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Backstory: Exit poll results-How it all started and can you trust them?
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
Irrespective of doubts over its accuracy, Exit Polls offer an insight into voting patterns
As the countdown for the Sunday counting of votes for the recent round of elections to five state assemblies began, a delectable denouement came out in the form of Exit Polls.
Over the years, the electorate looks forward to the grand spectacle that gradually unfolds on television networks predicting which political party or a combination is likely to form the next government—be it at the Centre or the States.
Thursday evening was no different. Four of the agencies in collaboration with news organisations prophesied victories for the incumbent governments in Assam and Kerala and a change of guard in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
In West Bengal, the odds split down the middle. Two of the four pollsters favoured the governing party to continue for a third term while the other two forecasts a closer contest.
The Election Commission of India directions that Exit Polls cannot be telecast/broadcast or disseminated through other means before the last vote is cast, keeps the suspense going till people have spoken.
The underlying factor being that in order to ensure free and fair elections, the vote should enter the polling booth without prejudice or with a feeling, the outcome is determined.
How precise are the Exit Polls? This question crops up after every such exercise and political party (ies) who are shown to be taking away the votes feeling exuberant while those who are on the losing side, dismissing the results.
Exit Polls came into play in 1967 when Warrant Mitofsky employed it in a race for Governor in Kentucky, the USA for a news network and five years later in the national elections. Since then such polls have come to stay as much, if not less than the opinion polls. Exit polls prophecy came under examination especially after the 2000 presidential elections when different networks called the race differently.
In India too, there is a perception that the majority of Exit Polls get it wrong in terms of predicting the number of seats different parties or a combination would secure. Over the years, pollsters have come up with a unique formulation—presenting a broad range either in terms of a band of seats and or vote share extrapolated into seats.
While serious students of political science and parties would analyse the outcome of the Exit Polls and juxtapose it with final results, the perception of a limited degree of reliability of the data remains, even though some polling agency or the other gets it right or is closest to the final tally.
There have been many instances including the last Lok Sabha when many agencies conducting Exit Polls caught the trend and interpreted the outcome right.
“Psephology, the formal study of elections, is only as little older than independent India. Over the last two generations, there have been studies in America…and in Britain… which together with a growing body of work by opinion pollsters, have developed new techniques for looking at voting behaviour…And in the last thirty years there has been some valuable research completed on Indian voting, nationally and locally”, noted authors of the book “India Decides – Elections 1952-1995.
This was recorded by David Butler, Ashok Lahiri and Prannoy Roy in the opening chapter ‘Psephology and India’ in the second and updated volume of the book published in 1995.
Over the past few decades, opinion polls or ‘survey’ have become an integral part of political parties’ poll management. Armed with data that breaks vote in each of the constituencies down to micro-level, parties utilise the data generated to decide on the candidates and other parameters that can tip the scales in its favour.
Interestingly, such is the usage that besides parties at the central and state level, enterprising candidates who aspire for party nomination have their own studies done to back up their strong claim for a ‘ticket’.
Irrespective of doubts over its accuracy, Exit Polls offer an insight into voting patterns and are studied in detail when the poll body publishes final election data after each election.
In a country as large and diverse as India, it is not easy to get the combination of various parameters right. Nonetheless, data miners should continue to fine-tune the scientific study.
—KV Prasad is a senior journalist and has earlier worked with The Hindu and The Tribune. The views expressed are personal.
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