The National Election Pool (NEP) is a consortium of American news organizations formed in 2003 to provide exit polling information for US elections, replacing the Voter News Service following the latter's disbandment the same year.[1]
The system produced skewed results in the 2004 US presidential election[1] [2] and in the 2016 presidential election.[3]
As of 2018, member companies ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News contracts with Edison Research to conduct exit polling and a quick turnaround of nationwide vote tabulation.[4] [5] Starting in 2020, Reuters has used the NEP for U.S. presidential election results and exit polls.[6] Fox News and the Associated Press formerly were part of the Pool, but left in 2017 due to plans to conduct their own exit polls and other experimental alternatives to gauge voter sentiment.[3] These two networks have since joined AP VoteCast.[7]
The organizers of the pool say that the purpose of their quick collection of exit poll data is not to determine if an election is flawed, but rather to project winners of races. Despite past problems, they note that none of their members has incorrectly called a winner since the current system was put in place.[8] However, to avoid the premature leaking of data, collection is now done in a "Quarantine Room" at an undisclosed location in New York. All participants are stripped of outside communications devices until it is time for information to be released officially.[9] [10]