The National Election Pool (NEP) is a consortium of American news organizations formed in 2003 to provide "information on Election Night about the vote count, election analysis and election projections." See NEP's FAQ. Member companies consist of ABC News, the Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News. The organization relies on the Associated Press to perform vote tabulations and contracted with Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International to "make projections and provide exit poll analysis."

The precursor was Voter News Service, which was disbanded in 2003, after controversies over the 2000 and 2002 election results. The NEP plan is largely the suggestion of CNN, which used Edison/Mitofsky as consultants in the past. Mitofsky headed the original pool that preceded VNS.

The organizers of the pool insist that the purpose of their quick collection of exit poll data is not to determine if an election is flawed, but rather to project winners of races. Despite past problems, they note that none of their members has incorrectly called a winner since the current system was put in place. [1] However, to avoid the premature leaking of data, collection is now done in a "Quarantine Room" at an undisclosed location in New York. All participants are stripped of outside communications devices until it's time for information to be released officially.

Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega is a Nigerian academic and Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano. On 8 June 2010 he was nominated by President Goodluck Jonathan as the new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), subject to Senate confirmation, as a replacement for Professor Maurice Iwu, who vacated the post on 28 April 2010.

Jega was born on 11 January 1957 in Jega, Kebbi State. He attended Sabon Gari Town Primary School, Jega between 1963 and 1969 and proceeded to Government Secondary School, Birnin Kebbi and then was admitted into The Ahmadu Bello University Zaria's Bayero University College, Kano in 1974, graduating in 1979 with a Second Class Upper Division B.Sc. degree in Political Science. He worked as a teaching assistant at Bayero University, then won a fellowship at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois in the United States (1981-1984) where he earned a PhD in Political Sciences. He returned to the Political Science Department in Bayero University in 1984 as a lecturer.

Arvind Kumar Kejriwal (born 16 June 1968) is a retired Indian Revenue Service officer and an Indian social activist fighting for greater transparency in Government. He was awarded Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2006, for activating India's Right to Information movement at grassroots and social activities to empower the poorest citizens to fight corruption by holding the government answerable to the people. Kejriwal is also a Saathi (fellow) of the Association for India's Development, a Global Impact award winning NGO.

Arvind Kejriwal was born in a Marwari family in Hissar, Haryana in 1968. His father was an engineer and he spent most of his childhood living in small northern Indian towns like Sonepat, Mathura and Hissar. He did his schooling from Campus School. Kejriwal graduated from IIT Kharagpur as a Mechanical engineer in 1989.

Kejriwal joined Tata Steel right after his graduation from IIT Kharagpur. Kejriwal quit his job with Tata Steel in 1992^{[citation needed]} and spent some time working with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata, the Ramakrishna Mission in the North-East India and Nehru Yuva Kendra.