The Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF), a think tank, will gauge the vote outcome with the social research firms Razumkov Center and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
The two polling firms will cover 400 voting precincts, splitting them evenly with the goal of polling 17,000 respondents using the “secret ballot” method whereby voters are asked to confidentially complete a brief survey and deposit it discreetly into a box.
The theoretical sample error shouldn’t exceed plus or minus 2.5 percent for ballot leaders and 0.5-1 percent for other candidates.
This will be DIF’s fourth presidential election exit poll and 15th overall, when runoffs and parliamentary elections are counted. This year’s poll is financed with assistance from the United States and the European Union, Canada and the International Renaissance Foundation.
Preliminary results will be published on election day starting at 8 p.m. Ukrainian time when polling stations close here: https://dif.org.ua/exit-poll.
Moscow-friendly opposition television channels NewsOne and 112 both have commissioned an exit poll to be run by the Ukrainian polling firm Social Monitoring center in tandem with Austria’s SORA research institute.
It, too, will start releasing results when polling stations close and these will be aired live on television (https://newsone.ua; https://112.ua/). Five hundred polling stations will be covered, half by face-to-face interviews and the other half via secret ballot. A 2.1-percent sample error is foreseen for the top vote-getters.
Both channels are, according to claims made by politicians during sessions of Parliament and in news reports, proxy controlled by politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2014.
A former presidential office head under Leonid Kuchma, he runs the Ukrainsky Vybir (Ukrainian Choice) non-governmental organization that supported Russia’s takeover of the Crimean peninsula and opposed Kyiv’s signing of the political and economic Association Agreement with the EU. Russian President Vladimir Putin is godfather to Mr. Medvedchuk’s daughter.
Both channels give favorable coverage to Mr. Medvedchuk and the Za Zhyttia (For Life) party, whose political council he heads. The party also is tied to chemicals and gas mogul Dmytro Firtash, who is fighting extradition to the U.S. in Austrian courts on corruption charges that he denies and says are politically motivated.
Pro-Russian presidential candidate Yuriy Boiko, who currently is a top-five contender, enjoys the party’s backing. He is a long-time and close associate of Mr. Firtash and has appeared in Vienna court proceedings involving his ongoing extradition trial.