Paige Riley
Kenneth Ball
November 4, 2010

Election- Exit Poll

As election day approaches very fast, you find yourself doing the most common thing everyone in your town, county, state and even across the U.S. is doing, figuring out who you will vote for and why. Depending on the type of community you live in will determine whether you will mainly vote democrat or republican, and even when taking exit polls your type of community will determine if people will be generous to share their anonymous information with you or not.
In Grant County, a small town, you somewhat know almost everyone or have heard of them if you hear a name mentioned. Therefore, this can make taking exit polls either easy, or hard. As our day at the polls began, we decided the best thing to do would be to scope the situation out. Find out what types of people we will have to interview, and decide where the best place to stand will be in order to get the information we need. The district we chose was district one, at Williamstown High School where we both vote.
Kenneth, running for City Council was not able to stay with me for the majority of the day due to not being able to be within a certain distance of the polls. Not too excited to be going about this without a partner, I began by sitting my box alongside me. The box was red, white and blue, it had Jack Conway and Rand Paul wrote on the top of the box and two envelopes on both sides with their names in separate ones. I began my exit polls around 4 o’clock, and the method I chose was going to be to try to ask the first person I seen coming out of the polls for their results. Whether I knew them, didn’t know them, they were old, young, male or female I was asking the first person in the front of the crowd in order to get a fare result.
My first person I asked was somewhat skeptical about giving me their personal information but after I recited, the script and they noticed my NKU shirt they were more willing to answer and didn’t even really question my assignment. As the 30 minutes went on, I came to find out that the people who were more willing to answer were the ones in large groups or if they came with a friend to vote, they felt better about stopping to talk to me for some reason. The next couple that came out the door was an elderly couple. A male and female of which I actually knew but I stuck to my method and asked them to anonymously place whom they voted for(by choosing one piece of paper) and place the slip in my poll box. They actually stood there and talked to me for quite some time, but while talking to me they had mentioned if they hadn’t known me they most likely wouldn’t have felt comfortable about giving me their information (Which I thought to be interesting.) Most people that came out of the polls, I actually knew. But not swaying the outcome, they did all give me their information, without any question. It actually made the situation somewhat easier than if I hadn’t known anybody.
To my surprise, the whole experience wasn’t as bad as I thought it would have been. People, who actually care to vote, really do care about what you’re taking the time to do, especially for a college math assignment. I learned a lot on Election Day that people won’t actually think you’re crazy for standing outside getting peoples information, they actually think a lot of you for taking the time to care. Also, that most people don’t take it offensive when you do ask for their information, they just simply won’t give it to you if they don’t feel comfortable doing so. The biggest challenge of the day for me was the elderly, many elderly are very old fashioned and like to be conservative about whom they voted for, which is completely understandable in my eyes, but there is a big difference between the younger and older generation.
For the most part, the day was very smooth and I was very surprised at the end of the day when I tallied my votes. I was only at the polls for forty minutes, which flew by and received 34 votes. At the beginning of the day I definitely would of thought the democratic party would have won in our County, but the actual fact was that republican party took over, just as it did almost everywhere across the state. I would definitely recommend someone else doing this same project, not only does it get you involved, but it shows respect that you do care and makes you aware of how many people actually vote in your community and a lot of times it can be a big letdown.