What time is the General Election exit poll published? When to expect results

Election day is coming up on Thursday and the exit polls will indicate who is running ahead - and falling behind.

At 10pm on July 4, the six-week race to election day ends when polling stations across the UK close. Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer will eagerly awaiting results from 650 constituencies determining whether the PM will stay on or be replaced by the Labour leader.

The first results will come in through the night, but the exit poll gives a taste of what is to come.

What is an exit poll?

Exit polls are done at about 144 polling stations across the country. Polling company Ipsos Mori goes to the same stations at every election that are selected to be demographically representative of the UK.

People leaving the stations are asked to anonymously fill out a replica ballot and the answers give a preview of the official results. The answers are put in a replica ballot to protect the confidentiality of the ballots.

When are the exit poll results released?

The exit poll will be published at 10pm on election day, which is Thursday July 4. This precedes the first official results at around 11:30pm.

Polling expert Sir John Curtice told the PA news agency: “Wherever possible we go back to the same places as last time. The method of the exit poll is that you compare the results in the selected polling stations this time, with the results of the exit poll last time.”

How are exit polls done?

As well as the identical ballots, a replica ballot box is used as part of the process; Sir John said it’s done in this way to “maximise the confidentiality of people’s votes”.

Sir Curtis added: "To ask them to tell an interviewer, then they might be reluctant to do that, so you’re trying to minimise the level of refusal, which is always an issue."

The number of people approached at a polling station is known as a "systematic sample", Sir John said, and the size of the samples varies according to the registered electorate for that area.

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