An exit poll is a survey of voters taken immediately as they leave the polling place in which they are asked which candidate they chose.
They are typically conducted by media companies to get an early indication of who actually won an election, as the actual result sometimes may take many hours to determine.
These surveys are also used to gather information about the demographics, attitudes, and voting behaviors of the electorate.
They can also be used to see if the shy voter phenomenon exists.
Pollsters will often use a combination of random sampling techniques and stratified sampling, in which voters are selected based on their demographic characteristics, to ensure that the results are representative of the population as a whole.
Of course, like any survey, exit polls today are not always accurate. There have been instances in which the results of exit polls have differed significantly from the final election results.
This can occur for a variety of reasons, including sampling error, bias in the sampling methodology, or a failure to adequately account for changes in voter turnout or voting patterns.
Examples of “exit polls” in a sentence
- The news outlet released its final set of exit polls, showing a tight race between the two leading candidates.
- The campaign team is using the exit poll data to assess the effectiveness of their voter turnout operations.
- The political analysts are carefully analyzing the exit poll results to predict the outcome of the election.