{"id":1267,"date":"2011-03-16T16:25:29","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T20:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/"},"modified":"2014-05-21T13:31:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T17:31:04","slug":"what-went-wrong","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/fall-2005\/what-went-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"What went wrong? Last year\u2019s election result raises critical questions about public opinion polling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted Sep. 1\/05<\/em><\/p>\n

Previous: Behind the scenes<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

DEAD HEAT.\u201d \u201cDown to the wire.\u201d \u201cHARPER WIDENS SEAT LEAD.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prompted by national opinion polls, these were some of the headlines from national media outlets in the days before last year\u2019s federal election.<\/p>\n

Some polls triggered news stories that predicted a razor-thin Conservative victory over the Liberals, making Conservative Leader Stephen Harper the country\u2019s next prime minister. Buoyed by such reports, a jubilant Harper boasted mid-campaign that his party was preparing to take over the reigns of power from Prime Minister Paul Martin.<\/p>\n

But these heady predictions and declarations did not come to pass, which begs the question: What went wrong?<\/p>\n

According to Darrell Bricker, PhD\/89, president of Ipsos Public Affairs in North America, Canadian voters simply changed their mind at the last minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t usually happen,\u201d says Bricker from the polling firm\u2019s Toronto offices. \u201cUsually, you can pin it a week out and get it within the margin of error. But there was enough of a change at the last minute among about six percent of the vote in Ontario to shift the entire election.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was also an issue of timing. The election took place on a Monday, so in order for pollsters to get their final results published in the weekend papers, they needed to submit four or five days before voting day, says Bricker, adding that by the time Canadians cast their votes, they were reading about poll results that were nearly a week old.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe polling wasn\u2019t inaccurate, the election moved on,\u201d says Bricker. \u201cAnd you can end up with some critical movement in the last minute that moved a lot of seats, particularly in a close election. We haven\u2019t had a close election like this since 1979.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/address>\n
\n
\"\"<\/dt>\n
Christopher Waddell, Carleton\u2019s Carty Chair in Business and Financial Journalism <\/em><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Indeed, good public opinion polling will give you a snapshot of what people were thinking at the time the poll was done, says Christopher Waddell, Carleton\u2019s Carty Chair in Business and Financial Journalism and a former Ottawa bureau chief with the Globe and Mail.<\/p>\n

But polls can never tell you anything about what people will think in the future about a particular issue, adds Waddell. The problem is, this doesn\u2019t stop the media from using polls as a device to try to predict what people are going to think a few days later, he says.<\/p>\n

This means the public needs to be on guard when interpreting polls, says Waddell, adding that while the sample size and questions of various polls can be different, the media tends to equate all public opinion polls as the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say you went out and asked people, \u2018If a federal election were held today, which party would you vote for?\u2019 If you ask that question at the start of a poll or at the end, you get different answers. There\u2019s a debate within the polling community about the best thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bricker, the best way to tackle this is to always ask the main question at the start of the survey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my view, and we\u2019ve been doing it for years. There is evidence showing this yields accurate results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another challenge for pollsters is the public\u2019s intolerance to telemarketers, which have brought response rates down to about 20 percent from 50 percent, says Waddell.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a segment of society that is more likely to have ways of avoiding telemarketers (such as answering machines or cell phones)? Could it be that (pollsters) are missing a whole demographic of society?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bricker says this isn\u2019t an issue. He points to the U.S., where there used to be growing concern over missing a large group of young people who only owned unlisted cell phone numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you look at the American polls, they\u2019re all spot on,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it has nothing to do with response rates.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Next: <\/strong>Getting attention amid a sea of voices<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Some polls triggered news stories that predicted a razor-thin Conservative victory over the Liberals, making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":1220,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"yoast_head":"\nWhat went wrong? 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