Exit Polls – An Outlook
An exit poll is collection of data of voters immediately after they have exited from the polling stations.
A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll.
People like prediction. And they want it to be more accurate. For instance, one writes an exam. And he wants to know the result. Now-a-days, the answer-key is released well before the results are announced, enabling the candidate to know his status in the examination.
On similar lines even people are expecting to know the result of a particular election, through EXIT POLL. This is a method derived by the statisticians and psephologits to predict who may win in the elections, by using statistical modules. Here, the representative of the agency will stand before the polling station and collect data from the voters who have just cast their vote.
Who invented the exit polls is not know, but it was understood that a Dutch politician and journalist, Marcel Parcival Arthur van Dam claims he was used this technique during the Dutch legislative elections in the year 1967. It was also claimed that it was an American poll analyst Warren Mitofsky employed this technique in the same year. Leave the part of the inventor of this unique technique, it will satisfy the urge of the people to know well in advance, before the result is actually been announced. In India, it was brought exit polls to fame by Prannoy Roy, who authored a book, The Verdict: Decoding India’s Elections.
Although the voter date is collected anonymously, the exit poll besides predicting the election outcome, it also provides demographic information about the voters and their moods. Further, the collection of data would also act as a check on the election frauds.
The votes are distributed among different polling stations and different time zones in the polling day, thus depicting imperfect picture of overall voting, but it would provide enough knowledge about the swings and turnout, if the same pollster visits the same polling stations during the polling day. He can compare the results with the previous exit polls in arriving changes in polling patterns, constituency-wise, state-wise and nation-wise. It is because, the exit polls require a baseline to compare swings.
The early days of the introduction of this technique, Exit Poll, the announcement of the exit poll results before concluding the election in a particular state, influencing the electorate where polls are still on. Later this error was removed by making it a mandatory not to release the exit poll results, until the elections process is complete.
All these confusion led to the Election Commission of India, in 2014 general elections, to impose restriction not to display the Exit Poll results until the votes have been counted, but later withdrawn allowing the display of results after the last vote is cast.
:- Komanduri