Election night 2024: What to watch out for - By Emily Maitlis
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The News Agents' Emily Maitlis talks you through what to watch out for on election night, and explains why she needs multipacks of crayons to get her through the campaigning in the build up.
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This is a list that will probably change and certainly need updating - but I thought it might be helpful to give you an early steer of what we will be looking out for on election night - and why.
First, let me introduce you to my pride and joy: the multipack colouring pencils. I’m off the booze right now and on the crayons - they help me learn the constituencies I’m trying to watch - with a bit of furious underlining in party colours where applicable. Before we get to individual seats, let’s talk about the exit poll.
The exit poll will be released at 10pm sharp on Thursday night, 4th July. It’s always followed by a sharp intake of breath - from those who want to believe it but haven’t dare, from those who’ve dreaded what it will say and find their fears confirmed, and from pollsters who will either be breathing a sigh of relief or be scrabbling around on their databases trying to work out what on earth has gone wrong.
Either way, it’s a moment. Normally turned into a colourful graphic and beamed on the studio wall.
Our exit polls have been incredibly accurate in recent times – since 1992 which was the last major polling mishap in this country.
The 2001 election exit polls were just six seats out, while 2005 and 2010 were spot on. So if you’ve ignored all the polling up until this point, this is now the time to tune in.
Exit polls are based on thousands of voters surveyed just after they’ve cast their ballot. In other words, they are people who have already genuinely voted and ones we presume who have made up their mind!
They only cover England, Scotland and Wales because Northern Ireland has different parties and a different system, so it’s not included in this tally.
Not every voter is asked – maybe 20 in 200. But they’re asked to fill in a replica ballot paper to the one they’ve just signed. And drop the replica into a box anonymously. Maybe the anonymity helps with the accuracy.
One way or another people tend to be inclined to repeat the decision they’ve just taken.
In the 2017 election, the exit poll predicted Conservatives would be the largest party but stopped short of explaining it would mean a hung parliament / minority government. You might say that was the crucial bit. In 2019 the exit poll predicted a Conservative Party with 368 seats. In the end it was 365. Three short.
In 2024 look out for the wording. If it’s predicting a win for Labour- it will say Labour majority and the number.
A win for the Conservatives, likewise. If it’s a knife edge result – which would shock pretty much every political analyst in the country – then the wording they use is normally ‘largest party’.
In other words, the exit poll doesn't try to predict the shape or make up of any future government, it will just talk about the raw seat numbers within the 650-seat parliament.
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