What you need to know about Election Day exit polls

Anyone who has watched Election Day coverage in the past, or is excited to do so in the hotly contested 2024 election, has probably heard anchors or analysts refer to exit polls.

But what are they and how do they work?

Exit polls are surveys conducted as voters leave their polling places on Election Day. Reaching voters at that moment helps ensure that the people surveyed have actually voted. For caucuses, it works a little differently. Rather than interviewing people as they leave the polling place, for caucuses people are interviewed as they enter the caucus location. These are called entrance polls.

Critical questions of who won and why are answered from exit poll results.

Interviewers stand outside polling places at randomly selected precincts across the country and approach voters at specific intervals as they exit, for example every fifth or ninth voter.

Voters who agree to participate fill out a short, confidential questionnaire and place it in a ballot box.

Interviewers phone in the results three times during the day. When a voter refuses to participate, interviewers note the gender and approximate age and race of that voter. This information is used to statistically adjust the exit poll to ensure that all voters are fairly represented in the final results.

The exit poll questionnaire asks who people voted for, their demographics, opinions about the candidates and opinions on important issues. Here's an example of a previous exit poll issue question, from 2022:

Do you think the condition of the nation's economy is:

Exit polls, like any other survey, are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. Before news organizations report exit poll results or make projections, they compare results to pre-election polls and the