Once the responses are collected, the second task is to model the data into a projection by taking into account various factors such as demographics, past voting and exit poll patterns, differential swing and turnout between different locations, and the likely outcome all this pooled information from the polled constituencies implies for constituencies elsewhere.
A study of demographic patterns, polling data and statistics from the recent European elections indicates that the so-called superdiversity emerging in towns and cities will have a massive impact on future results.
And while the vast majority of Northern Ireland, as demonstrated by polling and voting patterns, wants nothing to do with (and has little sympathy for) the dead-enders and dissidents in either camp, there is a reluctant understanding in Belfast that while the war is over, the conflict isn't going anywhere.
The pattern of polling in Scotland indicates that Salmond would be in the vanguard of an SNP group that could have more than 25 MPs.
Second, there was a pattern of polling stations where several electronic voting machines returned an identical result, in what looked like a pre-programmed "cap" on the number of opposition votes.
One of the oddest, and most enduring, patterns in polling in the United States is the dominance of drinking-water quality as a top environmental concern, decades after most water supplies here were cleaned up.
A principle now known as Benford's law (though discovered by an autodidact called Simon Newcomb) shows that naturally occurring sets of numbers, such as returns from polling stations, have distinctive patterns that made-up numbers almost never match.
We've analyzed the voting patterns and polling results of boomers to better understand the re-election of President Obama and the national shift in support of same-sex marriage.
When historical patterns of polling error are factored in, the model gives Obama a better than 90percentt chance of winning in Ohio, Nevada and Wisconsin.
