National Election Pool
 |
The National Election Pool (NEP) is a consortium of American news organizations formed in 2003 to provide "information on Election Night about the vote count, election analysis and election projections."
Current member companies consist of ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News. Fox News and the Associated Press formerly were part of the Pool, but left in 2017 due to plans to conduct their own exit polls and other experimental alternatives to gauge voter sentiment.[1] The Pool contracts with Edison Research to conduct the exit polling; the Associated Press performs vote tabulations.[1]
The precursor was Voter News Service, which was disbanded in 2003, after controversies over the 2000 and 2002 election results. The NEP plan is largely the suggestion of CNN, which used Edison/Mitofsky as consultants in the past. Mitofsky headed the original pool that preceded VNS.
The organizers of the pool insist that the purpose of their quick collection of exit poll data is not to determine if an election is flawed, but rather to project winners of races. Despite past problems, they note that none of their members has incorrectly called a winner since the current system was put in place. [1] However, to avoid the premature leaking of data, collection is now done in a "Quarantine Room" at an undisclosed location in New York. All participants are stripped of outside communications devices until it is time for information to be released officially.
See also
References
- ^ a b Steven Shepard, Is this the beginning of the end of the exit poll?, Politico (December 9, 2017).
External links
 | This article about a business, industry, or trade-related organization is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |