I’m usually a big advocate for the polling companies, within the published degrees of accuracy, they rarely get it wrong. Obviously when votes are very close and can go either way, they are going to struggle.
However, the voting intension polls seem to be all over the place at the moment, swinging 5 or 6 points between polls, which are more or less daily. Is our politics really this volatile or is there something not quite right with some of the methodology.
“Opinion polls are a device for influencing public opinion, not a device for measuring it. Crack that,and it all makes sense.“ - Hitchens, I think Peter for once rather than Christopher.
Election polls are affected by which parties are prompted for. Some polls will not prompt for the greens, or other smaller parties. Also, the question and any previous questions will affect the answer.
> However, the voting intension polls seem to be all over the place at the moment, swinging 5 or 6 points between polls, which are more or less daily. Is our politics really this volatile or is there something not quite right with some of the methodology.
If you look at particular pollsters, then the results look much more consistent. All the pollsters will use different corrections to try and eliminate known biases in their samples. It looks like these differences (rather than the poll results) are the source of the discrepancies.
I think the polls have been all over the place for months due to the ever changing Brexit situation. Do you visit Britainelects? They summarise all results from the reputable polling organisations.
If you are referring to the recent ComRes and Opinionum (sp?) surveys, it appears to be due to the way they account for turnout. ComRes are supposedly accounting for a 25% turnout among 18-35 yr olds, where as Opinionum are looking at 15%
> If you are referring to the recent ComRes and Opinionum (sp?) surveys, it appears to be due to the way they account for turnout. ComRes are supposedly accounting for a 25% turnout among 18-35 yr olds, where as Opinionum are looking at 15%
Turnout for 18-35 year olds in consistently about 50%, it was above 60% in 2017.
> Yes I mis read it's the weighting they apply... ie. 25% /15% of total turnout
That makes more sense, although I’m interested in how they came up with those figures. The actual for the last three elections was 9% (2017), 19% (2015) and 14% (2010).
I'm not sure about the Corbyn leadership polls, not something I paid much attention to, but you are wrong about the 2017 general election and Brexit, they were correct within the stated uncertainties. You would have more of a point if you talked about the 2015 general election.
> I'm not sure about the Corbyn leadership polls, not something I paid much attention to, but you are wrong about the 2017 general election and Brexit, they were correct within the stated uncertainties. You would have more of a point if you talked about the 2015 general election.
Weren't there polls showing the massive defeat of Labour, and the demise of the party altogether?
that may have simply been the press, mind, two years is a long time in Krikoman World.
> Weren't there polls showing the massive defeat of Labour, and the demise of the party altogether?
I thought they had died, hence the lack of opposition in the commons for the past two years. The Tory remainers (or folk like chuka) who switched allegiance have arguably done more to oppose their own government, than the hibernating Labour party.
In reply to The New NickB:they'rve suffered a bit recently as their data collection methods I.e. telephone polls needed s lot of reworking, and how they account for bias. That's very true for party politics - Brexit was well predicted, and Trumps election was well inside the error bar.
Not UK related but Nate Silvers 538 page is good to look at for information on how they 'poll the polls'
It also depends on which polling model is being used, Survation or YouGov (I can't remember which) use a constituency by constituency model sometimes which is much better for predicting the make up of the house of commons but is far more expensive than doing it on a region or nation wide basis which can't account for votes being stacked in safe seats or predict how swing seats will fall.
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