Networks Promising No Leaked Exit Polls

The networks are still stinging after the exit poll fiasco in 2004. I actually had four different posts on election night 2002 about how bad the exit polling information turned out to be. Here they are:
Exit Polls - Don't Bother
Mary Matalin on the Exit Polls
Obi Wan Checks in on Exit Polls
Exit Polls - Pure Junk

And on the day after:

Some Reflections on Election Night

The nets have promised that no exit poll information will be leaked before polls start closing in the east:

The biggest behind-the-scenes change in network coverage involves what has been dubbed the Quarantine Room. Determined to avoid a rerun of recent years, when its exit polls leaked out by early afternoon to the Drudge Report, Slate and other Web sites, a media consortium is allowing two people from each of the networks and the Associated Press entree to a windowless room in New York. All cellphones, laptops and BlackBerrys will be confiscated. The designated staffers will pore over the exit polls but will not be allowed to communicate with their offices until 5 p.m.

The consortium, called the National Election Pool, is conducting no surveys for House races. The exit polling will take place for Senate and gubernatorial contests in 32 states with competitive races.

The recent track record with such polling has been pockmarked with failure. There was, of course, the debacle of election night 2000, when the networks used polling data from Florida to prematurely award the presidency, twice, within hours. In 2002, the network consortium's predecessor, Voter News Service, suffered a computer meltdown and pulled the plug on its exit polls. Two years ago, its sample was so skewed that the group's surveys showed Sen. John Kerry beating President Bush well into the night.

Frankly, I'll be shocked if Drudge doesn't have something on his site before then. He has amazing sources.

One concern is that early voting and absentee voting does not show up in the initial returns reported by the media. Both early and absentee voting tend to be heavily Republican, which means the early returns could be weighted more toward Dem votes than what's actually true in each particular race. There is some concern that if the early returns are looking strongly Dem, it could depress GOP turnout in the West, even though the numbers don't accurately reflect the races. The same could be true of exit polls as they may have more Dems because of the GOP early voting. It's something to be aware of.