Here come the exit polls
Although it is still too early to start calling states and analyzing exit polls, it is already clear what issues voters had on their minds going into the polls. The Associated Press exit poll found that six in 10 voters said the economy was their most important issue. The AP poll was drawn from a partial sample of about 10,000 voters in telephone interviews and exit polls taken today. Other top issues included energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care.
An early CNN exit poll showed 72 percent of new voters going for Barack Obama.
And according to a report from the Detroit Free Press, Fox News's poll of new voters in Indiana shows a strong gravitation towards Obama, with 73 percent choosing the senator from Illinois and 27 percent choosing John McCain. Ohio's show a similar lead, with 69 percent for Obama and 31 percent for McCain.
An exit poll is a compilation of interviews with voters who have already cast their ballots, usually drawn from a sample of precincts thought to best characterize the state, according to Edison Research Media and Mitofsky International, a company contracted for research for most major exit polls.
Questions for the polls are decided by the six media outlets that make up the National Election Pool: the Associated Press, ABC News, NBC, CBS News, Fox News and CNN, who are asked to keep the information confidential until after the polls begin to close.
The primary function of exit polls is to paint a picture of how a certain demographic, state or precinct voted, not necessarily to "call" an election or predict outcomes. There have been cases in the past of exit polls inaccurately predicting the outcome of the election, including early exit polls in 2004 that overwhelmingly favored John Kerry. In fact, exit polling can only be used to "call" elections when there is a 99.5 percent certainty based on data that this is the way people are going to vote.
For more on how exit polls work, visit the Edison/Mitofsky Web site.