Exit Polls are those surveys that help gauge public sentiments and are taken when the voter exits the election booth. These surveys are not accurate and serve as an indicator of public mood. These are different from opinion polls used to gauge political sentiments before elections.
Exit polls have been highly anticipated in India since the advent of private TV channels in the 1990s. However, this trust began to fade after the 2024 General Elections and the 2024 Haryana elections.
What are Exit Polls and Why Are They Essential in Elections?
The main reason why exit polls are important is because they help political parties form post-poll alliances and avoid Political Emergency situations in case of a hung assembly.
Exit polls are the surveys that are taken to identify the direction of the polls and pre-empt the results before actual results come in. These surveys are taken after a voter exits the booth and are hence called exit polls.
Exit polls are important in a well-functioning democracy like India because they help gauge the sentiment of the voters before poll results are declared.
They also keep the users engaged and increase the viewership of news channels, YouTube channels, and media websites and this is the reason why multiple news channels conduct these polls.
As per the guidance of the Election Commission of India, exit poll results are only shown after the last day of the polling and after 7 pm in the evening. This is done to avoid any influence of the polls on those who have yet to vote.
Are Exit Polls Accurate?
Exit polls are not accurate by design, i.e., they are designed to gauge the public mood and not predict the number of seats won by each party or alliance. This means that typically, exit polls should only be used to see if the elections are going to turn out in favor of the ruling party or favor of any of the opposition parties or alliance.
However, the anticipation around the election results in India has led the public to trust these exit polls. Further, the degree of claims behind those exit polls by their pollsters (media and research agencies like Jan ki Baat, CDS, etc.). Since these polls were fairly accurate in predicting the results in the past, they gained a certain amount of trust among their viewers in India.
However, since the failure of exit polls in the 2024 General Elections and 2024 Haryana State elections, they have lost a decent amount of credibility.
Distrust Of Exit Polls in India
After the 2024 General Elections, the exit polls were proven highly inaccurate for several reasons.
Polls predicted that the incumbent NDA government would get a super majority of 350+ seats and BJP, the largest party in the poll would alone retail 300+ seats. However, the results were the opposite. BJP failed to secure a majority on its own (secured 240 seats, 272 for the majority) and the NDA barely crossed the majority mark with around 295 seats.
Reasons For Exit Poll Failure in 2024
There was a growing trend between people evading political questions, lack of quality data collection for exit polls, political motivation, and the trend of not asking questions after 3 pm on the election date so that results could be compiled by the evening.
In certain politically sensitive areas exit polls fail to grab voter sentiments because the voter fears some kind of objection from other voters, relatives, friends, or social circles.
Another reason is most pollsters often take polls only up to 3 pm. This reason was among the most highlighted in post-poll surveys in India after the 2024 Haryana Elections.
With growing polarity among news agencies on their political ideology, many pollsters have resorted to forcing exit polls in the way that they want to be. This is to either support their presumptions or to please the ideology of their bosses. Further, after certain years of the incumbent government, most news agencies that conduct these polls modify the results to suit the incumbent government.
Among smaller reasons, the ability to do mischief with pollsters is another factor. Surveyed people often jokingly give wrong data and once a couple of voters do that, others join in to make fun.
Future of Exit Polls in India
Exit Polls will continue to play a critical role in Indian elections because of their ability to gauge voter mood.
They also help parties form post-poll alliances in the wake of a hung assembly and would continue to be closely monitored by election analysts and political parties.
However, in the following years, more preference would be given to exit polls.
