While Americans wait election resultsmany look for answers in surveys.

Dr. Andy Smith of the University of New Hampshire Polling Center joined FOX’s LiveNOW on Election Day with tips for deciphering the polls and how to better understand them.

What is the margin of error?

The margin of error describes how close a survey result can reasonably be to the true representative of the entire population. In other words, even the purest random sampling of pollsters will not exactly match the entire American population.

Calculating the margin of error works through a complicated mathematical theory known as the central limit theorem, Smith tells us, but he gave us some tips to understand it more easily.

He said the biggest confusion about sampling error is that people think it applies to the percentage gap between candidates, which is not the case.

“What you have to do is apply a margin of sampling error to both estimates,” he said. “So Donald Trump at 46%, in this example (with a 3% margin error), could be as low as 49%; it could be as low as 43%. Harris at 50%, could be as low like 47%. or as high as 53%.”

“You really have to double the margin of sampling error if you want to understand whether the gap between those two candidates is statistically significant,” he added.

RELATED: Polls for the presidential elections: Who is currently leading?

Telephone surveys versus digital surveys

FILE – A close-up photograph of a man holding a cell phone.

“The polling industry is going through what I would call a paradigm shift, where we’re moving away from the types of methods that worked 30 or 40 years ago that don’t work anymore,” Smith said.

He said response rates to telephone interviews have dropped significantly in recent years, to the point that only about 5% of people contacted for telephone surveys complete them.

“This results in very, very expensive phone surveys and, (as we saw) in 2016, inaccurate phone surveys,” he said.

He said more polls are being conducted digitally in this election, but there are also several different methodologies for digital methods.

“After this election we will see quite a bit of research to understand which of the methodologies that were used actually worked best, and we will use that knowledge that we gained in the future,” he said.

“I’m very cautious about saying one survey is better than another right now because, frankly, we just don’t know. We’re in the middle of this development of our best practices and we’re not there yet.” “.

RELATED: When will we know the results in the undecided states?

Atypical surveys

Every election cycle, a handful of polls release shocking results that attract significant attention.

More recently it was the long-awaited survey by J. Ann Selzer, the “gold standard” pollster in Iowa, showing Kamala Harris beating Donald Trump by 3 points in the Hawkeye State.

READ MORE: New Iowa Poll Shows Harris Ahead by 3 Points in Hawkeye State

So how do some survey results vary so differently?

Smith says it could have to do with how the survey was conducted or that an unusual sampling group was used that may have excluded a certain demographic.