I think one great value of poles and pole results leading up to the election, and exit poles at the election, is a check on the election results.
If the precinct exit pole results deviate significantly from the precinct election results, suspect that some sort of fraud has happened.
Once again, I was an election judge at our little local precinct. We had 132 voters on the registered voter roster and about 18 time of voting registrations, for a total of about 150 registered voters. Of course, some of those on the roster were no longer voters in the precinct. We had 127 voters total (127/150 = 85% turn out).
Voter density peaked at 4 there at the same time. The only waiting at all was if you needed to register.
The precinct is pretty liberal, but apparently getting a bit more conservative:
Obama, 88
Romney, 29
House of Representatives district 8
Rick Nolan (D), 91
Chip Cravaak (R-Incumbent), 28
I don't offhand know the overall totals, but 1 term Cravaak went down, returning the seat to the Democrats. Prior to Cravaak, the seat was held by James Oberstar (D), 18 terms. Prior to that it was John Blatnik (D) for 14 terms. It is a pretty solid Democrat district.
Cravaak was the only of 8 House incumbents (8 Minnesota districts) to go down, although the Michele Bachmann race went down to the wire (~1% margin in the end). Bachmann's district is very conservative, and the analysis is that she did lag badly, relative to the more local Republican candidates.
Amendment 1 (outlawing gay marriage, which was already illegal by state statute) went down locally 76 no and no votes, 46 yes (a non-vote=no). It also went down statewide.
Amendment 2 (require photo ID to vote) went down locally 89 no and no votes, 33 yes. It also went down statewide.
Both the Minnesota House and Senate turned from Republican to Democrat majority. The Governor is a Democrat. Now we shall see if the anti-gay marriage statute goes down.
Moose
Edited by Minnemooseus, : Added another Bachmann sentence.
Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose 
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