What is an exit poll? How is it calculated?

S Venkateshwari
What is an exit poll? How is it calculated?


Along with the lok sabha elections across the country, the ap assembly elections were also held. With this, it is once again time for the exit polls. And what are exit polls? How are they managed? How true are the exit polls? Now let's find out..after polling...exit polls are the predictions of the respective survey organizations and media organizations before the results. The pre-poll survey is the prediction made according to the information collected from various groups before the polling. In developed countries, the organizers rely more on phones and other tools for election surveys. 

Voters in india are mostly met directly, at the field level. As part of elections, some media organizations and some other voluntary organizations conduct two types of surveys namely pre-polls and exit polls. Surveys conducted before polling are called prepolls. That is, before the notification of the election, before the issue of alliances becomes clear, before there is clarity on the adjustment of seats, before the parties announce their candidates, and many days before the polling date, or when the polling date approaches, this pre-poll survey is conducted by constituencies. Some voters are randomly selected and surveyed. After talking to the voters, the results of the polls will be collected and the results of which party will be more likely to win.

There is a lot of difference between exit poll survey and pre poll survey. In the prepoll survey, categories such as farmers, employed, unemployed, students, youth, disabled, old, women, caste, religion, poor and middle class are selected and surveyed. Exit polls are not like that, only those who come to vote on polling day are asked questions and get answers. That's why... the chance of accuracy in exit polls is very high as compared to pre poll surveys. 

If this exit poll is conducted at the time of polling... the representatives of the respective organizations will go to the selected polling centers. They come to an estimate by knowing which party the majority of voters there will vote for. With the information obtained in those polling centers, a decision will be made which party has a higher chance of winning in which constituency. Thus, with the survey of the constituencies, they come to an estimate of how many seats each party will get.

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