This document summarizes the key points from a presentation on opinion polling given by RED C, an Irish polling firm. The presentation covers:
1) RED C's methodology for conducting accurate polls, including random sampling, quotas, likelihood to vote weighting, and past vote weighting.
2) Factors that can impact poll accuracy, such as question wording and order, and how events can influence results.
3) Current Irish party support trends in opinion polls show Fine Gael and Labour combined leading over Fianna Fail, though economic competence could influence further shifts.
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In line with the IRR’s objective to become an authority on political market research, the Institute has undertaken its second full survey
of the electoral landscape, to supplement the first full survey carried out in September 2018, and a “snap poll” carried out in December
2018.
Presentation by Cornelius Hirsch at the 2019 CMPF Summer School for Journalists and Media Practitioners - Covering Political Campaigns in the Age of Data, Algorithms & Artificial Intelligence
The results of an Indy Politics poll of this year’s upcoming City-County Council races indicates control of the body could be up for grabs. However, candidates have a long way to go to educate voters about who’s even on the ballot in their district.
Magellan Strategies 2012 Internal Survey Research Summary Memorandum 120612Magellan Strategies
This memorandum is a full review of Magellan Strategies surveys from the 2012 election cycle. The memorandum goes into detail about the challenges of survey research for the cycle, and how well Magellan Strategies research held up to the final outcome.
Britain’s two-party system is being eroded by an unprecedented surge of support for smaller parties. This Bloomberg Brief report examines the implications of the most uncertain general election in a generation.
Statistical analysis of electoral fraud presidential elections in armenia 2013Sassoon Kosian
This is a presentation of analysis done by Policy Forum Armenia (PFA) revealing wide scale election fraud committed during 2013 presidential elections in Armenia
In line with the IRR’s objective to become an authority on political market research, the Institute has undertaken its second full survey
of the electoral landscape, to supplement the first full survey carried out in September 2018, and a “snap poll” carried out in December
2018.
This presentation explains a predictive data modeling project that segmented Colorado's 3.5 million voters into 11 groups. The segmentation enables campaign decision makers the ability to understand and target voters beyond data that is is available on a Colorado voter file.
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The nationwide TNS opinion poll was carried out between 15 and 20 January of 2013 by its local partner IPSC. The poll was commissioned by European Friends of Armenia (www.EuFoA.org) in order to contribute to a factual debate ahead of the elections. The sample size of the survey is 1,607.
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This presentation explains a predictive data modeling project that segmented Colorado's 3.5 million voters into 11 groups. The segmentation enables campaign decision makers the ability to understand and target voters beyond data that is is available on a Colorado voter file.
Brazilian Politics: Between Chaos and Stagnationfhguarnieri
Some people view Brazilian politics as chaotic, others as stagnated. In this work, presented at the Wilson Center Brazil Institute, I show that pre-electoral coordination helps to solve this apparent contradiction.
"It's Jobs, Stupid": Democracy Corps/Campaign for America's Future Pollourfuture
A Democracy Corps/Campaign for America's Future survey examines the top economic priorities of American voters, the extent to which they are rejecting the economic priorities of conservatives and offers insight into what Democrats will have to do in order to regain the support of the public. More details on the poll and links to related material on ourfuture.org/economypoll2011
The nationwide TNS opinion poll was carried out between 15 and 20 January of 2013 by its local partner IPSC. The poll was commissioned by European Friends of Armenia (www.EuFoA.org) in order to contribute to a factual debate ahead of the elections. The sample size of the survey is 1,607.
Reynolds Fellow Scott Swafford kicked off the workshop and shared some of his research at RJI's "Down-home Democracy: Empowering Citizens With Outstanding Coverage of Local Elections" on Friday, Jan. 31, 2014.
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The spotlight is on pollsters in the UK, following the performance of the polls at the 2015 General Election. Are we alone in facing this challenge, or is it a global issue? Does the experience in other countries point to what we should be doing in the UK?
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Voters who vote for parties that don't meet the threshold effectively get their votes allocated to parties that do meet the threshold.
Allow voters to select parties by preference so that they can explicitly direct where their votes go should they vote for a party that doesn't meet the threshold.
