An opinion poll is a survey Statistical surveys are used to collect quantitative information about items in a population. Surveys of human populations and institutions are common in political polling and government, health, social science and marketing research. A survey may focus on opinions or factual information depending on its purpose, and many surveys involve of public opinion Public opinion is the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views. The principle approaches to the study of public opinion may be divided into 4 categories: from a particular sample Sampling is that part of statistical practice concerned with the selection of an unbiased or random subset of individual observations within a population of individuals intended to yield some knowledge about the population of concern, especially for the purposes of making predictions based on statistical inference. Sampling is an important aspect. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals In statistics, a confidence interval is a particular kind of interval estimate of a population parameter. Instead of estimating the parameter by a single value, an interval likely to include the parameter is given. Thus, confidence intervals are used to indicate the reliability of an estimate. How likely the interval is to contain the parameter is.

Contents

History

The first known example of an opinion poll was a local straw poll A straw poll or straw vote is a vote with nonbinding results. Straw polls provide important interactive dialogue among movements within large groups, reflecting trends like organization and motivation. In meetings subject to rules of order, impromptu straw polls often are taken to see if there is enough support for an idea to devote more meeting conducted by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian in 1824 In the United States presidential election of 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected President on February 9, 1825, after the election was decided by the House of Representatives. The previous few years had seen a one-party government in the United States, as the Federalist Party had dissolved, leaving only the Democratic-Republican Party. In this, showing Andrew Jackson His legacy is now seen as mixed, as a protector of popular democracy and individual liberty for American citizens, checkered by his support for slavery and Indian removal. Renowned for his toughness, he was nicknamed "Old Hickory". As he based his career in developing Tennessee, Jackson was the first president primarily associated with leading John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States from March 4, 1825, to March 4, 1829. He was also an American diplomat and served in both the Senate and House of Representatives. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of President John by 335 votes to 169 in the contest for the United States Presidency. Such straw votes gradually became more popular, but they remained local, usually city-wide phenomena. In 1916, the Literary Digest The Literary Digest was an influential general interest weekly magazine published by Funk & Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, Public Opinion and Current Opinion embarked on a national survey (partly as a circulation-raising exercise) and correctly predicted Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States. A leader of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the Republican Party vote, Wilson was elected President as a's election as president. Mailing out millions of postcards A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. In some places, it is possible to send them for a lower fee than for a letter. Stamp collectors distinguish between postcards and postal cards (which have the postage pre-printed on them). While a postcard is and simply counting the returns, the Digest correctly called the following four presidential elections.

In 1936 The United States presidential election of 1936 was the most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States in terms of electoral votes. In terms of the popular vote, it was the third biggest victory since 1820 however the Digest came unstuck. Its 2.3 million "voters" constituted a huge sample; however they were generally more affluent Americans who tended to have Republican The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. The party's platform is generally considered right of center sympathies. The Literary Digest was ignorant of this new bias. The week before election day, it reported that Alf Landon Alfred "Alf" Mossman Landon was an American Republican politician, who served as Governor of Kansas from 1933–1937. He was best known for being the Republican Party's (GOP) nominee for President of the United States, defeated in a landslide by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in the 1936 presidential election was far more popular than Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war. The only American president elected to more than two terms (he was elected to four but only served three full terms, dying in his. At the same time, George Gallup George Horace Gallup was an American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll, a successful statistical method of survey sampling for measuring public opinion conducted a far smaller, but more scientifically-based survey, in which he polled a demographically representative sample. Gallup correctly predicted Roosevelt's landslide victory. The Literary Digest soon went out of business, while polling started to take off.

