... are going, all you have to do is stand outside the polling place and ask people as they leave who they voted for. Which is what an exit poll is. Which is what the news media were basing their projections on.

"Polling places", on the other hand are not only free not to report results, they are prohibited from even looking at them, much less reporting them. Official results are released by the appropriate voting office (the County Registrar of Voters in California) and no results are released until all of the votes in a particular precinct have been counted.

NOTHING gets released until after the polls close. I think this is the same everywhere. The only reason the process gets skewed in the national election is that not all polls close at the same time (due to the time zone changes). Simplest solution, open and close polls at the same time across the country (that could include Alaska, Hawaii and our far flung possessions, as well -- some people just might have to vote in the middle of the night -- one way to solve THAT problem would be to allow early voting everywhere).

It's not really a complicated problem. Just our politicians make it into one.

----- jim o\-S