The “Effective Policy and Research” NGO conducts “Exit Poll” exit surveys. This organization was founded a couple of months before the constitutional amendments referendum in 2005 and its first serious “Exit Poll” was taken during the referendum. Currently, the NGO is preparing for its second serious exit poll. During the May 12 parliamentary elections, according to NGO president Hamazasp Danielyan, members of the “Effective Policy and Research” NGO will be in the 41 precincts of Armenia and will ask the voters coming out of the polls which proportional electoral system political party they voted for. In the U.S. and other countries, “Exit Poll” is considered a so-called public-founded Central Election Commission that takes a poll of the percentage of votes each party received in the given precinct. In contrast to the actual Central Election Commission which is informed after the precincts are closed, “Exit Poll” gets the information right after the vote. Let us recall that it was as a result of this exit poll that the “Orange Revolution” began in Ukraine.
– Since your organization has already conducted an exit poll during the constitutional amendments referendum, can you say how much your results correspond to reality?
– “Exit Poll” is new in Armenia and the majority of citizens (even those who are interested in politics) don’t have a clear picture of what “Exit Poll” is and what it is aimed at. That is why it is very important for people to first of all know what this is. We will soon prepare clips which will be broadcasted on television before the upcoming elections. This is very important in that the pivot of “Exit Poll” is the cooperation between us and the citizens; otherwise it is nonsensical. Yes, it is sort of risky in Armenia because it is new; perhaps citizens won’t trust us, especially since the current situation is rather tense. Besides that, Armenia is a small country and chances are high that people will not give true answers. We face this risk too. During the constitutional amendments referendum, “Exit Poll” was taken by few people. Now we are going to take double the space, double the human resources and the bigger the space, the more chance of getting precise results. During these elections we will only conduct the “Exit Poll” on the proportional electoral system and not the majority electoral system. Our results of the referendum instilled faith because they differed from the official results. As for the rather debatable viewpoints expressed by different political powers regarding the official results, that is a different story. Even if we could somehow get some answer from them, that would have an impact on the precision of our data because if someone, for some reason, doesn’t want to respond to our questions, it doesn’t matter; he will still give us a different answer if we try to convince him. That is why we didn’t and will not do such things. It is going to be harder to conduct “Exit Polls” during these elections than during the referendum when the answer was only “yes” or “no”. We have 25 political parties participating in the elections. Whereas we were counting the “yes” and the “no” during the referendum, this time we have the 5% limit and the difference of 1% may play a decisive role. That is why we are providing more variety. It is very important how loyal the citizens will be. This is a more serious election; we have higher risks and we must have no fear so that we can foresee these elections through the means of “Exit Poll”.
– You said that you have a big responsibility. Who placed that responsibility on you?
– Nobody placed responsibility on me; we are talking about the organization. Each person wants to be professional in whatever he does so that it won’t turn into a show.
– Where did the last “Exit Poll” take place? If I am not mistaken, it originated in the U.S.
– Yes, it was conducted for the first time in 1967 in the United States. “Exit Poll” was conducted during the 1972 U.S. presidential elections and quickly spread across the world. It has been conducted in Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Georgia. So, Armenia lags one step behind in that sense. As to how they were conducted in those countries, that is a different story because, for instance, in Azerbaijan, the “Exit Poll” differed by 10% from the official results. In Ukraine, the difference in the “Exit Poll” and official results was the revolution; people heard that others had taken surveys, saw the difference in the results and put up the tents. I can’t say whether that is good or bad and I don’t want to say that we have a similar perspective for Armenia. Not in the least; I simply want to say that besides those cases, “Exit Poll” gives results in a couple of hours up to a couple of days. “Exit Poll” is a must during elections even for the majority of developing countries that are making efforts to become democratic.
– Aren’t you worried that your results during the referendum differed from the official results by a small percentage and that the public was of the opinion that the official number was far from the reality? Doesn’t the fact that people may distrust this organization worry you?
– As I mentioned, there were many people who refused to take the poll. If they were the people who, for some reason, were afraid to give a “no” answer and the people who “went ahead” and said “yes”, it is clear that that had an impact on the difference. The important thing is for citizens to be honest. There are no alternative data; perhaps the difference is big, but nobody can say to me with facts that based on a survey of 2000 people, 90% said “no”, while 10% said “yes”.
– I beg your pardon, but your organization sounds like the alternative Central Election Commission. Is it possible that your organization will periodically publish the number of votes each political party received on Election Day?
– In some sense, yes, we are like the Central Election Commission because we are repeating some function connected with publishing the data. As for publishing the data, it is prohibited by the Electoral Code to publish any data during the elections because “Exit Poll” may conduct a subjective poll and they may announce that a certain political party already has 50% of the vote which, in turn, may have an impact on citizen decision-making. If they say that a certain party has one percent of the vote, then is it not possible that the person casting his vote for that party will not get up and go to the polls? That is prohibited in international practice. When the polls close at 8:01 p.m. we will then be able to announce our results. At that time no other poll will have the results.
– Are you going to be stationed at all the polls?
– We are going to be in 41 precincts. We won’t be able to be at all of the polls. If there happen to be 10 polls in one precinct, we will be in, let’s say, three. We still haven’t decided.
– Will you include political party members in your “Exit Poll” due to lack of human resources?
– No, we place high emphasis on non-partisanship. It is very important for us to be subjective. Our target group will consist of willing sociologists or students of social sciences. After all, it is very important to see how much difference there will be between our results and the results of the Central Election Commission, which will be published much later. Those people also have to be interested in fair and transparent elections and explain to the citizens what the goal is.
– Have you conducted a poll before the elections or do you simply do the “Exit Poll”?
– True, “Exit Poll” is part of the public polls, but it is unique in that we take surveys from citizens who have just come out of the polls. Besides that, during this stage, citizens have gotten tired of so many objective and subjective questions from organizations and cameramen that even if we took the poll before the elections, it wouldn’t be of much help. Our goal is the exit poll.
– Today Armenians don’t really trust sociologists and people who conduct polls. They call somebody “bought”, the other “a photographer”. Aren’t you worried that they will put a brand on you as well after publishing the results?
– The fact of the matter is that our initiative is risky in that sense as well. I can’t predict what will happen. We can state our predictions after the elections. We are also ready for such attacks. The Armenian reality has shown that after the previous elections, there has not been one political party that has not suspected the results of the elections. We are going to do our job as professionals as has been done in other countries. I believe that we will succeed, but even if we don’t, we still have to start “Exit Poll” in Armenia some day. Some day, our political parties have to learn that their votes are not determined by the estimation by sight. In other words, they needn’t say that they held a public meeting, there were 15,000 people, or that this many people gave their word that they would elect me and I have 15,000 votes in this city. It is important for us to know the precise results of the elections so that the Central Election Commission will not be able to manipulate. Ours is an approved and applicable method. The political parties should do the same and predict the results. There are always going to be disappointed parties. Pay attention to what is going on between political party members. Each party declares that it has this many members. When we add those numbers up, we see that that number makes up the amount of adult citizens in Armenia. So, we know that we are going to be attacked by some group because our real results are not going to satisfy everyone. But that’s their problem. We are going to do our job responsively and carefully.
P.S. At present the “Effective Policy and Research” NGO is the only organization involved in “Exit Poll” in Armenia.