# Questions about exit polling

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-exit-polling/770091>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [October 30, 2016, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-exit-polling/770091 "2016-10-30T05:44:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-exit-polling/770091/1 "2016-10-30T05:44:05Z")

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1. Do exit pollsters start collecting data during early voting?

2. In mail in ballot states, are exit polls even taken?

3. To find out how turnout was among demographics, are exit polls the only source, or is that data compiled officially?

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**Author:** ![ThisIsTheEnd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisistheend/32/4713_2.png) [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-exit-polling/770091/2 "2016-10-30T11:47:52Z")

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[How the AP did it in 2014.](http://surveys.ap.org/exitpolls/)

On your question 3, if by “officially” you mean by a city/county/state, I don’t recall ever seeing that kind of data, although I’ve never looked specifically for it either.

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**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-exit-polling/770091/3 "2016-10-30T12:23:24Z")

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State and local officials can report turnout by precinct, but they don’t have access to demographic data other than what can be inferred from location. That all comes from exit polls, which are commissioned privately by news organizations and parties.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ThisIsTheEnd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisistheend/32/4713_2.png) [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)\
**Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-exit-polling/770091/4 "2016-10-30T12:34:37Z")

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Except according to adaher’s link

> **[Early voting update: Positive signs for both parties in battleground states |...](https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/29/politics/early-voter-data/index.html)**
>
> About 18 million Americans already voted before FBI Director James Comey made the bombshell announcement that he found new emails possibly relating to Hillary Clinton's private server.

In Georgia, at least, they do measure early voting by race. And possibly North Carolina, unless CNN is making an inference based on location.