Political Dictionary
An exit poll surveys voters after they vote to estimate election results and understand voting behavior.
Definition
An exit poll is a survey conducted with selected voters after they leave a polling location or through related methods for early and mail voters. It asks how people voted and gathers demographic and issue information. Media organizations use exit polls to analyze coalitions and sometimes support election projections.
Why It Matters
Exit polls help explain why an election produced a particular result, including how groups divided by age, race, education, income, geography, or issue priorities voted.
How It Works
Researchers select representative locations or voter samples, collect confidential responses, weight the data, and compare it with actual returns. Results are estimates and include sampling and non-sampling error.
History
Exit polling expanded with modern television election coverage. Methodologists have revised sampling and weighting to address early voting, mail voting, nonresponse, and changing voting patterns.
Example
An exit poll may estimate what percentage of suburban voters supported each presidential candidate.
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