(=_=)
2015-01-03 22:31:30 UTC
If nothing else, this article will give you a heads up on how to NOT become a
'panel' member or how to NOT reveal which party you plan to vote for.
In other words: skip being a participant for the poll companies (many of which
are closely affiliated with certain political parties) and let them wait for
the results at the real polls.
___________________________________________________
Special to The Globe and Mail - Wednesday, Sep. 03 2014
Everything you need to know about political polling
With every election – and increasingly often between elections – new polls come
out frequently, purporting to show what percentage of the population say they
support which candidates. Polls can be a useful tool to gauge how politicians
and issues are faring in the public eye, but they aren't without their
downsides. Can you trust poll numbers? And when and how should you take results
with a grain of salt?
Here's a guide to understand how polls are done and how to interpret their
results. . . .
Why do we poll people about their political preferences?
Polls serve a purpose. They allow the public to ‘speak truth to power’, putting
the lie to political spin and keeping our political leaders accountable. Polls
can be useful pieces of information that might help voters decide how to cast
their ballots. As part of the process of deciding how to vote in an election,
we canvas our friends and family, we listen to talk radio, or we read opinion
pieces in the newspaper to get an idea of how a race is shaping up. Polls are
no different – just more scientific.
As well, people are interested. Few political stories get as much traction as
the results of the latest poll. People like to know the state of a political
race and who might win, like spoilers for an upcoming comic book movie.
Newsrooms, advocacy groups, and political parties commission pollsters to
conduct surveys for them, with the cost ranging from a few thousand to a few
tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the type of poll.
Increasingly, though, polling companies conduct polls and hand them to the
media for free, or publish them directly on their websites. This is done to
promote the company’s services, as pollsters generally make the vast majority
of their revenues from market research, rather than political polls.
What are respondents asked when they’re polled?
That depends on the survey. If it is a poll about voting intentions, the first
question to be asked is usually whether you are eligible to vote. There’s no
reason to poll people who can’t cast a ballot.
A properly constructed poll will often get right to the most important
questions in order to prevent a bias from seeping in.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If an election were held today, which party would you vote for? Some polls
allow you to say the name of the party yourself, but most provide a list from
which to choose, with the order of the parties being randomized with each call.
Other questions might revolve around approval ratings or specific political
topics of interest. A poll then usually ends with demographic questions
related to age, gender, income, and education. This helps calibrate the poll
to get the sample to reflect the general population.
How do pollsters reach respondents?
There are THREE methods that are used by most pollsters today.
Phone interview:
One is the oldest method still in use: via the telephone. Numbers are randomly
dialed within a given area code, and a live interviewer is on the other end of
the line to conduct the poll. These interviewers follow a precise script to
ensure that every call is conducted in the same manner. If your number was
dialed but you weren’t home, a proper poll will try several times to reach you
over the next hours or days. Otherwise, the sample might be skewed by
interviewing only people who were at home at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Maybe
these people are different than those who are home on Wednesdays.
-----------------
Robo-poll:
Another method also uses the telephone, but instead of a live interviewer the
call is automated. These are known as ‘robo-polls’. A recorded script is
played, and respondents are asked to punch in their responses using the
telephone keypad. Press 1 for Conservative, press 2 for Liberal, etc. The
advantage of this method is that many calls can be conducted quickly and
cheaply – you don’t have to train and pay a team of interviewers to get the
results.
_________
Compiled 'panels':
The last method that is becoming increasingly ubiquitous is via the internet.
Polling firms assemble a panel of internet users, often numbering in the
hundreds of thousands. These panelists can be recruited in various ways,
including through internet advertisements and over the telephone.
Once the panel is built, pollsters then survey among the members of that panel,
ensuring that those who complete the survey are broadly reflective of the
target population. ^_^;
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What error is there in the numbers?
There are a number of sources of error, the most important one being sampling
error. No matter how perfectly a poll is conducted, there will always be a
degree of error associated when sampling a small portion of a large population.
