JUST a question!

[Pixelated]

I've been following, with fascination, the election in Alabama. There are numerous stories saying X group voted for Candidate A, Y group voted for Candidate B, and so on.

This is probably a stupid question, but ... aren't people's ballots private? How do they know that "Group X" voted for "Candidate A"?

Thank you.

[Greenday]

Voluntary exit polls I'd imagine.

[Pixelated]

Makes sense. Thanks.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Just a quick tack on to that - it's also a reason sometimes exit polls don't match up. Because just like other polls if a person thinks a certain candidate is less socially acceptable you'll see people misreport.

[s_stabeler]

sometimes spectacularly so. in the UK, where things tend to be slightly less factionalized (in the sense of "people might grumble at you if they disagree who you plan to vote for, but that's about it"- there's no real demonization of opposing supporters (and this is one case where "both sides do it" is true- literally, in this case, because they ultimately accuse the other side of trying to destroy America (lets not get into an argument about if either side is- it's generally the congressmen, not the rank-and-file anyway)) so it's more likely for people to be honest, but there was at least one case where exit polls predicted the wrong winner, and more recently, another case where they predicted a hung parliament when the Conservatives actually ended up winning by 4 seats, IIRC.