Elmo Roper Elmo Burns Roper, Jr. was a pollster known for his pioneering work in market research and opinion polling. He was hired by Henry Luce in 1935 to run surveys for Fortune, continuing these surveys for 15 years. His prediction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's electoral victory over Alf Landon in 1936 was correct to within 0.9%; his 1940 prediction of was another American pioneer in political forecasting using scientific polls.[1] He predicted the reelection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt three times, in 1936, 1940, and 1944. Louis Harris Louis Harris was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. His father Harry was a real-estate developer. He attended New Haven High School and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1942). In 1943 he married Florence Yard of Chicago and resided in New York City and Key West. The Dean of American Public Opinion polling had been in the field of public opinion since 1947 when he joined the Elmo Roper firm, then later became partner.

Gallup The Gallup Organization, currently just Gallup, provides a variety of management consulting, human resources and statistical research services. It has over 40 offices in 27 countries. World headquarters are in Washington, D.C.; operational headquarters are in Omaha, Nebraska. Its current Chairman and CEO is Jim Clifton launched a subsidiary in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of the island of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land, where it correctly predicted Labour's The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, and is regarded as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales since 1920. Labour first surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s. It formed minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and from 1929 until 1931 and took victory in the 1945 general election The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. It was ultimately counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to transport the votes of those serving overseas, in contrast with virtually all other commentators, who expected a victory for the Conservative Party The Conservative and Unionist Party is a political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in its present form during the early 19th century, it has since been the principal centre-right party in the UK, led by Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, FRS was a British politician known chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the great wartime leaders. He served as prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was.

By the 1950s, various types of polling had spread to most democracies. In Iraq Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūrīyat Al-Irāq, Kurdish: كۆماری عێراق‎, Komara Îraqê, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: ܥܸܪܵܩ) is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the, surveys conducted soon after the 2003 war aimed to measure the feelings of Iraqi citizens regarding Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Ba'ath Party, which espoused secular pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power, post-war conditions, and the presence of US forces.

Sample and polling methods

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Opinion polls for many years were maintained through telecommunications or in person-to-person contact. Methods and techniques vary, though they are widely accepted in most areas. Verbal, ballot, and processed types can be conducted efficiently, contrasted with other types of surveys, systematics, and complicated matrices beyond previous orthodox procedures. Opinion polling developed into popular applications through popular thought, although response rates for some surveys declined. Also, the following has also led to differentiating results:[1] Some polling organizations, such as and Angus Reid Strategies Angus Reid Strategies is a North American full service market research firm. It was established in 2006 by Angus Reid, a Canadian sociologist who founded his first research company in 1979. Reid sold the Angus Reid Group to Paris-based Ipsos SA in 2000. ARS conducts regional, national and multi-country research, YouGov YouGov is an international internet-based market research firm launched in the UK in May 2000 by Stephan Shakespeare, now Chief Executive Officer, and Nadhim Zahawi. In 2005 the company opened an office in the Middle East, YouGovSiraj, and in 2007 it further expanded by acquiring market research firms in the USA, Germany and Scandinavia, which are and Zogby Zogby International is a U.S. market research, opinion polling firm founded in 1984 by John Zogby. The company polls and consults for a wide spectrum of business media, government, and political groups, and conducts public opinion research in more than 70 countries. Zogby International is headquartered in Utica, New York, with offices in use Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and surveys, where a sample is drawn from a large panel of volunteers, and the results are weighed to reflect the demographics of the population of interest. This is in contrast to popular web polls that draw on whomever wishes to participate, rather than a scientific sample of the population, and are therefore not generally considered professional.

Tracking polls

A tracking poll is a poll repeated at intervals generally averaged over a trailing window.[2] For example, a weekly tracking poll uses the data from the past week and discards older data.

A key benefit of tracking polls is that the trend of a tracking poll (the change over time) corrects for bias: regardless of whether a poll consistently over or underestimates opinion, the trend correctly reflects increases or decreases.

