> Unfortunately, everyone (you, your family, that egg on Twitter, most pundits, and at least one organization purporting to be doing exit polling) has no fucking idea how exit polls are conducted and why those initial figures are a steaming pile of crap until real figures on turnout (i.e. the votes themselves) have been tabulated.<p>We do, don't be so condescending and expletive. The popular press just wants some cheap sound bites to get more views / clicks. They do the same with academic research, in which they mistake economic significance for statistical significance, ignore any shortcomings, ignore non-rejected hypotheses, and project the findings outside of the (often very limited) scope.