An online poll conducted on the day of the presidential election, 2 April 2017, on a sample of 152 respondents, shows very high self-reported turnout: 85.53% say they had already voted, and an additional 5.26% say they had not yet voted but intended to. Only 8.55% report that they would not turn out. This distribution suggests an atmosphere of “mobilisation” — even when there is doubt about the electoral process, the message is that going to the polls feels like a last line of defence.
What most motivates people to vote? Two motives tie for first place: “civic duty” (21.75%) and “the situation in society” (21.75%). Next comes the belief that one’s vote can influence the outcome (19.65%). These findings suggest that the decision to turn out is more political and moral than “technical”: procedural regularity (4.56%), overall turnout (3.86%), queues (0.70%) and weather conditions (1.05%) remain secondary. In other words, when people judge the moment to be important, logistics don’t decide — a sense of responsibility and the pressure of reality do.
As for the sample profile, respondents are most often from Belgrade (34.87%), followed by Bačka (21.05%) and Western Serbia (9.87%), while other regions are less represented. By age, the largest group is 25–34 (30.26%), then 35–44 (21.05%) and 45–54 (19.08%). By occupation, the most visible groups are the unemployed (15.79%), students/pupils (13.82%) and professionals/experts (12.50%), indicating a sample in which politically engaged people are more likely to participate and comment.
In the open-ended responses, emotions break through — from voting “so that Vučić doesn’t win,” to the idea that despite “irregularities,” people still believed change might happen. That mixture of hope, anger and duty is probably the most accurate summary of election day in this poll.