A caution is that estimating the trend is more difficult and error-prone than estimating the level – intuitively, if one estimates the change, the difference between two numbers X and Y, then one has to contend with the error in both X and Y – it is not enough to simply take the difference, as the change may be random noise. For details, see t-test A t-test is any statistical hypothesis test in which the test statistic follows a Student's t distribution if the null hypothesis is supported. It is most commonly applied when the test statistic would follow a normal distribution if the value of a scaling term in the test statistic were known. When the scaling term is unknown and is replaced by. A rough guide is that if the change in measurement falls outside the margin of error, it is worth attention.

Potential for inaccuracy

Polls based on samples of populations are subject to sampling error In statistics, sampling error or estimation error is the error caused by observing a sample instead of the whole population. The sampling error can be found by subtracting the value of a parameter from the value of a statistic.[citation needed] In nursing research, a sampling error is the difference between a sample statistic used to estimate a which reflects the effects of chance and uncertainty in the sampling process. The uncertainty is often expressed as a margin of error The margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey's results. The larger the margin of error, the less faith one should have that the poll's reported results are close to the "true" figures; that is, the figures for the whole population. The margin of error is usually defined as the radius of a confidence interval for a particular statistic from a survey. One example is the percent of people who prefer product A versus product B. When a single, global margin of error is reported for a survey, it refers to the maximum margin of error for all reported percentages using the full sample from the survey. If the statistic is a percentage, this maximum margin of error can be calculated as the radius of the confidence interval for a reported percentage of 50%. Others suggest that a poll with a random sample of 1,000 people has margin of sampling error of 3% for the estimated percentage of the whole population.

A 3% margin of error means that if the same procedure is used a large number of times, 95% of the time the true population average will be within the 95% confidence interval of the sample estimate plus or minus 3%. The margin of error can be reduced by using a larger sample, however if a pollster wishes to reduce the margin of error to 1% they would need a sample of around 10,000 people[3]. In practice pollsters need to balance the cost of a large sample against the reduction in sampling error and a sample size of around 500–1,000 is a typical compromise for political polls. (Note that to get complete responses it may be necessary to include thousands of additional participators.)[4]

Another way to reduce the margin of error is to rely on poll averages The problem with this is that each poll is usually conducted in a slightly different manner, which technically cannot be combined into one poll. Polls in themselves contain uncertainty because they are only using a sample of the population. The uncertainty is measurable, which we usually call the margin of error. An inaccurate way to conduct a. This makes the assumption that the procedure is similar enough between many different polls and uses the sample size of each poll to create a polling average.[5] An example of a polling average can be found here: 2008 Presidential Election polling average. Another source of error stems from faulty demographic models by pollsters who weigh their samples by particular variables such as party identification in an election. For example, if you assume that the breakdown of the US population by party identification has not changed since the previous presidential election, you may underestimate a victory or a defeat of a particular party candidate that saw a surge or decline in its party registration relative to the previous presidential election cycle.

Over time, a number of theories and mechanisms have been offered to explain erroneous polling results. Some of these reflect errors on the part of the pollsters; many of them are statistical in nature. Others blame the respondents for not giving candid answers (e.g., the Bradley effect The Bradley effect, less commonly called the Wilder effect, is a theory proposed to explain observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some US government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other. Instead of ascribing the results to flawed methodology on the part of the, the Shy Tory Factor Shy Tory Factor is a name given by British opinion polling companies to a phenomenon observed in the 1990s, where the share of the vote won by the Conservative Party in elections was substantially higher than the proportion of people in opinion polls who said they would vote for the party); these can be more controversial.

