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. Opinion polls are surveys of opinion using sampling. ...

Exit polls are also used to collect demographic data about voters and to find out why they voted as they did. Since actual votes are cast anonymously, polling is the only way of collecting this information. Demographics is a shorthand term for population characteristics. Demographics include race, age, income, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location. ...

Exit polls have historically and throughout the world been used as a check against and rough indicator of the degree of election fraud. Some examples of this include the Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004, the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004, and the 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy. Electoral fraud is the deliberate interference with the process of an election. ... The Venezuelan recall referendum of 15 August 2004 was a referendum to determine whether Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, should be recalled from office. ... The presidential election held in November and December 2004 in Ukraine was mostly a political battle between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and former Prime Minister and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. ... Concerns were raised, following the 2004 election, on various aspects of the voting process: whether voting had been made accessible to everyone entitled to vote, whether the votes cast had been correctly counted, and whether these irregularities decisively affected the reported outcome of the election. ...

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 significantly reduced majority. The top portion of this graphic depicts probability densities that show the relative likelihood that the true percentage is in a particular area given a reported percentage of 50%. The bottom portion of this graphic shows the margin of error, the corresponding zone of 99 % confidence. ... The UK general election, 1992 was held on April 9, 1992, and was the fourth victory in a row for the Conservatives. ... In Parliamentary systems, a hung parliament is one in which no one political party has an outright majority. ... The Conservative Party (officially the Conservative & Unionist Party) is currently the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of sitting Members of Parliament (MPs), and the largest in terms of public membership. ... Sir John Major, KG, CH (born 29 March 1943) is an English politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997. ...

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. In the 2000 U.S. Presidential election it was alleged that media organizations released exit poll results for Florida before the polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Presidential electoral votes by state. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

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 were 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 amongst political activists and some government officials. (See 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, exit polls for more detail.) Presidential election results map. ... John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. ... After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. ... Concerns were raised, following the 2004 election, on various aspects of the voting process: whether voting had been made accessible to everyone entitled to vote, whether the votes cast had been correctly counted, and whether these irregularities decisively affected the reported outcome of the election. ... After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. ... After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. ...

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

See also

• Election fraud

• This entry is related to, but not included in the elections and voting series. Other related articles can be found at the Politics Portal.