UVA politics students take learning to the polls

October 30, 2025
Portrait of Hovsep Seferian, UVA Department of Politics honors student.

UVA Department of Politics honors student Hovsep Seferian compiles exit poll questions into packets for distribution to fellow students hired to conduct the Election Day poll at Charlottesville voting precincts. A six-student honors cohort wrote the poll as part of their class research project. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

Six students from the University of Virginia’s Politics Honors program, with help from 130 fellow undergraduates, are taking their research beyond the classroom, designing and conducting an exit poll to be deployed Tuesday at Charlottesville voting precincts.

The third-year Department of Politics students began developing the poll on the first day of the fall semester to study questions about American politics, foreign policy, and socioeconomic trends. They will analyze the results and compile their findings by semester’s end.

Portrait of group of UVA Department of Politics honors students with professors Jennifer Lawless and Todd Sechser.

Only six students win slots in the UVA Department of Politics’ honors program. This year’s cohort includes, in the front row and from the left, Hovsep Seferian, Jada Fontaine-Rasaiah, Grace Edelstein and Kessler Kreutner-Eady. In the back row, from left, are honors program director and professor Todd Sechser, Maryam Ahmed, Zach Davidson and Department of Politics chair and professor Jennifer Lawless. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

It’s a tough task. From Day 1, they began working with faculty to design their research projects. Their poll questions had to pass muster with the University’s Institutional Review Board, which reviews all non-medical behavioral human research to ensure compliance with federal guidelines.

The questions are not about who voted for whom, but about other topics and issues in politics.

“They’re drinking from a fire hose,” said Todd Sechser, Professor of Politics and director of the honors program. “This project teaches students in a hurry how to frame a research question, design a data collection instrument, analyze the data, test hypotheses and reach conclusions. And it’s a practical experience. They’re out in the field, not just in front of a computer.”

UVA’s 10th Presidential Search - Take the survey. Nominate candidates.
UVA’s 10th Presidential Search - Take the survey. Nominate candidates.

Jennifer Lawless, the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics and chair of the Department of Politics, said the students took ownership of every step in the process.

“They had to identify the broad topic they were interested in, operationalize a hypothesis, and draft actual questions to field on Election Day,” Lawless said. Lawless teaches the American Politics seminar in the honors program and Sechser teaches the research design course.

“We worked with the students individually, and then as a class, to design the survey. But it wasn’t all highbrow. We also printed thousands of surveys, assembled packets and clipboards for the 130 exit pollsters, and held multiple trainings about how to approach voters on Election Day.”

A group of student in a classroom, in the front row and from the left, Hovsep Seferian, Jada Fontaine-Rasaiah, Grace Edelstein and Kessler Kreutner-Eady. In the back row, from left, are honors program director and professor Todd Sechser, Maryam Ahmed, Zach Davidson and Department of Politics chair and professor Jennifer Lawless.

UVA Department of Politics honors students join professors Jennifer Lawless and Todd Sechser to assemble packets for the 130 department students who will conduct the research exit poll. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

The students will analyze the data, interpret the results, and present their findings in a written paper and a class presentation.

The honors program is highly selective, admitting only about six students each year from a pool of 300 politics majors. In their third and fourth years, participants take a series of four semester-long “tutorials” taught at a near-doctoral level. 

For honors student Hovsep Seferian, whose research is featured in the exit poll, the program offers an opportunity to apply what he’s learning in real-world political research. 

“The program was appealing to me because it forces its participants to go beyond memorizing names and dates. It requires us to engage with political research on an academic level that expands our ability to engage with qualitative and quantitative arguments,” he said. “This program doesn’t just prepare you to read or to do research; it prepares you to debate, to question, to disagree, to back it all up with evidence and, most importantly, to do so with the utmost respect for academia, its servants, and your friends around you.”     

Like her honors program cohorts, Kessler Kreutner-Eady has a deep-seated love of things political. As a 7-year-old, she commented to a fellow church member on his resemblance to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and U.S. senator from Utah who ran as a Republican candidate for president in 2012.

“To be able to take a majority of my classes and credits in the discipline that I love the most has been fantastic, in addition to the small class size and close relationships we are able to build with the faculty,” she said. “I really hope to further my understanding of each discipline in politics and investigate their implications for the United States.”

Media Contacts

Bryan McKenzie

Assistant Editor, UVA Today Office of University Communications

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