HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

An election exit poll is a
poll Poll, polled, or polling may refer to: Figurative head counts * Poll, a formal election ** Election verification exit poll, a survey taken to verify election counts ** Polling, voting to make decisions or determine opinions ** Polling places ...
of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll. Pollsters – usually private companies working for
newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports an ...
s or broadcasters – conduct exit polls to gain an early indication as to how an election has turned out, as in many elections the actual result may take hours to count.


History

There are different views on who invented the exit poll. Marcel van Dam, Dutch sociologist and former politician, says he was the inventor, by being the first to implement one during the Dutch legislative elections on February 15, 1967. Other sources say
Warren Mitofsky Warren J. Mitofsky (September 17, 1934 – September 1, 2006) was an American political pollster. Mitofsky graduated in 1957 from Guilford College and was executive director of the CBS News election and survey unit from 1967 to 1990. He also prev ...
, an American pollster, was the first. For
CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio service CBS. CBS News television programs include the ''CBS Evening News'', '' CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs '' CBS News Sunday Morning'', '' 60 Minutes'', and '' 48 ...
, he devised an exit poll in the Kentucky gubernatorial election in November that same year. Not withstanding this, the mention of the first exit polls date back to the 1940s when such a poll was held in Denver, Colorado.


Purpose

Exit polls are also used to collect
demographic Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as ed ...
data about voters and to find out why they voted as they did. Since actual votes are cast anonymously, polling is the only way of collecting this information. Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as a check against, and rough indicator of, the degree of
election fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...
. Some examples of this include the
2004 Venezuelan recall referendum The Venezuelan recall referendum of 15 August 2004 was a referendum to determine whether Hugo Chávez, then President of Venezuela, should be recalled from office. The recall referendum was announced on 8 June 2004 by the National Electoral Co ...
, and the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. They are used to command a mandate as well as to determine whether or not a particular
political campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracy, democracies, political campaigns often refer to election, electoral campaigns, by which representatives a ...
was successful or not.


Methods

The distribution of votes is not even across different polling stations, and also varies at different times of day. As a result, a single exit poll may give an imperfect picture of the national vote. Instead, some exit polls calculate swing and turnout. Pollsters return to the same polling stations at the same times at each election, and by comparing the results with previous exit polls they can calculate how the distribution of votes has changed in that constituency. This swing is then applied to other similar constituencies, allowing an estimate of how national voting patterns have changed. The polling locations are chosen to cover the entire gamut of society and where possible, to include especially critical
marginal seat A marginal seat or swing seat is a constituency held with a small majority in a legislative election, generally one conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada, they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat. T ...
s. Data is presented in one of three ways, either as a
table Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...
, graph or written interpretation. US exit polls have long been conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool of media organizations, interviewing a sample of voters as they leave a polling place. These pollsters choose precincts whose mix of voters is representative of the broader area. These voters may not be typical. For example minority voters in a mixed precinct may vote at different rates and for different candidates than minority voters in a mostly minority precinct. The Associated Press since 2018 has switched to phone polling, which does not need to be grouped by precinct. They start calling a random sample of voters until they vote, to cover mailed ballots, early voting, and election day voting.


Problems

Like all opinion polls, exit polls by nature do include a
margin of error The margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in the results of a survey. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that a poll result would reflect the result of a census of the en ...
. A famous example of exit poll error occurred in the 1992 UK General Election, when two exit polls predicted a
hung parliament A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition (also known as an alliance or bloc) has an absolute majority of legisl ...
. The actual vote revealed that Conservative Party Government under
John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Huntin ...
held their position, though with a significantly reduced majority. Investigations into this failure identified a number of causes including differential response rates (the Shy Tory Factor), the use of inadequate demographic data and poor choice of sampling points. Because exit polls require a baseline to compare swing against, they are not reliable for one-off votes such as the Scottish independence referendum or the UK EU membership referendum. Because exit polls can't reach people who voted by
postal ballot An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station to which the voter is normally allocated. Methods include voting at a different location, postal voting, proxy voting and online votin ...
or another form of absentee voting, they may be biased towards certain demographics and miss swings that only occur among absentee voters. For example, in the May round of the 2016 Austrian presidential election, exit polls correctly pointed to a narrow lead for
Norbert Hofer Norbert Gerwald Hofer (; born 2 March 1971) is an Austrian politician who served as Leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) from June 2019 to June 2021. He previously was Minister for Transport, Innovation and Technology from 2017 to 2019 ...
among those who voted at a polling station. However, the postal votes (which made up about 12% of the total vote) were slightly but definitively in favour of his rival Alexander Van der Bellen, and ultimately gave Van der Bellen victory. This could be considered a non-U.S. example of the phenomenon known as "blue shift" in the U.S.


