Exit-poll

On January 17 and February 7, the days of the Presidential Elections in Ukraine, the National Exit Poll 2010 Consortium comprised of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF), the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) and the Razumkov Centre for Economic and Political Studies will conduct the National Exit Poll 2010.

The Democratic Initiatives Foundation will be responsible for financial and media management of the project. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) and the Razumkov Centre for Economic and Political Studies will conduct polling of voters. KIIS will execute the scientific management, develop the sampling and coordinate the polling.

It is planned that 13,000 respondents will be polled at 240 voting stations. The margin of error of the sampling will not exceed 2.5% for leaders of the race. The margin for other candidates will be 0.7-1.5%.

The results of the polling will be presented on a nationwide scale and in a cross-section of four regions:

Western region – Zakarpattia, Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Chernivtsi and Khmelnytskiy oblasts;
Central region – Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy, Poltava, Sumy, Chernihiv and Kyiv oblasts and the city of Kyiv;
Southern region – Crimean Autonomous Republic, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts;
Easter region – Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

The main objective of the project is to ensure effective public control over the fairness of the election process and obtain information about the socio-demographic structure of the electorate of candidates for the office of president.

The tradition of conducting exit polls in Ukraine was initiated by DIF when it organized an exit poll and the televised show Election Night during the elections to the parliament in 1998. Since then participants of the project have gained in-depth experience in the organization and execution of polling voters upon their exit from voting stations.

DIF organized exit polls during the parliamentary elections in 1998, 2002 and 2006, the snap parliamentary elections in 2007, two rounds of the 1999 presidential elections and three rounds of the 2004 presidential elections.

KIIS participated in all exit polls since 1999 and the Razumkov Centre for Economic and Political Studies has participated in them since 2004. This year this will be the 10th exit poll organized by DIF, the 10th exit poll conducted by KIIS and the 7th exit poll conducted by the Razumkov Centre (several local exit polls were also conducted in Mukacheve and Kyiv).

The results of nationwide polling will be made public after the elections on January 17 and February 7 at 20:01.

Confirmed results of the exit poll are planned to be announced around 23:00 hours. In addition to that, this information will be synchronously published in the Ukrainian and English languages on the following sites: http://www.exitpoll.org.ua, www.dif.org.ua and www.newcitizen.org.ua. The information is being disseminated through an e-mail server and Google Groups. One of the distinctive features of the National Exit Poll 2010 will be the use of New Media (direct broadcasting of the announcement of results of the exit poll in the YouTube network.

The National Exit Poll 2010 is supported by the New Citizen public campaign, which DIF is participating in and comprises of nearly 30 non-government organizations.

The National Exit Poll 2010 is financed by a forum of international donors to which the following organizations belong: International Renaissance Foundation, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the National Endowment for Democracy (USA) and the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation (USA). Talks are currently under way with other potential donors.

DIF has also appealed to other foreign representative offices, Ukrainian NGOs and legal entities and physical persons for financial support in conducted the polling.

The project execution is being monitored and controlled by the Oversight Council on which domestic and foreign experts reside.