Exit poll - Definition and Overview

An exit poll is an opinion poll taken after voters have exited the polling stations and is designed to give an early indication as to how an election has turned out as the actual result may take hours to count (such as in UK General Elections) and are usually done by private companies working for newspapers or broadcasters.

The word "indication" is key as, like all opinion polls, exit polls do by nature include a margin of error. The most famous example of an exit poll error occurred for the 1992 UK General Election when both exit polls predicted a hung Parliament. In the event, the Conservative Party Government under John Major held their position with a reduced majority.

In contrast, there were very few people in Britain who could not have predicted Tony Blair's Labour victory in 1997, in that event only the scale of the victory was unexpected.

Exit polling has been widely criticised in cases, especially in the United States of America where they have been released and/or used to project winners before all polls have closed, thereby possibly influencing election results. Early leaks of exit poll figures for the 2004 presidential election, mainly via the Internet, appeared to indicate a victory for John Kerry. These erroneous predictions may have prompted false confidence in the Kerry camp and unnecessary despondency in the George W. Bush camp.

In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, it is a criminal offence to publish exit poll figures before the polling stations have closed.

See also

• List of democracy and elections-related topics