Leaked exit polls: Why you should studiously ignore them

Almost inevitably, incomplete or even fake exit polls will make their way to Twitter or blogs before the voting's done. Don't be fooled...

A woman exits a voting booth
(Image credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

"If you care about politics and spend a fair amount of time online," says Mark Blumenthal at The Huffington Post, "odds are good that sometime between 5 pm and 7:30 pm Eastern time on Tuesday, you will encounter someone sharing leaked 'exit poll' numbers that purport to tell you who will win various battleground states." You should resist temptation and "try to ignore them, at least until the polls close. And even then, take the underlying vote estimates with big grains of salt."

This is actually a rare point of agreement between the campaigns of President Obama and Mitt Romney. On Monday, Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter urged the president's supporters to "keep calm and tweet on... no matter what you hear tomorrow about turnout in Republican counties or exit polls, particularly early in the day."

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