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Interview with Irada Yagubova
The elections are over, and now we can sum up the results of the exit polls.
First of all, I would like to say that exit polls have been organized in Azerbaijan since 2003.
Our organization is conducting its 4th exit poll since the elections in 2008. The attitude to exit polls has changed completely.
Exit polls are not a brand new word from the West, but a seriously considered event.
This year the candidates called and asked if exit polls would be organized in their district.
Today, three candidates called for addresses, which we gave to them. Let they go and check how it is organized.
It is difficult to tell you all the results now, as we have results for 118 districts. So there are 118 winners.
I would say that 99% of people voted for those who they thought were nice and deserved their vote.
I do hope that this parliament will meet all the requirements of the people and will try to realize at least some part of their promises.
I also would like to admit that people have been participating very actively. There were some volunteers answering our questions.
They filled in the forms, but we did not take them into consideration. This year we used a high-tech system of providing information.
A special website was created. The interviewees logged into the site and then uploaded all the data.
Let's imagine how it used to be:
an interviewee had to call an operator to tell them the data, then the operator had to ask someone to upload the data onto the database, we can understand how much faster it is.
In the municipal elections we could publish the results by 22.00, here we were ready to publish all the results in 118 districts by 21.00.
By the way, Azerbaijan is the first country in world using this method.
I hope we will come up with something else by the next elections, and the exit polls will be more interesting, especially for the youth.
Our interviewees were under 30, we wanted to see what our next generation thinks.
The younger generation is interested in something special, something modern and highly technological.
I told them during the training sessions that the youth of the whole world will see them; they were very excited about it.
It was interesting. I think the next time should be even "cooler".
Great. So what was the method of surveys?
Every fourth voter was asked to answer the questions. The surveys were all anonymous and absolutely secret.
A voter was explained the conditions of the survey and then put in a place where no one could come to them.
The first page of the form contained the list of the candidates, as in a polling paper. Then the voter filled in their demographical data.
They also answered questions regarding the pre-electoral process, the process of voting, the choice of candidates, and their preferences.
After that the voters folded the form fourfold and put it into a box. The boxes had our logos on them.
The interviewees also had special caps with the logo. Then at 10.00, 13.00, 16.00 and 19.00 hours, the boxes were emptied.
The results were counted. And the data were passed on to the Centre, partly by internet, partly over the phone.
We planned that 60% of the information be given over the internet, but it turned out to be 89%.
Because we thought that people at polling stations in villages would not manage to upload information onto the internet.
But everything was fine. By the end of the day, when the stations were closed, we had all the preliminary information on the elections.
All the equipment has already been brought from the districts in the Baku region.
Tomorrow the equipment from other regions will be brought, and after that all the forms will be analyzed again.
Then we will publish the results as a book. We obtain different information about who voted.
It is not only sex, education, occupation and age, there are also their preferences.
They allow comparison and counting of who voted, why they supported certain candidates.
We also make some forecasts for the next elections, in order to improve the process of the elections.
How many stations were open?
Over 5,000 in 125 districts. 7 of them are located in the Nakhchivan region, they can be reached only by plane.
So we decided to organize surveys in the other districts at 10 stations in each. In total, surveys were carried out at 1,180 stations.
Is this sampling reliable?
It is absolutely representative. This method is used throughout the whole world - in the USA, Europe and other countries.
This method has been tested many times. And it does not cause any doubts for any experts.
It provides results with a high percentage of accuracy. Our previous surveys also prove this.