Tension is mounting in the political system ahead of the release of the election exit polls for the 26th Knesset. Television pollsters hinted on Tuesday evening at significant surprises in the results, which are expected to be released at 10 p.m., when the polls close.
Tzuriel Sharon, an i24NEWS pollster from the Direct Polls institute, commented on the emerging exit poll figures and warned that several party leaders were likely to be disappointed by the results.
“The only thing we can update you on, and are permitted to update you on at this hour, is that we are seeing parties that will receive numbers far from what they imagined," Sharon said.
He added: “There are party leaders from across the political spectrum who are not going to like this evening."
Meanwhile, Dudi Hasid, CEO of the Kantar polling institute and pollster for Kan News, also hinted at an unexpected result in the public broadcaster’s exit poll.
“There is a surprise in the Kan News exit poll," Hasid said on air.
Earlier, journalist Ran Boker reported that at least one party’s figures were causing “a very big headache for pollsters," as the party’s performance differed from the picture presented in the latest polls published before the election.
Boker later clarified that the unusual figures were not appearing in just one exit poll, but in at least one additional poll, where the party was showing a similar result.
Boker explained that when exit pollsters receive results that differ significantly from the latest pre-election polls, they can make statistical adjustments, known as a “factor," based on their knowledge of the electorate and the data.
However, he expressed doubt that pollsters would make such an adjustment in this case, since the same surprise was appearing in more than one exit poll.
“In this case, I find it hard to believe they would do so, because despite the surprise, the party in question is in exactly the same position in at least one other exit poll," Boker wrote.
According to Boker, as of the time of publication, the unexpected figures were not significantly affecting the balance between the political blocs.
The picture is expected to become clearer when the exit polls are released at 10:00 p.m., following the closing of polling stations.
Ahead of the publication of the results, Channel 12 News released an explanation of the methodology used by the Midgam polling institute, headed by Mano Geva, which is responsible for the channel's election exit poll.
Unlike a regular opinion poll, in which participants are asked which party they would vote for if elections were held that day, an election exit poll is based on voters who have already cast their ballots.
Channel 12 News explained that its exit poll is based on 70 polling stations selected from approximately 13,000 polling stations across the country, using a statistical model designed to represent the public's voting patterns.
Special exit poll stations are set up near the selected polling locations, where voters are asked to anonymously recreate their votes using a tablet displaying the parties' ballot slips.
The exit poll is based on a significantly larger number of participants than a regular opinion poll, and it does not need to estimate which respondents will ultimately turn out to vote.
One of the main challenges in conducting exit polls is the possibility that voters do not accurately reproduce the votes they actually cast when participating in the exit poll.
In an interview with Channel 12 News, Adi Geva, deputy CEO of the Midgam polling institute, explained that the institute uses a model designed to identify and reduce such biases.
"We use a behavioral model that attempts to correct for the lies," she said.
According to Geva, artificial intelligence technologies also assist in processing the data, but responses that do not reflect voters' actual choices can still undermine the accuracy of the forecast.
Mano Geva, the institute's CEO, acknowledged that this is a complex challenge.
"It's still not foolproof. Science isn't supposed to know how to deal with lies," he told Channel 12 News.