Polls have a useful and interesting role in politics, but they should not be given more credence than they are due. Pollsters cannot look into a crystal ball and see the future 鈥� they can examine only bits and pieces of the present and extrapolate what might happen.
The art of polling has taken a beating lately, particularly for widely missing the mark on election results. A month before the 2013 B.C. election, polls showed the NDP under Adrian Dix ahead of the B.C. Liberals by 17 percentage points. The Liberals gained seats and won their fourth straight majority; the NDP lost seats.
In defence of polls, the survey commissioned by the Times 91原创 a week before that election showed the Liberals gaining rapidly on the NDP, with only four percentage points separating the two parties, little more than the margin of error. And we cautioned that the number of undecided voters 鈥� 25 per cent 鈥� could make all the difference.
In the 2012 Alberta election, polls showed the long-ruling Progressive Conservatives headed for defeat at the hands of the Wildrose party. But when the votes were counted, the PCs won their 12th straight majority and Wildrose lost seats.
鈥淭he Alberta electorate did a number on pollsters and myself, so kudos to them for demonstrating why democracy can be an unpredictable but important thing,鈥� wrote 脡ric Grenier, founder of ThreeHundredEight.com, a website dedicated to political polling in Canada and electoral forecasts.
Polling can be a handy analytical tool for political parties seeking to know how things are looking for them in an election.You can be sure they won鈥檛 release results that cast them in an unfavourable light, but even publishing positive numbers can be a gamble 鈥� supporters could be lulled into thinking they don鈥檛 need to vote and opponents could be galvanized into action.
And if those figures appear to be cooked or skewed, credibility of politicians and pollsters sinks even lower. That seems to be what occurred last week when the federal NDP leaked the results of a survey that showed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau trailing in his own riding by 11 points. Various polling experts say that survey was shoddily done. Another poll showed Trudeau five points ahead of his opponent.
Even in a scientific and honest survey, the only thing pollsters can say for certain is: 鈥淭his is what our respondents told us at this point in time,鈥� and those opinions can easily shift in the political winds.
Two aspects of polling are often overlooked, and they shouldn鈥檛 be. One is the calculated margin of error 鈥� Grenier鈥檚 website posted results Monday that show, for the first time in this campaign, the Conservatives ahead of the other two main federal parties, but the Tories are less than one percentage point ahead of the third-place NDP, a fraction of the margin of error.
So no one should be measuring for new drapes at 24 Sussex Drive just yet.
The other factor 鈥� a major one 鈥� is the undecided vote. It is almost always substantial enough to turn predicted results on their head.
And then there鈥檚 plain old human nature. As Premier Christy Clark said of polls and people in B.C.鈥檚 2013 election: 鈥淭he polls do not tell us how people are going to vote because voting day is the only day that they vote. It鈥檚 like me asking you what you鈥檙e going to have for dinner a month from now.鈥�
So don鈥檛 go looking for the polls to tell you what is going to happen on election day. That鈥檚 up to you.
