I voted this evening. I have no idea where the polls were sitting when I went nor do I know where things stand currently. I also noticed that as I walked into my polling station at 7:45pm I felt that my vote counted simply because I didn't know which, if any, propositions or people were winning or losing. Last year in the presidential elections I knew well before I walked into my polling station which candidate was going to win California. I still went and voted but it didn't feel like my vote counted. This struck me as I walked back to my residence from the polls: What if it were illegal to conduct exit polling or for the media of all sizes and varieties to discuss voting results before all polling places were closed. Would we have more turnout because everyone would have to assume a reletively close race... would we have more accurate results? If I knew ALL of my votes would be overturned because they were trailing in the polls why would I go... this of course would lead to an even larger margin of defeat, so I go, but how many others won't vote if they know they will lose? I bet we would have more voting and more accuracy. In fact what if you weren't allowed to conduct preliminary polls... how would we know which candidate would be the one getting 2% of the vote... you know, the guy that so many people like but won't vote for because no one will vote for him because he won't win because no one will vote for him for no good reason. Wouldn't voting results be more accurate if we all learned of all candidates, measures, and propositions but not of preliminary poll information?
In other news I had an epiphony this evening regarding adjusting to early roll on house patterns vs. pro patterns.
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