Stop Using the Exit Polls to Place Blame on Voters

Direct your ire at a lackluster two-party political system, not voters with poor choices

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the United States, on November 3, 2020. Photo: Joel Lerner/Xinhua/Getty Images

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On Tuesday night, just like any other Election Day since the advent of the touchscreen, news outlets were inundated with interactive U.S. maps. Shades of static blues and harsh reds illuminating every state provided a stark image of a perceived two-sided ideological clash, the winner of which to determine the nation’s future. But this year, political discourse around the election is in a much more delicate state thanks in part to the coronavirus pandemic, public distrust of government, a nationwide movement against policing and systemic racism, and our data-driven anxieties.

Since Tuesday night, numbers and data visualizations representing the voting figures of certain demographics have poured into the public consciousness by the minute, delivered by breathless news broadcasters hyping up the prizefight with endless speculation and non-updates. But all of this drilling down exposed some American uglinesses — although folks seem to have fixated on the wrong one. People began to turn on fellow citizens, demonizing certain voting blocs based on their…