Nonresponse bias

Since some people do not answer calls from strangers, or refuse to answer the poll, poll samples may not be representative samples from a population. Because of this selection bias Selection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the method of collecting samples. If the, the characteristics of those who agree to be interviewed may be markedly different from those who decline. That is, the actual sample is a biased version of the universe the pollster wants to analyze. In these cases, bias introduces new errors, one way or the other, that are in addition to errors caused by sample size. Error due to bias does not become smaller with larger sample sizes, because taking a larger sample size simply repeats the same mistake on a larger scale. If the people who refuse to answer, or are never reached, have the same characteristics as the people who do answer, then the final results should be unbiased. If the people who do not answer have different opinions then there is bias in the results. In terms of election polls, studies suggest that bias effects are small, but each polling firm has its own techniques for adjusting weights to minimize selection bias.[6]

Response bias

Survey results may be affected by response bias Response bias is a type of cognitive bias which can affect the results of a statistical survey if respondents answer questions in the way they think the questioner wants them to answer rather than according to their true beliefs. This may occur if the questioner is obviously angling for a particular answer or if the respondent wishes to please the, where the answers given by respondents do not reflect their true beliefs. This may be deliberately engineered by unscrupulous pollsters in order to generate a certain result or please their clients, but more often is a result of the detailed wording or ordering of questions (see below). Respondents may deliberately try to manipulate the outcome of a poll by e.g. advocating a more extreme position than they actually hold in order to boost their side of the argument or give rapid and ill-considered answers in order to hasten the end of their questioning. Respondents may also feel under social pressure not to give an unpopular answer. For example, respondents might be unwilling to admit to unpopular attitudes like racism CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR or sexism Sexism, a term coined in the mid-20th century, is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. It can also refer to hatred of, or prejudice towards, either sex as a whole , or the application of stereotypes of masculinity in relation to men, or of femininity in relation to women. It, and thus polls might not reflect the true incidence of these attitudes in the population. In American political parlance, this a phenomenon is often referred to as the Bradley Effect The Bradley effect, less commonly called the Wilder effect, is a theory proposed to explain observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some US government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other. Instead of ascribing the results to flawed methodology on the part of the. If the results of surveys are widely publicized this effect may be magnified - a phenomenon commonly referred to as the spiral of silence The spiral of silence is a political science and mass communication theory propounded by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. The theory asserts that a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.

Wording of questions

It is well established that the wording of the questions, the order in which they are asked and the number and form of alternative answers offered can influence results of polls. For instance, the public is more likely to indicate support for a person who is described by the operator as one of the "leading candidates". This support itself overrides subtle bias for one candidate, as is lumping some candidates in an "other" category or vice versa. Thus comparisons between polls often boil down to the wording of the question. On some issues, question wording can result in quite pronounced differences between surveys.[7][8][9] This can also, however, be a result of legitimately conflicted feelings or evolving attitudes, rather than a poorly constructed survey.[10]

A common technique to control for this bias is to rotate the order in which questions are asked. Many pollsters also split-sample. This involves having two different versions of a question, with each version presented to half the respondents.

The most effective controls, used by attitude An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event-- this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously researchers, are:

These controls are not widely used in the polling industry.

Coverage bias

Another source of error is the use of samples that are not representative of the population as a consequence of the methodology used, as was the experience of the Literary Digest in 1936. For example, telephone sampling has a built-in error because in many times and places, those with telephones have generally been richer than those without.

In some places many people have only mobile telephones A mobile phone or mobile is an electronic device used for mobile telecommunications (mobile telephone, text messaging or data transmission) over a cellular network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. Mobile phones differ from cordless telephones, which only offer telephone service within limited range, e.g. within a home or an office,. Because pollsters cannot call mobile phones (it is unlawful in the United States to make unsolicited calls to phones where the phone's owner may be charged simply for taking a call), these individuals will never be included in the polling sample. If the subset of the population without cell phones differs markedly from the rest of the population, these differences can skew the results of the poll. Polling organizations have developed many weighting techniques to help overcome these deficiencies, to varying degrees of success. Studies of mobile phone users by the Pew Research Center in the US concluded that "cell-only respondents are different from landline respondents in important ways, (but) they were neither numerous enough nor different enough on the questions we examined to produce a significant change in overall general population survey estimates when included with the landline samples and weighted according to US Census parameters on basic demographic characteristics."[11]