This is reported as the ‘margin of error’, and in a standard poll of 1,000
people that margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
That means that if the poll had been conducted in exactly the same way 20
times, in 19 of those cases the results would be within 3.1 points of actual
public opinion.
This assumes, however, that the sample was drawn randomly and that everyone in
the target population has an equal chance of being interviewed. This is why
telephone polling can still carry a margin of error – virtually everyone has a
telephone, be it a landline or mobile phone (and yes, most pollsters do sample
cell phones). But not everyone will respond. Response rates have dropped to 10
per cent or less, from roughly 1-in-3 in the past.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This might have an important effect on the accuracy of a poll, though there is
some debate in the industry about whether or not this effect is significant.
Internet polls, as they survey a subset of the population that is a member of a
panel, are not supposed to carry margins of error, at least according to the
main industry bodies in Canada and the United States. There are still errors
associated with these polls, however, but they are not supposed to be measured
in the same way as a randomized telephone poll. Nevertheless, internet polls
are designed to be as accurate as their telephone counterparts, so should be
expected to perform as well. And they usually do.
But how can 1,000 people reflect the opinions of a country with a population of
35 million? <<= [especially after being selected after revealing which party
you would vote for?]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It might be hard to believe, but it is mathematically possible. A smaller
sample will, of course, have a harder time reflecting the population
accurately. But a poll of 1,000 people is generally considered the standard
size. Larger polls have smaller margins of error, but the return on that extra
effort is smaller is well. Doubling the sample size does not cut the margin of
error in half, for example.
One common way to explain how sampling works is to imagine a pot of soup. The
pot of soup contains a large number of different ingredients mixed together.
That is our target population. If you dip a spoon into the pot and taste it,
the spoonful will likely taste like the rest of the pot of soup. That’s our poll.
You don’t need to eat the entire pot to know what it tastes like. The odds of
getting a spoonful that is completely unrepresentative of the entire pot of
soup is low - and it is the same with polling samples. If the pot of soup has
been mixed together properly (or if a sample is collected randomly), a small
sample of it should be reflective of the entire pot (or the entire population).
How accurate have polls been in predicting election results?
They can do very well, and in most elections they reflect the outcome quite
closely. There have been some notable misses, of course, such as the
provincial elections in Alberta in 2012 and British Columbia in 2013. But
while the polls might have missed those outcomes, they did choose the winner in
the most recent provincial elections in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario,
Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and
Labrador, and federally. Cases like Alberta and British Columbia are so
notorious because they are rare.
And there were some reasons for those misses. In Alberta, most pollsters
stopped polling almost a week before the election, and so may have missed a
late shift in voting intentions. In British Columbia, there was great
difficulty in modelling the voting population.
There are degrees of accuracy as well. The polls in the last provincial
election in Ontario were mixed, though most had the Liberals winning – just not
necessarily with a majority.
In the 2011 federal election, every poll at the end of the campaign put the
Conservatives in first by a comfortable margin and the NDP in second (and about
to make a huge breakthrough in Quebec). No poll gave a strong indication,
however, that the Conservatives would win a majority government.
In other cases, however, the polls can do remarkably well. This was the case
in the last elections in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
It is impossible to know beforehand which elections will be polled well and
which will not. Often there are reasons intrinsic to each campaign that can
help or hinder the accuracy of the polls. But misses like Alberta and B.C. are
very rare – only marginal errors should be expected in most cases.
Who are the polling firms that work in Canada?
Canada has a limited number of national firms, as well as some firms that do
regional polling.
Pollsters that conduct national polls include Abacas Data, Angus Reid Global,
EKOS Research, Forum Research, Harris-Decima (now part of Nielsen), Ipsos Reid,
Léger and Nanos Research. Infrequently, other polling firms release national
numbers as well.
At the regional level, there is, among others, Insights West and the Mustel
Group in British Columbia, ThinkHQ in Alberta, Insightrix in Saskatchewan,
Probe Research in Manitoba, CROP in Quebec, and the Corporate Research
Associates in Atlantic Canada.
