Exit poll

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An exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. Unlike an opinion poll, which asks who the voter plans to vote for or some similar formulation, an exit poll asks who the voter actually voted for. Pollsters - usually private companies working for newspapers 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 or even days to count.

Exit polls are also used to collect demographic 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. Some examples of this include the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004, the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004, and the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy.

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

Widespread criticism of exit polling has occurred in cases, especially in the United States of America, 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. In the 2000 U.S. Presidential election it was alleged that media organizations released exit poll results for Florida before the polls closed in the Florida panhandle.

Leaks of exit poll figures for the 2004 presidential election, mainly via the Internet, appeared to indicate a victory for John Kerry. The discrepancies between the exit poll data and the vote count that were outside of the margin of error, coupled with irregularities in the election which seem to explain the discrepancies and what many perceive as evasive tactics by the polling companies, have shed doubt on the legitimacy of that election amongst political activists and some government officials. (See 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls for more detail.)

Some countries, such as the United Kingdom or Germany, punish the publication of exit poll figures before the polling stations have closed as a criminal offence, while others, such as New Zealand and Singapore ban them altogether.