This issue was first identified in 2004,[12] but came to prominence only during the 2008 US presidential election The 56th quadrennial United States presidential election was held on November 4, 2008. Outgoing Republican President George W. Bush's policies and actions and the American public's desire for change were key issues throughout the campaign. During the presidential election campaign, the major-party candidates ran on a platform of change and reform.[13] In previous elections, the proportion of the general population using cell phones was small, but as this proportion has increased, the worry is that polling only landlines is no longer representative of the general population. In 2003, a 2.9% of households were wireless (cellphones only) compared to 12.8 in 2006.[14] This results in "coverage error In statistics, sampling error or estimation error is the error caused by observing a sample instead of the whole population. The sampling error can be found by subtracting the value of a parameter from the value of a statistic.[citation needed]". Many polling organisations select their sample by dialling random telephone numbers; however, there is a clear tendency for polls which included mobile phones in their sample to show a much larger lead for Obama A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 than polls that did not.[15][16]

The potential sources of bias are:[17]

  1. Some households use cellphones only and have no landline. This tends to include minorities and younger voters; and occurs more frequently in metropolitan areas. Men are more likely to be cellphone-only compared to women.
  2. Some people may not be contactable by landline from Monday to Friday and may be contactable only by cellphone.
  3. Some people use their landlines only to access the Internet, and answer calls only to their cellphones.

Some polling companies have attempted to get around that problem by including a "cellphone supplement". There are a number of problems with including cellphones in a telephone poll:

  1. It is difficult to get co-operation from cellphone users, because in many parts of the US, users are charged for both outgoing and incoming calls. That means that pollsters have had to offer financial compensation to gain co-operation.
  2. US federal law prohibits the use of automated dialling devices to call cellphones (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 was passed by the United States Congress in 1991 and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush as Public Law 102-243, amending the Communications Act of 1934. The current version of the statute is found principally at 47 U.S.C. 227. The TCPA is the primary law in the US governing the conduct of). Numbers therefore have to be dialled by hand, which is more time-consuming and expensive for pollsters.

An oft-quoted example of opinion polls succumbing to errors was the UK General Election of 1992. Despite the polling organizations using different methodologies virtually all the polls in the lead up to the vote, and to a lesser extent exit polls An election exit poll is a poll of voters taken immediately after they have exited the polling stations. Unlike an opinion poll, which asks whom the voter plans to vote for or some similar formulation, an exit poll asks whom the voter actually voted for. A similar poll conducted before actual voters have voted is called an entrance poll. Pollsters taken on voting day, showed a lead for the opposition Labour party but the actual vote gave a clear victory to the ruling Conservative party.

In their deliberations after this embarrassment the pollsters advanced several ideas to account for their errors, including:

Late swing
Voters who changed their minds shortly before voting tended to favour the Conservatives, so the error was not as great as it first appeared.
Nonresponse bias
Conservative voters were less likely to participate in surveys than in the past and were thus under-represented.
The Shy Tory Factor
The Conservatives had suffered a sustained period of unpopularity as a result of economic difficulties and a series of minor scandals, leading to a spiral of silence in which some Conservative supporters were reluctant to disclose their sincere intentions to pollsters.

The relative importance of these factors was, and remains, a matter of controversy, but since then the polling organizations have adjusted their methodologies and have achieved more accurate results in subsequent elections.

Polling organizations

In Australia the most notable companies are:

In Canada the most notable companies are:

In Egypt, the most notable polling organization is

In Jordan the dominant organization is:

In Iran, some notable polling organisations include:

In New Zealand, some notable polling organisations include:

In Nigeria the most notable polling organisation is:

In South Africa the most notable company is:

In Ukraine, the most notable pollsters are:

In the United Kingdom, the most notable pollsters are:

In the United States, some notable companies include:

In Spain:

All the major television networks, alone or in conjunction with the largest newspapers or magazines, in virtually every country with elections, operate their own versions of polling operations, in collaboration or independently through various applications. One of the applications can be found on Facebook [24]

Several organizations try to monitor the behavior of polling firms and the use of polling and statistical data, including the Pew Research Center and, in Canada, the Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy.[25]

Failures

The best-known failure of opinion polling to date in the United States was the prediction that Thomas Dewey would defeat Harry S. Truman in the 1948 US presidential election. Major polling organizations, including Gallup and Roper, indicated a landslide victory for Dewey.

