Exit poll

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.

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Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as "parallel vote tabulation", as a check against and rough indicator of the degree of fraud in an election. Some examples of this include the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004, the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004, and the

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2004 U.S. presidential election controversy.

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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 reduced majority.

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In contrast, very few people in Britain could not have predicted Tony Blair's Labour victory in 1997; in that event only the scale of the victory remained unpredictable.

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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. 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 where 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 among political activists and

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government officials. (See 2004_U.S._presidential_election_controversy, exit polls for more detail.)

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

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Opinion poll: Opinion polls are surveys of opinion using sampling. They are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by asking a small number of people a series of questions and then extrapolating the answers to the larger group....

Newspaper: A newspaper is a lightweight and disposable publication, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It may be general or special interest, and may be published daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. They are the oldest form of widespread information gathering and dispers...

Fraud: In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain, although it has a more specific legal meaning, the exact details varying between jurisdictions. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not best described in this way. Not all frauds are hoaxes - ...

Exit poll related Images and Photos (experimental)

Exit	Exit Scene	Exit Wounds (DVD)	Exit Smiling (DVD)
Exit Smiling (On Demand)	Emergency Exit	Hollywood Exit License Plate	Hollywood Exit License Plate
Exit Through the Gift Shop	Dana Delany - Exit to Eden	Dana Delany - Exit to Eden	Los Angeles Exit License Plate