United Kingdom general election, 2005

Exit polls

Following problems with exit polls in previous British and American elections, the BBC and ITV agreed for the first time to pool their respective data, using results from Mori and NOP. More than 20,000 people were interviewed for the poll at 120 polling stations across the country. The predictions were excellent - initial projections saw the Labour party returned to power with a majority of 66 (down from 160),http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1478206,00.html and the final result (including Staffordshire South, where the election was postponed due to the death of a candidate) was a Labour majority of 66. The Sky News network has refused to use exit polls since the 1980s, citing their previous inaccuracies.

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The projected shares of the vote were Labour 37% (down 5% on 2001), Conservatives 33% (unchanged), Liberal Democrats 22% (up 3%) and other parties 8% (up 2%) http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1478206,00.html. The Conservatives were expected to make the biggest gains, however — forty-four seats according to the exit numbers — with the Liberal Democrats expected to take as few as two. Whilst the exit-poll-predicted vote share for the Lib Dems was accurate (22.6% vs an actual 22.0%), they have actually done better in some Lib Dem-Labour marginals than predicted on the basis of the national share of the vote, producing a net gain of 11 seats.

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