In the United Kingdom, most polls failed to predict the Conservative election victories of 1970 and 1992, and Labour's victory in 1974. However, their figures at other elections have been generally accurate.

Influence

By providing information about voting intentions, opinion polls can sometimes influence the behavior of electors, and in his book The Broken Compass, Peter Hitchens asserts that opinion polls are actually a device for influencing public opinion.[26] The various theories about how this happens can be split into two groups: bandwagon/underdog effects, and strategic ("tactical") voting.

A bandwagon effect occurs when the poll prompts voters to back the candidate shown to be winning in the poll. The idea that voters are susceptible to such effects is old, stemming at least from 1884; William Safire reported that the term was first used in a political cartoon in the magazine Puck in that year.[27] It has also remained persistent in spite of a lack of empirical corroboration until the late 20th century. George Gallup spent much effort in vain trying to discredit this theory in his time by presenting empirical research. A recent meta-study of scientific research on this topic indicates that from the 1980s onward the Bandwagon effect is found more often by researchers.[28]

The opposite of the bandwagon effect is the underdog effect. It is often mentioned in the media. This occurs when people vote, out of sympathy, for the party perceived to be "losing" the elections. There is less empirical evidence for the existence of this effect than there is for the existence of the bandwagon effect.[28]

The second category of theories on how polls directly affect voting is called strategic or tactical voting. This theory is based on the idea that voters view the act of voting as a means of selecting a government. Thus they will sometimes not choose the candidate they prefer on ground of ideology or sympathy, but another, less-preferred, candidate from strategic considerations. An example can be found in the United Kingdom general election, 1997. As he was then a Cabinet Minister, Michael Portillo's constituency of Enfield Southgate was believed to be a safe seat but opinion polls showed the Labour candidate Stephen Twigg steadily gaining support, which may have prompted undecided voters or supporters of other parties to support Twigg in order to remove Portillo. Another example is the boomerang effect where the likely supporters of the candidate shown to be winning feel that chances are slim and that their vote is not required, thus allowing another candidate to win.

