How to understand exit polls on Election Night
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On Election Day, people will be keeping an eye on their TVs, laptops, and phones as they wait for the outcomes of this year's presidential and congressional elections to be announced.
Before the election results come in, recent surveys indicate that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are very close in their competition for the presidency. At the same time, Democrats are striving to take over the House of Representatives, while Republicans are working to secure a majority in the Senate.
Exit polls play a crucial role in predicting election outcomes. After voting, pollsters ask individuals about their choices and opinions on various issues to gauge public sentiment.
Here's everything you should know about who carries them out and how to make sense of them.
Understanding Exit Polls: What They Are
Typically, exit polls are carried out by interviewing voters face-to-face outside polling places after they have submitted their votes. Polling staff are stationed outside these locations both before and during Election Day.
Survey companies also carry out phone and text surveys to connect with voters who submitted their ballots by mail.
These surveys are confidential. When voters are asked outside of voting locations, they record their responses on paper. If pollsters contact mail-in voters via phone or text, they do not keep any personal details.
These surveys generally require around five minutes to finish.
"How Do News Outlets Use Exit Polls?"
News outlets rely on exit polls to offer their viewers a glimpse into voting trends and potential outcomes for a state's electoral votes.
News organizations also rely on them to announce winners in states where the lead is significant and a candidate is anticipated to win by a wide margin.
Nonetheless, as stated by ABC News, "the majority of election forecasts are created once the polls have closed, relying on real voting data."
Who Runs Exit Polls?
Four prominent national news outlets — NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and CNN — are part of the National Election Pool. This indicates that they collectively depend on exit polls carried out by Edison Research.
They follow a 5 PM Eastern Time embargo, which means results won’t be available until that time. Participants in the National Election pool do not share exit poll results that could suggest the winner of a state until all polling places in that state have shut down.
Until 2017, Fox News and the Associated Press were involved with the National Election Pool. They have now become part of the Associated Press's VoteCast, which the organization describes as a comprehensive survey of voters and nonvoters designed to provide insights into the reasons behind election outcomes.
The Associated Press’s VoteCast differs from traditional exit polls as it doesn’t conduct interviews at polling places. Instead, it gathers information from voters through mail, phone calls, and online surveys.
Exit polls gather information from a much larger number of individuals compared to standard pre-Election-Day polls, which usually survey around 1,000 to 2,000 participants.
Edison Research gathered responses from over 100,000 voters during the 2020 general election. In comparison, AP VoteCast aims to survey approximately 119,000 individuals this year.
What Questions Do Exit Polls Ask?
Pollsters will survey voters about their choices in the election and gather their opinions on important topics like the economy, inflation, and abortion.
Surveys carried out by the National Election Pool and VoteCast from the Associated Press will also feature inquiries regarding the demographic details of voters.
This is utilized to monitor the voting patterns of various demographic groups and ensure that the survey accurately reflects the overall population (commonly known as adjusting the poll).