Organizations that conduct election exit polling

In the United States, the National Election Pool (NEP), consisting of
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
, AP,
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
,
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by t ...
,
Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is own ...
, and
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are ...
, conducts a joint election exit poll. Since 2004 this exit poll has been conducted for the NEP by Edison Media Research. Edison uses probability-based sampling. In 2020, in-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 115 polling locations nationwide among 7,774 Election Day voters. The results also include 4,919 telephone interviews with early and absentee voters. The release of exit poll data in the US is controlled. In the 2012 election protocols to quarantine the release of data were put in place. In Egypt, the Egyptian center for public opinion research (baseera) conducted in 2014 two exit polls; the constitution referendum exit poll and the presidency elections exit polls. In South Korea, KBS, SBS, and MBC conducted a joint exit poll to decide the president of the country. In India, the exit polls are conducted by private news broadcasting channels and newspaper agencies such as
The Times Group Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited, (abbreviated as B.C.C.L. and d/b/a The Times Group), is an Indian media conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company remains a family-owned business with Sahu Jain family owning a majori ...
, CVoter,
India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new on ...
, etc. India being the largest democracy in the world has many agencies publishing exit polls which roughly predict the outcome of the elections.


Criticism and controversy

Widespread criticism of exit polling has occurred in cases, especially in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
, where exit-poll results have appeared and/or have provided a basis for projecting winners before all real polls have closed, thereby possibly influencing election results. States have tried and failed to restrict exit polling; however, it is protected by the First Amendment. In the 1980 US presidential election, NBC predicted a victory for Ronald Reagan at 8:15 pm EST, based on exit polls of 20,000 voters. It was 5:15 pm on the West Coast, and the polls were still open. There was speculation that voters stayed away after hearing the results. Thereafter, television networks have voluntarily adopted the policy of not projecting any victor within a state until all polls have closed for that state. In the
2000 US presidential election The 2000 United States presidential election was the 54th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 2000. Republican candidate George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, ...
it was alleged that media organizations released exit poll results for
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to th ...
before the polls closed in the Republican-leaning counties of the panhandle, as part of the westernmost area of the state is one hour behind the main peninsula. A study by economist John Lott found an "unusual" decline in Panhandle voter turnout compared to previous elections, and that the networks' early call of Florida for Democrat
Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic nom ...
may have depressed Republican turnout in other states where the polls remained open. Some countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, India and Singapore, have made it a criminal offence to release exit poll figures before all polling stations have closed. In some instances, problems with exit polls have encouraged polling groups to pool data in hopes of increased accuracy. This proved successful during the 2005 UK general election, when the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
and ITV merged their data to show an exit poll giving Labour a majority of 66 seats, which turned out to be the exact figure. This method was also successful in the 2007 Australian federal election, where the collaboration of
Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. John Ryley is the he ...
, Channel 7 and Auspoll provided an almost exact 53 percent two party-preferred victory to
Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
over the ruling Coalition. There was a widespread controversy during the
2014 Indian general election General elections were held in India in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014 to elect the members of the 16th Lok Sabha. With 834 million registered voters, they were the largest-ever elections in the world until being surpassed by the 2019 ...
when the
Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body. It was established by the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, d ...
barred media organisations from displaying exit poll results until the votes had been counted. This was followed by a strong protest from the media which caused the Election Commission to withdraw its statement and confirm that the exit polls can be shown at 6:30 PM on 12 May after the last vote is cast. Since then exit polls (during polling window) are prohibited in India, only post poll opinion surveys are allowed after polling is over.


References


Further reading

* * Chatterjee, Somdeep, and Jai Kamal. "Voting for the underdog or jumping on the bandwagon? Evidence from India’s exit poll ban." ''Public Choice'' (2020): 1-23. * * Desilver, Drew. "Just how does the general election exit poll work, anyway?." ''Pew Research Center'' (2016)
online
* Klima, André, et al. "Combining Aggregate Data and Exit Polls for the Estimation of Voter Transitions." ''Sociological Methods & Research'' 48.2 (2019): 296–325
online
* * Runciman, Carin. "Gendered risks in survey research: reflections from South African exit polls." ''International Journal of Social Research Methodology'' (2020): 1–5. * * * Wilks-Heeg, Stuart, and Peter Andersen. "The Only (Other) Poll That Matters? Exit Polls and Election Night Forecasts in BBC General Election Results Broadcasts, 1955–2017." ''Political Studies'' (2020
online


External links


Edison Research
which conducts the main exit polls in USA
How to Conduct Exit Polls
{{DEFAULTSORT:Exit Poll Types of polling Elections