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Exit poll for June 8th election: Another stunning success for statistical methods!

The election-day exit poll methods developed by Warwick Statistics professor David Firth surprised the world yet again at 10pm on election day, immediately after the polling stations closed.

The exit poll, commissioned jointly by broadcasters BBC, ITV and Sky, correctly predicted that the Conservatives would be the largest party in a hung parliament as the result of last Thursday's election. This was quite different from what had been expected by most politicians, commentators and the global financial markets — and a long way short of the increased majority that PM Theresa May had wanted when she called a snap election (three years earlier than scheduled).

Professor Firth said:

It's very pleasing that this continues to work so well — and especially pleasing that most people seem now to trust that the exit-poll prediction will usually be fairly accurate, regardless of the various pre-election opinion polls and punditry that might suggest otherwise.

For the full story and details of the methods used, see warwick.ac.uk/exitpolling.

Wed 14 Jun 2017, 11:58 | Tags: Dept, CRiSM, ESRC, Science, WDSI, ATI, Faculty of Science

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