developed and edited and broadcast.

But “soon after it happened” was not fast enough. Not by a long shot. Tape replaced film and that helped. Developing was no longer necessary and editing was faster.

And then came satellites. You could broadcast live from anywhere on earth. Television could bring us news as it happened.

Which was not fast enough.

The next step was inevitable: TV began to bring us news before it happened.

In the old days, this was condemned. “Media events” were considered unethical. A famous example occurred in the ‘60s when a TV network staged a pot party at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., as part of a story on the drug crisis in America. (Stories never change on TV. Just hair styles.)

Staged events are now banned on every TV station in America. Except in one case. On Election Day, the media get to stage news. They get to create it. Invent it. And broadcast it.

These staged events are called polls.

Polls are pseudo-events paid for by news organizations. A poll is not something that occurs in nature that the media cover. A poll is news created by the media for the media to cover.

Polls have been done by the print media for a very long time. But a special kind of poll was invented by TV.

TV did this because it found that on Election Day, reality was too slow. Democracy was too slow.

On Election Day, people had to go out and vote. This took hours. In some cities and states, voting didn’t stop until 8 or 9 p.m.

And then the votes had to be counted! TV couldn’t wait that long. TV stations had fancy sets and million-dollar tote boards and big multicolored maps. But what TV stations didn’t have was the vote results. So they decided to buy some.

And the exit poll was born.

Throughout the day, pollsters went out and asked people how they voted. Then they fed these figures into carefully (ha-ha) constructed “models” and projected the outcome of the race.

It was perfect for TV. Stations could broadcast the results seconds after the polls closed (or even before if they wanted to).

No longer did television have to wait for democracy. Television was bigger than democracy.

An exit poll should never be wrong. It is not an opinion poll. It is based on how people actually cast ballots.

But a funny thing has been happening over the past few years: Exit polls have begun to turn out wrong. In the recent elections in Virginia and New York City, the exit polls were way off.

And the next day, the pollsters howled. I saw one on TV talking about people’s “dishonesty.” People had “lied” to the pollsters, he said. Maybe there should be a law against this. Maybe people should be locked up.

What never occurred to this dweeb is that people are sick of pollsters in America. That people are sick of being asked intensely personal questions by complete strangers.

The secret ballot is supposed to be sacred in this country. But exit polls destroy the secret ballot.

A person grabs you as you leave the polling place and demands to know how you voted and why. “You voted for the black guy? Why? You didn’t vote for the black guy? Why not?”

Maybe some people don’t want to answer these questions.

I know some who don’t ever want to talk about whom they voted for: reporters.

Try asking a reporter whom he voted for and he will gulp and turn red and shake his head and tell you that is nobody’s business but his.

And then he will go off to deliver the exit poll results.

Sure, people are lying to pollsters. And they have every right to. It is the proper punishment for somebody trying to invade your privacy: Why refuse to answer so the pollster can go and bother somebody else? Why not just tell the pollster a lie so he will be as embarrassed the next day as you are now?

There is no need for exit polls. In a few hours, the real results will be known. But TV does not want to wait for reality. Reality is too slow for TV.

Exit polls also try to impose order and rationality on an act that may be neither orderly nor rational. Maybe you cast your ballot based on emotion or whim.

That’s fine. The Constitution allows for that.

But pollsters don’t allow for that. Pollsters want reasons. Highly detailed, deeply analytical reasons. Reasons you never dreamed of.

“Did you vote for George Bush because Mike Dukakis took a ride in a tank and looked unpresidential?” they asked after the last presidential election.

Well, gee, some people never thought of that. But it sounded logical. “Uh, yeah, I guess so,” some said.

And it got marked down. And the results got tallied. And there were stories about how the tank ride “doomed” Dukakis.

It became reality. Whether it was true or not.

Pollsters plant ideas. Pollsters invade privacy. Pollsters create false “realities.” Pollsters get things wrong.

But you can always count on them for one thing: They always announce their results with absolute certainty.

So remember this:

How many pollsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Two. Plus or minus four.