National Exit Poll 2012 was conducted on the day of the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on October 28, 2012, by the Consortium, which includes "Democratic Initiative" named after Ilko Kucheriv, Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) and the Ukrainian Centre of Economic and Political Studies named after Oleksandr Razumkov.

General population of this exit poll is made up of voters who voted at polling stations in the territory of Ukraine (except for special districts). The sample is representative for the whole population of Ukraine. 19,600 respondents were interviewed at 400 polling stations. Technique of "secret ballot" was applied.

 

Name of Party	Elections Official Results	EXIT POLL	Difference
Party of Regions	30	28.4	1.6
Nationwide Coalescing "Batkivschyna"	25.53	24.7	0.8
Political Party "UDAR lead by Vitaliy Klychko"	13.96	15.5	-1.5
Communist Party of Ukraine	13.18	11.6	1.6
Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Svoboda"	10.44	12.3	-1.9
Party of Nataliya Korolevska "Ukraine, go ahead!"	1.58	1.6	-0.1
Political Party "Our Ukraine"	1.11	1.2	-0.1
Radical Party headed by Oleg Lyashko	1.08	0.9	0.2
Party of Retirees of Ukraine	0.56	0.5	0.1
Socialistic Party of Ukraine	0.45	0.4	0.0
Party of the Greens Ukraine	0.34	0.3	0.0
Ukrainian Party "Green Planet"	0.34	0.3	0.0
Party "Rus Block"	0.31	0.3	0.0
Political Party "The Greens"	0.25	0.3	-0.1
Political Party "Ukraine of the future"	0.19	0.2	0.0
Ukrainian Nationwide Party "Ridna Vitchyzna"	0.16	0.1	0.1
Political Party "Nation Labor Union of Ukraine"	0.11	0.1	0.0
Political Party "New Policy"	0.1	0.1	0.0
Political Party Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Gromada"	0.08	0.1	0.0
Ukrainian National Assembly	0.08	0.0	0.1
Liberal Party of Ukraine	0.07	0.1	0.0

 

As you can see, the maximum difference between the results of the EXIT POLL and the elections official results do not exceed 1.9% for the five parties that got into the parliament; and less than 0.2% for the remaining 16 parties. In general, this means that there were no fraud during the vote count or no fraud at all, or they did not exceed 2% in the "pro" part of the elections (ie in voting in the multi-mandate constituency). Both the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine got more votes by 1.6% in the elections, what is higher than in the EXIT POLL results. However, we should note that the exit poll did not include voting at home and voting at special polling stations. It can be assumed that older people who voted at home, supported the Communist Party of Ukraine more often; and the special districts voters supported the governing party more often, than those, who voted at ordinary polling stations. As for the revaluation of the Party "Svoboda" in our EXIT POLL, it might be that those who voted for "Svoboda" were more active and more open to participate in the EXIT POLL than supporters of other parties.

As for the pre-elections studies, the difference between the results of the election and results of these studies, is higher.

 

Table 2. Pre-election polls (percentage of those, who plant to participate in the elections and are sure about their choise) and election results

 

	Deminitiatives 22–30.09	Omnibus 23.09–01.10	Elections (CEC)
Party of Regions	30.6	33.4	30
UNC “Batkivschyna”	19.8	20.5	25.54
“UDAR headed by V. Klychko”	21.5	19.1	13.96
Communist Party of Ukraine	13.3	13.0	13.18
UNC “Svoboda”	6.7	7.8	10.44

 

It should however be noted that due to the embargo on the publication of the survey data 10 days before the elections, all the polls were conducted 3-4 weeks before the elections; that is why we did not record changes in ratings directly before the elections. The biggest difference in the results of our surveys and the official elections results appeared in rating of the “UDAR” party headed by Vitaliy Klychko. Its rating was by 6% lower than in our studies. The party "UDAR" changed its rating very dynamically during the elections; part of this dynamic can be explained by the victory of Vitali Klitschko in a fight with Manuel Charr, see http://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=102

Some experts explain the differences between ratings of the party and the results of the elections by young age of electorate of the party headed by V. Klitschko, whose appearance at polling stations on the elections day is significantly lower than those of other parties. There was conducted another Expert survey “Elections 2012: expected and unexpected”, developed by the Fund "Democratic Initiatives" named after Ilko Kucheriv and fulfilled during the period of October 31 – November 5, 2012 (see http://dif.org.ua/ua/publications/press-relizy/rezultati-eazivaspertiv_.htm). The drop in the ranking of the party “UDAR” headed by V. Klychko directly before the elections is explained mostly unclear positioning of the party "UDAR" regarding opportunities to work with pro-governmental and oppositional forces and criticism of the party "UDAR" by potential allies at the end of the campaign.

As for the "Svoboda" party, its underestimation in the surveys can be explained by the "spiral of silence" - the reluctance of respondents to show their political orientation in areas where the majority of votes goes for one political party. In addition, "Svoboda" is a radical party, so this effect is enhanced (level of anonymity is higher in the street survey and EXIT POLL, so this effect did not show itself).

We should note that the party headed by Nataliya Korolevska has filed a lawsuit against us, stating that its rank of 2% undervalued (see, for example, http://podrobnosti.ua/power/2012/10/11/863353.html); however, this party gor 1.6 % in EXIT POLL and almost the same in the elections (1.58%).

In general, all the parties that got their place within the parliament, were correctly defined in the pre-elections survey. As for the parties that did not pass the barrier, the deviation between pre-election results and election official results is less than 1%.