When Will We Know?
At 11 a.m. Tuesday, representatives from five TV networks
and the Associated Press will head into the "quarantine room," an
undisclosed location with no cell phone or Internet access.
That's where the National Election Pool -- ABC, CBS, NBC,
CNN, Fox and the AP -- start sifting through exit poll data provided by Edison
Research. Six hours later, staffers will be permitted to start sending data to
their respective news organizations, while additional exit polls, especially on
the West Coast, keep coming in. While news outlets can begin reporting after 5
p.m. on some general trends they have observed in exit polls, such as whether
voters consider the economy the most important issue in the 2012 election,
they're not permitted to publish or broadcast any information that suggests
which way a state is leaning until its polls close and actual vote numbers
start streaming in.
Four years ago, there was no mystery about who would become
the 44th president when polls on the West Coast closed at 11 p.m., with all
five TV networks and the AP calling the election for Barack Obama, who handily
defeated Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the Electoral College. But executives
and editors overseeing 2012 election calls -- like most of the news media --
expect a much closer outcome on Tuesday, resulting in a very long night.
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