One of the stories of the general election was how wrong all of the polls were during the run in. The day of the election itself had both the Tories and Labour tied; none of them predicted the Tory landslide on the way. Or at least what looked like a landslide after what the polls had been telling us to expect.
Usually by this stage, almost two weeks post-election, we would have had a clutch of national voting attention polls. It keeps the data fresh, and is also incredibly fascinating to geeks like me. I just love to see how people say they’re going to vote next time, having just done so. Do they feel buyers remorse already? Will the Lib Dem now be higher or lower than 8%? Will UKIP’s meltdown of the last week or so affect them negatively in the polls? I need answers to these questions, goddamit; I’m having some sort of polling delerium tremens.
Clearly the polling companies are smarting from having called it all so wrong, but I think they should just get over it. When you look at the very different methodology each of the companies involved employ, I can think of only one reason why they were united in giving forth almost identical, incorrect answers: because the people being polled were lying, or at the very least being untruthful when they told the pollsters where their crosses would end up (in other words, they were being honest with their answers at the time; they just ended up voting differently on the day). It does seem odd that this affected so many people, but hey, human beings can be odd from time to time (see: Miliband, Edward).
So I think the pollsters are at present like the guy whose girlfriend dumped him, sat at home, eating junk food, watching day time television and avoiding the world. They need to put down those Doritos and rejoin the human race. People like me need to know what percentage of people plan to vote Green on a semi-daily basis, so don’t worry, all is forgiven.
Was it shame faced Tories lying or was it Lazy Labour supporters not bothering to vote? It seemed to me that every “man in the street” interview I saw (for months before the election) showed natural Labour supporters trying to find any excuse NOT to vote Labour. And the Lib Dems were never mentioned. Anecdotally at least… the writing was on the wall. It still feels like a cruel trick was played by the pollsters on any non Tory.
I’m missing polls too! I also hope that when I eventually see one, it uses the same methodology as those before the election. If it does not, it will not be comparable. I find it difficult to believe that so many (3 in 100 ish?) people would all lie though, and all in the same direction.
Opinion pollsters keep on about margin of error. Which is a fine excuse for an individual poll. But not when all polls point the same way (the more you measure, the lower the error). The question then to ask is, should pollsters take account of this lying. My feeling is they should not. Because different factors might cause people to lie in different directions at different elections. So any attempt to account for it could come undone next time round (notwithstanding the fact that admitting to voting Tory always carries some stigma). We can then treat the polls as indications of a trend, rather than an absolute prediction. And for that, they should hold true.
I think a lot is people who say they will vote and don’t. About 3/4 are telling pollsters they will vote, but well under 70% do. Are missing voters potential Lab supporters???
That’s a very good point John. Given the demographics for voters for the respective parties, you could well have it. This of course is where the traditional factor of the weather could come into play, but I don’t think that should have kept people at home this time. It might be worth a look though, as it was far from a great weather day, here at least (but then my constituency is still Lib Dem!).