These effects indicate how opinion polls can directly affect political choices of the electorate. But directly or indirectly, other effects can be surveyed and analyzed on all political parties. The form of media framing and party ideology shifts must also be taken under consideration. Opinion polling in some instances is a measure of cognitive bias, which is variably considered and handled appropriately in its various applications.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Cantril, Hadley and Mildred Strunk (1951). Public Opinion, 1935-1946. Princeton University Press. p. vii.
  2. ^ About the Tracking Polls
  3. ^ An estimate of the margin of error in percentage terms can be gained by the formula 100 ÷ square root of sample size
  4. ^ publicagenda.org
  5. ^ Lynch, Scott M. Introduction to Bayesian Statistics and Estimation for Social Scientists (2007).
  6. ^ Langer, Gary (2003-05). "About Response Rates: Some Unresolved Questions". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/responserates.pdf. Retrieved 2010-05-17.
  7. ^ "Public Agenda Issue Guide: Higher Education - Public View - Red Flags". Public Agenda.
  8. ^ "Public Agenda Issue Guide: Gay Rights - Public View - Red Flags". Public Agenda.
  9. ^ "Public Agenda Issue Guide: Abortion - Public View - Red Flags". Public Agenda.
  10. ^ "The Seven Stages of Public Opinion". Public Agenda.
  11. ^ Keeter, Scott (2007-06-27). "How Serious Is Polling's Cell-Only Problem?". Pew Research Center Publications. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/515/polling-cell-only-problem.
  12. ^ Blumenthal, Mark (2008-09-19). "More Pollsters Interviewing By Cell Phone". Pollster.com. http://www.pollster.com/blogs/more_pollsters_interviewing_by.php. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  13. ^ Blumenthal, Mark (2008-07-17). "New Pew data on cell phones". Pollster. http://www.pollster.com/blogs/new_pew_data_on_cell_phones.php. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  14. ^ Blumberg SJ, Luke JV (2007-05-14) (PDF). Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates Based on Data from the National Health Interview Survey, July–December 2006. Centers for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless200705.pdf. Retrieved 2009-06-22.
  15. ^ Silver, Nate (2008-11-02). "The Cellphone effect, continued". FiveThirtyEight.com. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/cellphone-effect-continued.html. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  16. ^ Blumenthal, Mark (2008-10-17). "More Cell Phone Data from Gallup". Pollster.com. http://www.pollster.com/blogs/more_cell_phone_data_from_gall.php. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  17. ^ Silver, Nate (2008-07-22). "The Cellphone Problem, Revisited". FiveThirtyEight.com. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/07/cellphone-problem-revisited.html. Retrieved 2008-11-04.
  18. ^ The Public Opinion Poll Center
  19. ^ Alert. Journalist Abdollah Nouri released but another journalist arrested
  20. ^ "Research&Branding Group Poll: 26% Of Ukrainians Prepared To Support Yanukovych For President". The FINANCIAL website. August 19, 2009. http://www.finchannel.com/Main_News/Ukraine/45385_Research&Branding_Group_Poll:_26%25_Of_Ukrainians_Prepared_To_Support_Yanukovych_For_President/. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  21. ^ Poll: "CHANGE OF ELECTORAL SITUATION IN UKRAINE - June 2009", Research & Branding Group (June, 2009)
  22. ^ (Ukrainian) Думка громадян України про підсумки 2008 р. (опитування), Razumkov Centre (December 26, 2008)
  23. ^ Socis Poll: 25% Of Ukrainians Prepared To Support Yanukovych For President, 20.5% To Vote For Tymoshenko, Ukrainian News (August 17, 2009)
  24. ^ Facebook | Poll
  25. ^ Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy
  26. ^ Hitchens, Peter (2009). "Chapter 1, Guy Fawkes Gets a Blackberry". The Broken Compass: How British Politics Lost its Way. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. ISBN 1847064051.
  27. ^ Safire, William, Safire's Political Dictionary, page 42. Random House, 1993.
  28. ^ a b Irwin, Galen A. and Joop J. M. Van Holsteyn. Bandwagons, Underdogs, the Titanic and the Red Cross: The Influence of Public Opinion Polls on Voters (2000).

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results Baxter Bulletin On the Opinion Poll , readers were asked, "Are 1200 National Guard troops enough to secure the US/Mexican border?" There were 73 responses: 68 said "No" and ...
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The party's secretary has had to swallow new poll results that now threaten Labour's dominance. Labour Party secretary Raymond Johansen was clearly disappointed by the new public . opinion poll. . PHOTO: Arbeiderpartiet​ ...

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A private opinion poll is conducted for a politician to determine what proportion of the population favors dec?
Q. A private opinion poll is conducted for a politician to determine what proportion of the population favors decriminalizing marijuana possession. How large a sample is needed in order to be 90% confident that the sample proportion will not differ from the true proportion by more than 5%
Asked by Usernammy - Tue Jul 7 11:07:01 2009 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments

A. This questions requires that you provide the standard deviation of the sample proportion or some sample proportion value that favored marijuana decriminalization. use the formula n = [ 1.64 SD / 0.05 ]^2 If you have the proportion value, compute the SD as follows. sqrt[p(1-p)], where p=0.13, 0.40 etc. 1.64 comes from the Normal probability table for 90 % confidence.
Answered by cidyah - Tue Jul 7 11:20:14 2009

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