With the presidential election every four years comes the Utah Colleges Exit Poll. Alexandra Gruszkiewicz is one of the student volunteers working here at the Brigham Young University call center. She says she has a couple motives for volunteering.
“Well it is extra credit in my American Heritage,” she said, “but also I think it’s kind of interesting to get into the political process, to see what people are thinking. And this is a way to really be on an end of that.”
Gruszkiewicz is just a Freshman, but she’s getting hands-on experience this election by volunteering to get exit poll results. She’s calling those who’ve already started voting by mail in Utah.
“There’s a lot of passions about it, a lot of anger, a lot of differing opinions,” Gruszkiewics said. “And maybe it’s because it’s the first time I can vote, but I’ve been noticing that a lot more than previous elections.”
These students are getting in touch with thousands of Utah voters by postcard, letter and over the phone to get a feel for where Utah voters stand on the issues.
On election night it will take 1,200 students to man all the polling locations across Utah.
“It always goes back to logistics… just because of the way we’re doing the poll…”
Sarah Hodgson is a statistics student at BYU. Her job is to make sure the sample size reflects Utah voters.
“So we need to make sure the locations that we go to are ones that are representative,” she said.
At those spots, students from BYU and other colleges and universities across the state will be asking voters where they stand on the issues, and how they plan to vote. BYU International Relations student Rebecca Dudley is helping oversee the process.
“The goal of an exit poll isn’t just to make day-of predictions,” Dudley said. “Because the excitement of that wears off as soon as the polls close and you get the real numbers. But it’s more to understand not only how Utah voters voted, by why they voted the way that they did.”
Once the volunteers interview thousands of respondents, students will be analyzing all the data in real time. They’ll predict who won the elections and where voters stand on the issues by the end of the night.
