Crowdsourced Forecasts versus Exit Polls

This is how the exit poll results looked today. The average of all exit polls for the BJP was 102, just above the CrowdWisdom average of 100 (790 Crowdsourced Forecasts). Karnataka Forecasters average was 101

In case of Congress, the average was 85, close to the 87 average from CrowdWisdom's crowdsourced forecasts. Karnataka Forecaster average was 85

At the end of it all with close to some $ 500000 likely to have been spent on exit polls, no one is any wiser. Further, the average of all these polls is not very different from our crowdsourced forecast.

The ironical thing is that during the opinion poll stage, INC was higher than BJP (average of all Opinion Polls). In case of the crowdsourced forecasts, BJP was higher than INC. At the exit poll stage, both methods aligned in terms of the result

We will know about the accuracy on results day but we learnt a lot of new things during this election -

One, we generated a lot of crowdsourced content giving us a good sense of the ground on a continuous basis. Our forecasters too were better informed than before. Our repeat visitors increased 6 fold in just one month.

Two, we kept ensuring forecasts were delivered every day so that the platform is responsive to campaign events.

Three, while we did have a biased mix of forecasters, we were tracking the mix and reporting it on a continuous basis so that our forecasters and readers understood the levels of bias in the prediction

Once the results are out, we will have two election results to look at and advise future forecasters to pay heed when they forecast for elections. We are likely to have 6 elections live by the 19th of this month which will then enhance our databases even further. Thank you for your continued cooperation and support.