Exit Poll

EXIT POLLS ARE public opinion polls conducted on Election Day with voters as they leave their polling place after they have voted. Exit polls have been used extensively by the media since the late 1960s to predict election results and gain insights into why voters voted the way they did. Warren Mitofsky is credited with developing the concept of exit polling in 1967 for CBS.

CBS was the first national network to use exit polling extensively in the 1968 presidential election. The national and local media have used exit polls broadly ever since, mostly because exit polls have historically proved quite accurate in forecasting election outcomes. The use of exit polling has become popular in democratic elections in many countries. Not only has exit polling proved valuable in predicting election results and explaining electoral behavior, but exit polling has also been employed to audit or help verify election returns (that is, the honesty of the vote count). Exit polls used specifically to audit vote counts are known as Election Verification Exit Polls and their methodology is typically somewhat different than the methodology used in a media exit poll. Exit polls have become more controversial because they failed to accurately forecast the presidential results in the pivotal states of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.

Regardless, exit polls have established a laudable track record for their accuracy, receiving praise from political observers. Reflecting upon the history of exit polling, polling scholar Herbert Asher concludes, “On rare occasions, exit polls are inaccurate.” Albert Cantril agrees, asserting, “as useful as pre-election polls may be for measuring the evolving disposition of the electorate, they are not nearly as powerful as exit polls in analyzing the message voters have sent by the ballots they cast.” Political scientists George Edward III and Stephen Wayne even go so far as to say, “One of the problems with exit polls lies in their accuracy (rather than their inaccuracy): They give the press access to sufficient data to predict the outcome before the elections have been concluded.”

Journalists have relied heavily upon exit polling to help understand elections. Renown syndicated columnist David Broader has expressed his appreciation for exit polls, exclaiming, “They are the most useful analytical tool developed in my working life.” Journalists have placed so much faith in the accuracy of exit poll results that they are able to confidently write their election stories before the polling places close; exit polling has already disclosed who has won, by what margin, and what demographical groups supported the different candidates.

For news media executives, exit polls are most valued for their use in predicting election winners because predictions attract audiences and, therefore, higher ratings and increased advertising revenues. However, for political scholars and analysts, exit polls are most valued for the rich amount of electoral data they provide. For example, in the 2004 presidential election, exit polls conducted for the media, a total of about 80 questions were asked, including mostly demographic questions so that voters could be thoroughly profiled in the context [Page 224]of which presidential candidate, as well as issues, they supported. A thorough examination of the exit poll results reveals, for example, the extent of support for the presidential candidates (George W. Bush, John Kerry, and Ralph Nader) by gender, race, age, income, union or non-union member, employment status, education, partisanship, political ideology, religion, church attendance, military service, marital status, married with children, sexual preference, gun ownership, region of the country, size of the community, and even the job situation in the voter's community.

...