When Will We Know?

From Michael Calderone for Huffington Post:

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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