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News Firms Fight for Exit Polling Rights
In the US, six national news companies have filed a lawsuit against a state of Minnesota law which they say will prevent them from conducting accurate exit polls.
The statute, entitled 'Lingering near polling place' and passed by the Minnesota Legislature in April, prevents anyone who is not voting from getting close to polling stations - within 100 feet of the building's exit. The plaintiffs - ABC, The Associated Press, CNN, CBS, Fox News and NBC - say the statute inhibits their rights under the First Amendment. Its wording singles out journalists, banning them from approaching within six feet of a voter, or otherwise 'interfering with the voting process.'
The groups say the law should distinguish between disruptive and non-disruptive activity, and that exit-polling is important in providing 'accurate data about voter behavior because of the near certainty that the persons interviewed have actually voted'. They explain: 'This reporting will be valuable not only for our present understanding of this historic election; it will also inform the analysis of historians, social scientists, and others who will study the results for years to come.'
Attorney Susan Buckley outlines the problem: 'the farther you get away from the polling place, the harder it is to contact voters' - voters are more likely to leave the area or blend in with other people who did not vote, spelling the end of exit polling 'with any kind of accuracy and reliability'. Buckley says no other state has such a broad restriction, and points out that courts in ten states have recently challenged the constitutionality of such restrictions and unanimously decided that they violate the First Amendment.
The law and others like it follow work by the Congressional Research Service after the 2000 presidential election, in which various media projected that Al Gore had won Florida before the polls had actually closed. The study concluded that Congress could not constitutionally prohibit exit polling, but could perhaps include it in a ban on 'voter solicitation within a certain distance from a polling place'.
Supporters of the law say it is necessary to ensure voters' rights, and that the 100-foot radius is easier for judges to interpret where it applies to the exit and not to a specific room within a building.
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson are names as defendants in the case, which gets a preliminary hearing next Thursday.
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