Discredited Opinion Polling

[Graudian]

I have just heard that the BPC (British Polling Council) announce that
an independent enquiry will be held into the polling forecasts they
provided to the media & others.
They could well begin with my own experience-
I received a phone call asking what my voting intentions were. After
telling them that I had an unlisted phone number & was registered with
the TPservice I was told a computer had dialled my number.
To get them off the line I said I was voting Green.
The next day after leaving my barber a woman with a clipboad
stopped me to ask for my political views. When I asked why she had chosen me to interview she said I looked like a B2 (?) and this time I told her I
would be supporting the Lib Dems!

Why do the newspapers etc waste so much money paying 'professionals'
to collect what is rubbish?

[weecalf]

isnt it an exit poll so they have the right to be out in their calculations

[jourdain2]

No-one has ever asked me either - not even on an exit poll. T.B.H. I'd probably lie, as I do when asked gender, ethnicity etc. on forms.

[EDDIE51]

Mikey, it looks like a lot of people did lie to the exit poll.
It was predicting the Conservatives to be short of a majority.

[ichkeria]

The polls weren't all that wrong actually. Percent wise it was Tory 36 Labour 30 with the rest more or less spot on. Not a million miles away especially when you consider that it only takes small variations in percentage to greatly affect seats won. Allowing for a late swing based on the relentless Labour SNP scare story spun by one of the ruling parties, and the fact that telephone polling is hardly ideal when you are more likely to get idiots feeding nonsense back at you etc
But a huge exit poll conducted in person on thousands who've actually voted turns out to be amazingly accurate. In fact it spoils the fun really :-)

[Hopkirk]

The exit poll wsan't accurate though.

It had the Tories as a minority government.

[ichkeria]

It wasn't exactly spot on but it was very nearly. You don't expect perfection do you?

[Khandro]

//The exit poll wsan't accurate though// It has to be interpreted and the prof.'s first immediate interpretation of the stats was extraordinary accurate, he was complimented by the BBC team tonight.

[ludwig]

I'm not actually sure what purpose opinion polls serve anyway, other than a bit of light entertainment, and fodder for the news media to fill some column inches with. Pretty much like the pre-election party leader debates. Media driven bollex, that adds nothing of any value to the actual democratic process.

[jomifl]

If you add up the pollng intention percentages they usually total about 100(%).
Yet since the election turnout is usually about 60% t seems that 40% of the participants were less than truthful since they didn't do what they said they would. I think this may hold a clue.

[ladybirder]

What happened to our Poll on here. Did we reflect the actual result?

[ludwig]

..in fact, not only does it add nothing of value, I think it distorts it. You've got people lying that they're going to vote Labour to the pollsters, (when they've not actually decided) then reading the poll results in the paper the next week, and thinking '**ck me, Labour might actually win', which scares them into deciding to vote Tory. Their own lie changes their mind.

It's politics disappearing up it's own 4r53.

[Peter Pedant]

.// she said I looked like a B2 (?) //

This is a reference to quota filling which is a hotly debated topic about whether it skews the results

basically if you ring people you miss out on the people who vote who donthave phones who may vote differently ( 1945 Dewey by a landslide and all that jazz ) and if you go out onto the streets you will be deluged by the unemplloyed - so you ask various peole what they do until youfind someone that you are looking for like a banker or hairdresser...

They ended up concluding that people were lying during the third election of Mrs T

[jomifl]

That's a fundamental principle Ludwig..

[Peter Pedant]

you'll get to the bottom of it eventually Ludwig

the whole thing stinks to high heaven

[ludwig]

48% of people agree with me that polls are stupid. Unfortunately I only asked the people I live with, so 48% translates into slightly less than one person.

[jim360]

The reason the polls got it so wrong this time is probably because they got it spot on... and then people started taking notice, and so changed their votes accordingly.

[Svejk]

They said 109% would vote for Rahman to be mayor of Tower Hamlets, so they got that right.
All polls and pollsters are bought and paid for. They'll come up with the 'result' they're paid to produce.

[baza]

They got Ed Balls result wrong, perhaps they confused him with his fiddling wife.

[Svejk]

^She's one nasty piece of work. And there's talk of making her leader, lol.

[baza]

^^^ I thought it was just me who thinks she is a nasty piece of work.