Exit Polls – A Faux Pas

The exit polls of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were either magnification or amplification of untruth. They were the predictions of pollsters whose prophecy was over rated and hyped. It is none of the political parties but the Exit Polls were the biggest losers in the recent Lok Sabha verdict. It was not one or two almost all the polls went hay wire.

Have the pollsters misled the parties or the people? Was the people’s pulse not read properly? An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they exited the polling station. Now-a-days, it is being done on, on line too. Pollsters, usually private companies working for both electronic and print media, conduct these polls to gain an early indication as to how an election has turned out, as in many cases the actual result may take days and months to count. Since actual votes are cast anonymously this is the only method of gathering information.

As a conscientious voter, an independent thinker and a keen follower of these polls, I am of the impression that time has come where poll pundits and news channels need to change their approach. In their eagerness for ‘TRP’ and ‘breaking news,’ the media houses played on the sentiments of the voters. It appears that dramatization was given more importance than information. Many intellectuals and veterans doubted the fairness, reliability and sample size. The job of these was to be informative to the voters and listeners and should be an independent, impartial research without a swing towards any political party.

Differences in survey methodology like samples, techniques, questioning methods of collecting data can influence the accuracy of poll prognostication. The most important thing is that the voter may not reveal the truth because the purpose of secret ballot voting is nullified. More study of the psychology and body language of the voters need to be analyzed than their word. Studying and observing the expressions of a voter is not that easy. What goes in a human mind is beyond anybody’s guess. The polls tell us something, but they don’t tell us everything. They don’t tell us how people are going to show upon Election Day.

As the polling for 2024 Lok Sabha elections took almost two months there would have been many preferential changes among the voters. Polls conducted in the earlier phases might have been contrary to the swings in the later phases. This would result in inaccurate response and would upset the poll results. Moreover the distribution of votes is not even across different polling stations and varied at different times of day and changed in different phases.

As a result, exit polls gave an imperfect picture of the national vote.

If sample size covers wide range of social distribution of people and data is gathered, chances of accuracy of the poll results increases.

By nature, exit polls do include a margin of error but this time it was a huge error and mis-calculation. Exit polls represent only the view of a small section of people and may not be truly representative. A small sample set cannot estimate the opinions of a vast population. If the sample itself is biased, it leads to errors. The actual results were like an electric shock that jolted those who expected and those who did not.

Exit polls are good for TV debate and coffee table discussions. Whether they are right or wrong or accurate, you will always come across exit poll surveys in a vibrant democracy. But the bitter truth is that the actual results would never match with the exit polls because it is not easy to predict the swing of the sea of humanity like India. So, chances are people in future may not trust these polls.

Over all the exit polls failed to capture a shift among voters in the privileged as well as in the unprivileged sections of society. It is not opinion polls that determine the outcome of elections.

It’s the votes in the ballot boxes or the EVMs.