A modern-day comedy of errors: Why exit polls often go wrong in India

Exit polls often go wrong in India because pollsters do not sample voters in the poorest parts of the country or the core support bases of different political parties

The Election Commission was furious with a Hindi daily after it flashed the result of the exit poll after the first phase of the UP Assembly election of 2017. Understandably so, because it could have influenced the remaining phases of the election. In the United States, in 1980, NBC announced the victory of Ronald Reagan at 8.15 pm Eastern Time, when it was 5.15 pm on the West Coast, where voting was not yet over. It is possible that many people did not come out to vote hearing the survey result.

However, exit polls have exhibited a disastrous mismatch with