On the morning of November’s midterm election, Utah’s political campaigns died down as candidates waited for the votes to come in. But for a team of Brigham Young University students, the work was just beginning.
Joining efforts with university students across the state, students from the statistics and political science departments spent election day gathering and presenting data from the Utah Colleges Exit Poll. Their months of preparation paid off, and when the results were aired on public television that night, they were right on target.
“It came off well,” said Dan Williams, a statistics instructor involved with the poll. “The students did a fabulous job.” The team was able to call a number of races, and while some were too close to call, the students’ percentage numbers were within less than half a percent of the actual results, he said.
Started in 1982 by two BYU professors, the Utah Colleges Exit Poll is a one-of-a-kind project that gives students a real-life, hands-on experience with statistical sampling, interpreting results and the American political process. And it’s tough work—months before the election, statistics students were already working to select venues for sampling, decide on reporting intervals and create statistics code.
“I really liked the actual selection process that we went through,” said Emily Wilson, a statistics student who worked with the poll’s sampling. “It was really cool to see an entire list of polling places and then narrow it down to the ones we were actually going to use.”
By the time the sun rose on Election Day, the team’s plan of attack was already in full swing, with a group of students headed to voting locations across the state. Another group of students were gathered in a call center to make sure the information was being collected correctly, and another group worked in a crisis center at BYU, analyzing data and preparing them to be aired on live television.
But while the project was difficult, students not only rose to the challenge—they also enjoyed it and said they were happy with the results.
“My favorite part about it was just seeing the entire process, from original design to actual data collection and then the presenting of the results,” said Bryce Peterson, another statistics student. “It was fun for me just to see how the whole thing came together.”
Wilson agreed. “As a statistician you just want to be precise,” she said. “To actually see the process from start to finish and know that you did it right is a good feeling.”