More than 40 St. Mary’s College of Maryland students, assisted by volunteers from the community, conducted the 2014 St. Mary’s County Exit Poll throughout St. Mary’s County on Election Day. St. Mary’s College’s “Maryland Poll Project” class, instructed by American politics expert Susan Grogan, designed the poll and led the effort. More than 900 surveys, consisting of 42 questions, were completed at 12 randomly selected precincts while the polls were open. At each precinct, voters were randomly selected according to a calculated interval.
“A number of questions asked people who they voted for,” said Grogan. “Typically, such questions are asked by commercial exit pollsters in order to be the first to predict who will win an election. In this case, we asked these questions in order to statistically validate the election results.” Grogan says it will take a week to tabulate all the responses, and although she and her students expect their poll to obtain results similar to the official election results, they will statistically determine whether any observed differences are statistically significant.
The survey also asked questions related to voters’ perception and confidence in the election system they encountered Tuesday. Grogan believes responses will be valuable information that will help county leaders and others better plan and respond to the wants and needs of the community.
“While opinion surveys are useful to planners and community leaders, they are quite often beyond the reach of local budgets,” said Grogan. “A survey of this magnitude could easily cost the county well over $50,000. In this case, it’s a free service provided to the county, and, even better, there is no potential conflict of interest—there is no client relationship in our case.” Grogan says she contacted the Maryland State and St. Mary’s County Board of Elections about her plans and to obtain permission to exit poll at locations of her choice.
The exit poll was paid for with funds that are a part of a three-year grant received by the college in 2012 by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Grogan received a portion of grant funds to support her class’ Election Day activities as such initiatives help to expand civic-engagement and service-learning opportunities in the college’s core curriculum. Speaking about the grant, St. Mary’s College’s Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Beth Rushing said that thanks to support from the Mellon Foundation “students have the chance to apply what they have learned in the classroom to real-world situations— this kind of experience is a valuable part of a St. Mary’s College education.”
In about two weeks, Grogan expects to begin to release the results of the poll as the analysis of the data proceeds. Results will be published on the college’s website, www.smcm.edu, and on www.mpoll.org.
Photo Caption: Student Genevieve McPherson-Shambarger explains how Victoria Robinson was randomly selected and asks her to take the 2014 St. Mary’s County Exit Poll at Lexington Park Elementary School. Serving as survey administrators and survey supervisors, students and community volunteers roved polling sites throughout the county, from Ridge to White Marsh.