'panel' member or how to NOT reveal which party you plan to vote for.
In other words: skip being a participant for the poll companies (many of which
are closely affiliated with certain political parties) and let them wait for
the results at the real polls.
___________________________________________________
Special to The Globe and Mail - Wednesday, Sep. 03 2014
Everything you need to know about political polling
With every election – and increasingly often between elections – new polls come
out frequently, purporting to show what percentage of the population say they
support which candidates. Polls can be a useful tool to gauge how politicians
and issues are faring in the public eye, but they aren't without their
downsides. Can you trust poll numbers? And when and how should you take results
with a grain of salt?
Here's a guide to understand how polls are done and how to interpret their
results. . . .
Why do we poll people about their political preferences?
Polls serve a purpose. They allow the public to ‘speak truth to power’, putting
the lie to political spin and keeping our political leaders accountable. Polls
can be useful pieces of information that might help voters decide how to cast
their ballots. As part of the process of deciding how to vote in an election,
we canvas our friends and family, we listen to talk radio, or we read opinion
pieces in the newspaper to get an idea of how a race is shaping up. Polls are
no different – just more scientific.
As well, people are interested. Few political stories get as much traction as
the results of the latest poll. People like to know the state of a political
race and who might win, like spoilers for an upcoming comic book movie.
Newsrooms, advocacy groups, and political parties commission pollsters to
conduct surveys for them, with the cost ranging from a few thousand to a few
tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the type of poll.
Increasingly, though, polling companies conduct polls and hand them to the
media for free, or publish them directly on their websites. This is done to
promote the company’s services, as pollsters generally make the vast majority
of their revenues from market research, rather than political polls.
What are respondents asked when they’re polled?
That depends on the survey. If it is a poll about voting intentions, the first
question to be asked is usually whether you are eligible to vote. There’s no
reason to poll people who can’t cast a ballot.
A properly constructed poll will often get right to the most important
questions in order to prevent a bias from seeping in.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If an election were held today, which party would you vote for? Some polls
allow you to say the name of the party yourself, but most provide a list from
which to choose, with the order of the parties being randomized with each call.
Other questions might revolve around approval ratings or specific political
topics of interest. A poll then usually ends with demographic questions
related to age, gender, income, and education. This helps calibrate the poll
to get the sample to reflect the general population.
How do pollsters reach respondents?
There are THREE methods that are used by most pollsters today.
Phone interview:
One is the oldest method still in use: via the telephone. Numbers are randomly
dialed within a given area code, and a live interviewer is on the other end of
the line to conduct the poll. These interviewers follow a precise script to
ensure that every call is conducted in the same manner. If your number was
dialed but you weren’t home, a proper poll will try several times to reach you
over the next hours or days. Otherwise, the sample might be skewed by
interviewing only people who were at home at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Maybe
these people are different than those who are home on Wednesdays.
-----------------
Robo-poll:
Another method also uses the telephone, but instead of a live interviewer the
call is automated. These are known as ‘robo-polls’. A recorded script is
played, and respondents are asked to punch in their responses using the
telephone keypad. Press 1 for Conservative, press 2 for Liberal, etc. The
advantage of this method is that many calls can be conducted quickly and
cheaply – you don’t have to train and pay a team of interviewers to get the
results.
_________
Compiled 'panels':
The last method that is becoming increasingly ubiquitous is via the internet.
Polling firms assemble a panel of internet users, often numbering in the
hundreds of thousands. These panelists can be recruited in various ways,
including through internet advertisements and over the telephone.
Once the panel is built, pollsters then survey among the members of that panel,
ensuring that those who complete the survey are broadly reflective of the
target population. ^_^;
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What error is there in the numbers?
There are a number of sources of error, the most important one being sampling
error. No matter how perfectly a poll is conducted, there will always be a
degree of error associated when sampling a small portion of a large population.
