What to know about exit polls and how they’ve changed for this year’s elections

Voters cast their ballots at a polling station on the first day of early voting for the mayoral election in Brooklyn, New York City, on October 25. Angelina Katsanis/Reuters

For decades, Americans have relied on exit polls to illuminate the story of what happened on election night. By gathering opinions from voters largely after they’ve cast their ballots, exit polls fill in the details that our secret-ballot elections otherwise leave impossible to know.

This year, for the first time since 2016, CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox News, NBC and the Associated Press are working together to produce this critical research, in collaboration with SSRS , a nonpartisan research company that also conducts CNN’s polling. On behalf of the six media organizations, SSRS will conduct The Voter Poll in California,