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A look at how Ragnar Research Partners was able to be so successful in the 2018 cycle, as well as the best opinion research practices heading into 2019 & beyond. This includes proper representation of cell phone-only households, weighting partisanship in every race based on previous Presidential Election results, and a rigorous, systematic, and fanatic devotion to the construction of proper stratification and sample frames.
Trump vs Clinton - Polling Opinions: How the polls were wrong and how to fix...chrisbrock54
The polls in the 2016 election were wrong. Why? Did they underestimate Trump? Over value Hillary Clinton's lead? Not use modern technology? Not accept the facts in front of them? This presentation is designed to help pollsters in future elections to better their predictive powers. We cover social media, search engines, main stream media sources, Wikileaks in more in our investigation.
The second nationwide TNS opinion poll was carried out between 31 January and 5 February 2013 by its local partner IPSC. The poll was commissioned by European Friends of Armenia (www.EuFoA.org) in order to contribute to a factual debate ahead of the elections. The sample size of the survey is 1,609.
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A presentation highlighting the relevance of statistical methods for the analysis and forecast of elections:
* Voter Turnout by Income, Age, and Gender, with detailed graphs and explanations
* Polls and Election Forecasting, with explanation of the 95% confidence interval
* Representativeness and random sampling
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Opinion polls companies are major stakeholders, if not actors, in the 2013 General Election campaigns.
Polls are regularly reported and commented on in the media. They are an inseparable part of news coverage as there is no more accurate way to gauge the sentiments of the voters, at a given time, than through a carefully designed and executed opinion poll.
But polls are also criticized, especially by political party leaders who disregard results that do not favor them and by some civil society actors who say they promote a two-horse race campaign. The situation has forced opinion poll researchers and company managers to appear on political TV and radio shows to defend their methodology, and their integrity.
Kenyans can remember that in the run up to the 2007 General Election, the media’s lack of capacity to contextualize and analyze data led to confusion when the results didn’t match predictions. The media had failed to explain the difference between polling data and election results.
Internews in Kenya recently trained a group of radio journalists to improve the use, analysis and reporting of opinion polls. Over 25 journalists were taught to scrutinize the methodology of different polling firms.
When has a poll been conducted according to accepted professional standards? When does a poll’s findings have legitimate news value? What is an appropriate way to publish or broadcast newsy poll findings?
Internews in Kenya Democracy and Governance Programs Director Brice Rambaud responds in the following Power Point presentation.
Reducing Bias in Public Opinion Polls - By Autumn Carter
Presentation Delivered at Stanford University, Summer Research College, August 2009
Presentation of some of my results from my research. Over the course of the project, I analyzed 7 survey experiments across 9 unique vendors, who conducted the survey via phone or the internet and using either a probability sample or a non-probability sample. In all, about 10000 unique individuals were surveyed.
This presentation highlights the question bias of Agree/Disagree type questions and the response bias associated with the Acquiescence Effect.
I conducted my research through Stanford\'s Political Psychology Research Group. pprg.stanford.edu
Similar to RedC Poll, Richard Colwell- Autumn Seminar 2010 (20)
2. Agenda
1. Some questions answered about polling
2. The RED C Approach to getting polls right
3. Why do different polls give different results?
4. Current party support
5. What the future holds
5. How many people here
today have been surveyed
for an opinion poll?
6. How come I am never called for a poll?
Over
4 Million
people!
Only about 15
national polls are
published each year
Approx. 60,000
people contacted and
15,000 people
interviewed
Less than 1% of the
population.
7. How can 1000 people represent the whole
population?
“If you don't
believe in random
sampling….
…next time you
go for a blood test
ask them to take it
all!”
8. What is the possible error of opinion polls?
AIMRO guidelines =
minimum sample of 1000
interviews for a national poll.
Sample error of just + or
-3%
Local or regional polls = 500
interviews.
This does increase the
possible error to + or – 4.5%
9. Does it matter when a poll was done?
Even bad publicity can give parties a boost!
Events can have a dramatic impact on
poll results.
10. Do people not just lie to pollsters?
1. Why bother? Easier to tell
the truth
2. If people did often lie,
opinion polls would never
get their predictions correct.