This is reported as the ‘margin of error’, and in a standard poll of 1,000
people that margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
That means that if the poll had been conducted in exactly the same way 20
times, in 19 of those cases the results would be within 3.1 points of actual
public opinion.
This assumes, however, that the sample was drawn randomly and that everyone in
the target population has an equal chance of being interviewed. This is why
telephone polling can still carry a margin of error – virtually everyone has a
telephone, be it a landline or mobile phone (and yes, most pollsters do sample
cell phones). But not everyone will respond. Response rates have dropped to 10
per cent or less, from roughly 1-in-3 in the past.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This might have an important effect on the accuracy of a poll, though there is
some debate in the industry about whether or not this effect is significant.
Internet polls, as they survey a subset of the population that is a member of a
panel, are not supposed to carry margins of error, at least according to the
main industry bodies in Canada and the United States. There are still errors
associated with these polls, however, but they are not supposed to be measured
in the same way as a randomized telephone poll. Nevertheless, internet polls
are designed to be as accurate as their telephone counterparts, so should be
expected to perform as well. And they usually do.
But how can 1,000 people reflect the opinions of a country with a population of
35 million? <<= [especially after being selected after revealing which party
you would vote for?]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
It might be hard to believe, but it is mathematically possible. A smaller
sample will, of course, have a harder time reflecting the population
accurately. But a poll of 1,000 people is generally considered the standard
size. Larger polls have smaller margins of error, but the return on that extra
effort is smaller is well. Doubling the sample size does not cut the margin of
error in half, for example.
One common way to explain how sampling works is to imagine a pot of soup. The
pot of soup contains a large number of different ingredients mixed together.
That is our target population. If you dip a spoon into the pot and taste it,
the spoonful will likely taste like the rest of the pot of soup. That’s our poll.
You don’t need to eat the entire pot to know what it tastes like. The odds of
getting a spoonful that is completely unrepresentative of the entire pot of
soup is low - and it is the same with polling samples. If the pot of soup has
been mixed together properly (or if a sample is collected randomly), a small
sample of it should be reflective of the entire pot (or the entire population).
How accurate have polls been in predicting election results?
They can do very well, and in most elections they reflect the outcome quite
closely. There have been some notable misses, of course, such as the
provincial elections in Alberta in 2012 and British Columbia in 2013. But
while the polls might have missed those outcomes, they did choose the winner in
the most recent provincial elections in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario,
Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and
Labrador, and federally. Cases like Alberta and British Columbia are so
notorious because they are rare.
And there were some reasons for those misses. In Alberta, most pollsters
stopped polling almost a week before the election, and so may have missed a
late shift in voting intentions. In British Columbia, there was great
difficulty in modelling the voting population.
There are degrees of accuracy as well. The polls in the last provincial
election in Ontario were mixed, though most had the Liberals winning – just not
necessarily with a majority.
In the 2011 federal election, every poll at the end of the campaign put the
Conservatives in first by a comfortable margin and the NDP in second (and about
to make a huge breakthrough in Quebec). No poll gave a strong indication,
however, that the Conservatives would win a majority government.
In other cases, however, the polls can do remarkably well. This was the case
in the last elections in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
It is impossible to know beforehand which elections will be polled well and
which will not. Often there are reasons intrinsic to each campaign that can
help or hinder the accuracy of the polls. But misses like Alberta and B.C. are
very rare – only marginal errors should be expected in most cases.
Who are the polling firms that work in Canada?
Canada has a limited number of national firms, as well as some firms that do
regional polling.
Pollsters that conduct national polls include Abacas Data, Angus Reid Global,
EKOS Research, Forum Research, Harris-Decima (now part of Nielsen), Ipsos Reid,
Léger and Nanos Research. Infrequently, other polling firms release national
numbers as well.
At the regional level, there is, among others, Insights West and the Mustel
Group in British Columbia, ThinkHQ in Alberta, Insightrix in Saskatchewan,
Probe Research in Manitoba, CROP in Quebec, and the Corporate Research
Associates in Atlantic Canada.