Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. The reason, ostensibly, is that these states are not in play. Many of them ARE in play, however, particularly for important battles for control of the U.S. House and Senate, and for important gubernatorial races. By removing crucial components of the exit poll data in these locations, researchers will be blocked from detailed after-the-fact analyses. "Voters in the excluded states will still be interviewed as part of a national exit poll, but state-level estimates of the partisan, age or racial makeups of electorates won't be available as they have been since 1992. The lack of data may hamper election night analyses in some states, and it will almost certainly limit post-election research for years to come," write Washington Post bloggers Jon Cohen and Scott Clement (see below). If you think the debates have turned into a rehearsed performing act, in which "zingers" and how a candidate positions his fingers are treated with greater gravity than substance, then also please notice that network election night coverage has become "theatre" as well. In every major election we watch network and national cable TV pundits pretend that they are competing with other TV outlets, as they refer to "our" numbers and introduce viewers to "our analysts." In fact, they all use identical numbers and analysts, from a single central source now called the National Election Pool. I say theatre because TV pundits "call" the race announcing winners, instead of using the more accurate term "PROJECTED winner." And