As the UK polls close late on Thursday evening, Brits will soon have a good idea of who their next prime minister will be. The much-anticipated exit polls announcement typically takes place at 10 pm, providing a snapshot of the election outcome before all votes are officially counted. This long-standing tradition allows broadcasters to resume regular programming, confident in the poll’s predictions.
The UK’s exit polling system, funded by the BBC, Sky News, and ITV, is executed by pollsters Ipsos and analyzed by a team of experts in a “secret bunker” in central London. This method offers a unique glimpse into the election results well before the final count is completed, with results revealed only after voting ends to avoid influencing the election.
How does it work? Fieldworkers stationed at 130 selected polling stations take a sample from voters exiting the premises. These selected voters fill out a mock election slip, casting their ballots anonymously to ensure accuracy. From this data, experts calculate the percentage of votes for each party and predict the number of seats each will secure. A party needs at least 326 seats to achieve a majority in the UK parliament.
The accuracy of the UK’s exit polls has significantly improved over the years. For instance, the 1992 election saw inaccurate predictions of a hung parliament, while Prime Minister John Major’s Conservative Party won 332 seats. In contrast, recent elections have seen much closer results. In the last election, the exit poll predicted 368 seats for the Conservatives, who ended up with 365, and 191 for Labour, who secured 203.
This increased accuracy is largely due to improvements made in the 2000s when broadcasters unified their efforts under one survey company. Fieldworkers visit the same polling stations and use previous voting patterns and other data to enhance their predictions.
The UK’s “first past the post” parliamentary system further contributes to the accuracy of these predictions, making the UK’s exit polls among the most reliable in the world. As a result, Brits can go to bed on election night with a good sense of the next morning’s political landscape.