Exit Poll

(noun)

An exit poll is taken immediately after the voters have exited the polling stations. Pollsters conduct exit polls to gain an early indication as to how an election has turned out.

Related Terms

Examples of Exit Poll in the following topics:

  • Types of Polls

    • The main types of polls are: opinion, benchmark, bushfire, entrance, exit, deliberative opinion, tracking, and the straw poll.
    • An exit poll is taken immediately after the voters have exited the polling stations.
    • Like all opinion polls, exit polls by nature do 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.
    • Widespread criticism of exit polling has occurred in cases, especially in the United States, 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

  • Religious Identity and Politics

    • Today one-fifth of the U.S. public–and a third of adults under 30–are religiously unaffiliated according to national polls.
    • Exit polls suggest that white Americans without religion vote Democratic at roughly the same rates as they vote Republican.
    • According to exit polls in the 2008 Presidential Election, 71% of non-religious whites voted for Democratic candidate Barack Obama, while 74% of white Evangelical Christians voted for Republican candidate John McCain.

  • Conditional probability exercises

    • A 2010 Pew Research poll asked 1,306 Americans "From what you've read and heard, is there solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades, or not?
    • A 2010 Survey USA poll asked 500 Los Angeles residents, "What is the best hamburger place in Southern California?
    • Edison Research gathered exit poll results from several sources for the Wisconsin recall election of Scott Walker.
    • Suppose we randomly sampled a person who participated in the exit poll and found that he had a college degree.

  • Republican Turmoil & Democratic Resurgence

    • Nearing election day, polls suggested that the race was a dead-heat, but Clinton pulled out on top, defeating Bush in a 43% to 38% popular vote margin.
    • Perot won 19% of the popular vote, one of the highest totals for a third party candidate in US history, drawing equally from both major candidates according to exit polls.

  • Political Ideology

    • The size of ideological groups varies slightly depending on the poll.
    • Gallup/USA Today polling in June 2010 revealed that 42% of those surveyed identify as conservative, 35% as moderate, while 20% identify as liberal .
    • According to recent polls, moderates are commonly identified as the second largest group, closely trailing conservatives, constituting between 36% and 39% of the population.
    • CNN exit polls have found moderates to be rather evenly divided between the country's two main parties.
    • This chart, using Gallup Poll data, depicts trends in US political ideologies from 1992-2012.

  • The Election of 1996

    • Throughout the run-up to the general election, Clinton maintained comfortable leads in the polls over Dole and Perot.
    • The 1996 national exit poll showed that just as in 1992, Perot's supporters drew from Clinton and Dole equally.
    • In polls directed at Perot voters as to who would be a second choice, Clinton consistently held substantial leads.

  • The 1992 Election

    • Clinton originally lead in the polls, until Perot reentered and tightened the race significantly.
    • Nearing election day, polls suggested that the race was a dead-heat.
    • Perot won 19% of the popular vote, one of the highest totals for a third party candidate in US history, drawing equally from both major candidates according to exit polls.

  • Polls Versus Votes

    • These are really polls rather than votes, but the developers may choose to treat the result as binding.
    • As with any poll, be sure to make it clear to the participants that there's a write-in option: if someone thinks of a better option not offered in the poll questions, her response may turn out to be the most important result of the poll.

  • Torricelli's Law

    • Torricelli's law is theorem in fluid dynamics about the relation between the exit velocity of a fluid from a sharp-edged hole in a reservoir to the height of the fluid above that exit hole .
    • where again ht is the height difference between the top of the reservoir and the exit hole.
    • As the height in the reservoir decreases, the exit velocity will decrease as well.
    • The exit velocity depends on the height of the fluid above the exit hole.
    • Potential energy at the top of the reservoir becomes kinetic energy at the exit.

  • Early Public Opinion Research and Polling

    • The first known example of an opinion poll was an 1824 local straw poll by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian for the Jackson Adams race.
    • The first known example of an opinion poll was a local straw poll conducted by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian in 1824, showing Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency.
    • The Literary Digest soon went out of business, while polling started to take off.
    • Elmo Roper was another American pioneer in political forecasting using scientific polls.
    • By the 1950s, various types of polling had spread to most democracies.