3. Code of conduct by proper
industry players means
results are collected on an
unattributable basis, so
there should be no reason
to lie.
11. How were the interviews conducted?
The key here is that the poll is
conducted outbound by the
company – not a phone-in poll.
These types of polls are
normally conducted face to face
or by phone.
Online polls should still be
treated with caution in Ireland –
over 55’s not represented.
13. RED C Method for Getting Polls Right
RED C conducts polls by phone,
because we believe they are
more accurate.
Telephone interviewer has no
control over who they interview.
This makes respondent selection
truly random as the interviewer
doesn’t know if the person is in
an apartment or country house!
Provides a base sample that is
more representative.
14. How do we make sure the sample is accurate?
1. Random Digit Dialling
Initial random sample of directories nationwide
– then +1 or +3 added to number – ensures
ex-directory households included
2. Mobile sample
25% of the Irish Population now mobile
only
Half sample with landlines and half with
mobiles – reach is 98% of the population
3. Quotas
Quotas set based on census data for gender,
age, region and social class to ensure the
sample is representative.
15. How important are the questions that are asked?
Question wording and order of
questions are vital
RED C always ask voting
intention first, as other questions
such as party leader ratings may
bias results.
On the phone it is also important
to prompt for ALL parties.
16. RED C techniques employed to maximise accuracy
Likelihood to Vote
Not everyone votes –
turnout 67% at the last
election….
…this needs to be taken
account of in the analysis
Only look at results by
those likely to vote (on a ten
point scale exclude those
who say they are 1-3)
Turnout GE 2007
67%
17. RED C techniques employed to maximise accuracy
Weighting by past vote
Demographics do not necessarily
give us a 100% accurate sample
Sometimes recall of how people
voted last time is different to the
result.
Part faulty recall ….BUT part
suggesting a biased sample
RED C compares the declared past
votes to the actual result of the last
general election and weights to the
mid-point of the two.
18. The benefits of Regular Tracking
Statistical theories prove that, in a random poll of 1,000, 19
times out of 20 a poll will be accurate to within 3 per cent.
But this does leave the one in 20 chance of the result being
outside this margin of error – a Rogue Poll
It is sensible to weigh up the results of several different polls
when calculating the most likely outcome.
19. 33 33
67 67
How accurate are opinion polls then?
RED C had four of the five most
accurate pre-election polls in
2007.
Final GE 2007 poll had an
average sample error of just
1.4%.
2009 local elections saw an
average error of just 2.1% - as
accurate as the exit poll.
The Lisbon Treaty result was
predicted with 100% accuracy.
Yes – in favour
No - against
Last
RED C
Poll
%
Final
Result
%
Lisbon Treaty Sep 2009
20. Why are do polls from different companies show
different results?
Volatile nature of electorate
Events that happen during or
before polls.
Different method – phone vs.
face to face
Different question wording &
order.
Analysis techniques – likely
voters & past vote weighting
A Rogue Poll!
Normally they
don’t!
1.Last general election all
were within average 1-2%
error of the final result
2.Biggest gap for any party
across all the pollsters was
just 2%
BUT POSSIBLY…..
21. Fianna Fáil
Fine Gael
Labour
Sinn Féin
Green Party
PDs
Independent
Current trends in 1st
preference vote intention
(Base: All adults likely to vote 18+)
31%
24%
23%
10%
3%
9%
Banking
Crisis
Starts
Cowen
FF Leader
TD’s Pay
Increase
+ Tribunal
Economy
Worsens
Lisbon
Treaty 2
Budget
2009
FG
Heave
Local
Elections
22. What can we expect in the run up to the election?
1. The electorate are volatile – 50% of those still undecided voted
Fianna Fail at the last election
2. The ability to handle the economy is the most important aspect for
voters in the run up to next election, BUT…
… no major party currently has that support – only 30% of the
electorate believe Fine Gael/Labour coalition can handle the
economy despite joint 1st
preference of 56%!
3. Current support for Fine Gael and Labour may not be built on very
strong foundations – however the desire to punish Fianna Fail
remains.
4. 1 in 5 voters only made up their mind in the last week of the election
campaign in 2007.
…plenty of room for more changes
before an election is held