Current Polling Research Articles

To believe (the polling) or not to believe (the polling): that is Labour’s worry

A look at the current polling statistics and what this could mean for healthcare under the next government.

Still a Nation of White Immigrants? Notes on the Present Debate

Abstract Recent years have generated an unprecedented popular decision about US racial identity. Before this, popular sentiment and legal policy clearly and congruently promoted immigration of white noncitizens, while severely restricting others. Until the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965, the US law reflected Justice Grier's statement in Smith v. Turner, 48 U.S. 283, 461 (1849): “It is the cherished policy of the general government to encourage and invite Christian foreigners of our own race to seek an asylum within our borders, and to . . . add to the wealth, population, and power of the nation.” However, the 1965 reform and its successors diversified the immigrant stream and the nation, and current polls indicate that the majority of the US population now supports a generous and non-discriminatory immigration policy.

INTRODUCTION: DEVOLUTION AND SECESSION IN QUESTION

This special issue of the National Institute Economic Review is being published at an unsettled and uncertain time for the United Kingdom. In June 2022, the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon called for a second referendum on Scottish independence to be held in October 2023. While it is unlikely that the referendum will be granted by the UK government, current polling suggests the outcome of such a referendum would be too close to call. Eight years after Scotland voted 55%–45% to stay in the Union, independence remains a live issue, which raises fundamental questions about economic and governance arrangements between Westminster and the UK’s constituent parts.

Sequential Bayesian Analysis of Bernoulli Opinion Polls; a Simulation-Based Approach

In this paper we apply sequential Bayesian approach to compare the outcome of the presidential polls in Kenya. We use the previous polls to form the prior for the current polls. Even though several authors have used non-Bayesian models for countrywide polling data to forecast the outcome of the presidential race we propose a Bayesian approach in this case. As such the question of how to treat the previous and current pre-election polls data is inevitable. Some researchers consider only the most recent poll others Combine all previous polls up the present time and treat it as a single sample, weighting only by sample size, while others Combine all previous polls but adjust the sample size according to a weight function depending on the day the poll is taken. In this paper we apply a sequential Bayesian model (as an advancement of the latter which is time sensitive) where the previous measure is used as the prior of the current measure. Our concern is to model the proportion of votes between two candidates, incumbent and challenger. A Bayesian model of our binomial variable of interest will be applied sequentially to the Kenya opinion poll data sets in order to arrive at a posterior probability statement. The simulation results show that the eventual winner must lead consistently and constantly in at least 60% of the opinions polls. In addition, a candidate demonstrating high variability is more likely to lose the polls.

Performance analysis of polling‐based MAC protocol with retrial for Internet of Things

SummaryWe consider and analyze a single‐server multiqueue polling model with inner arrivals. Customers arriving at the queue before polling instant could receive service in the current polling round; furthermore, each one could be retried (turns into an inner arrival) a given number of times with a specified probability. Such polling model can be used to study the performance of certain scheduling data transmission in the Internet of Things (IoT) and the relationship between data retransmission and delay. We obtain the closed‐form expression for the generating function of the amount of customers, which are presented at polling instants. Then, it is used to derive the precise closed‐form formula of mean queue length and mean waiting time in symmetric system.

Efficient Polling-Based Information Collection in RFID Systems

RFID tags have been widely deployed to report valuable information about tagged objects or surrounding environment. To collect such information, the key is to avoid the tag-to-tag collision in the open wireless channel. Polling, as a widely used anti-collision protocol, provides a request-response way to interrogate tags. The basic polling however needs to broadcast the tedious tag ID (96 bits) to query a tag, which is time-consuming. For example, collecting only 1-bit information (e.g., battery status) but with 96-bit overhead is a great limitation. This paper studies how to design efficient polling protocols to collect tag information quickly. The basic idea is to minimize the length of the polling vector as well as to avoid useless communication. We first propose an efficient Hash polling protocol (HPP) that uses hash indices rather than tag IDs as the polling vector to query each tag. The length of the polling vector is dropped from 96 bits to no more than 16 bits (the number of tags is less than 100,000). We then propose a tree-based polling protocol (TPP) that avoids redundant transmission in HPP. By constructing a binary polling tree, TPP transmits only different postfix of the neighbor polling vectors; the same prefix is reserved without any retransmission. The result is that the length of the polling vector reduces to only 3.4 bits. Finally, we propose an incremental polling protocol (IPP) that updates the polling vector based on the difference in value between the current polling vector and the previous one. By sorting the indices and dynamically updating them, IPP drops the polling vector to 1.6 bits long, 60 times less than 96-bit IDs. Extensive simulation results show that our best protocol IPP outperforms the state-of-the-art information collection protocol.

Estimating coalition majorities during political campaigns based on pre-election polls

ABSTRACTIn multi-party systems, politicians, voters, and political pundits often speculate about potential coalition governments based on current poll results. Their interest particularly centers around the question whether a specific coalition has enough public support to form a parliamentary majority. In this research note, we present a Bayesian Dynamic Multinomial-Dirichlet model to estimate the probability that a coalition will find enough public support to form a parliamentary majority. An application to German federal elections from 1994–2017 and comparisons with alternative methods underscore the value of this approach.

How Cross-Validation Can Go Wrong and What to Do About It

We offer a dynamic Bayesian forecasting model for multi-party elections. It combines data from published pre-election public opinion polls with information from fundamentals-based forecasting models. The model takes care of the multi-party nature of the setting and allows making statements about the probability of other quantities of interest, such as the probability of a plurality of votes for a party or the majority for certain coalitions in parliament. We present results from two ex ante forecasts of elections that took place in 2017 and are able to show that the model outperforms fundamentals-based forecasting models in terms of accuracy and the calibration of uncertainty. Provided that historical and current polling data are available, the model can be applied to any multi-party setting.

Forecasting Elections in Multiparty Systems: A Bayesian Approach Combining Polls and Fundamentals

We offer a dynamic Bayesian forecasting model for multiparty elections. It combines data from published pre-election public opinion polls with information from fundamentals-based forecasting models. The model takes care of the multiparty nature of the setting and allows making statements about the probability of other quantities of interest, such as the probability of a plurality of votes for a party or the majority for certain coalitions in parliament. We present results from twoex anteforecasts of elections that took place in 2017 and are able to show that the model outperforms fundamentals-based forecasting models in terms of accuracy and the calibration of uncertainty. Provided that historical and current polling data are available, the model can be applied to any multiparty setting.

The Twilight of the Polls? A Review of Trends in Polling Accuracy and the Causes of Polling Misses

Polls have had a number of high-profile misses in recent elections. We review the current polling environment, the performance of polls in a historical context, the mechanisms of polling error, and the causes of several recent misses in Britain and the US. Contrary to conventional wisdom, polling errors have been constant over time, although the level of error has always been substantially beyond that implied by stated margins of error. Generally, there is little evidence that voters lying about their vote intention (so-called ‘shy’ voters) is a substantial cause of polling error. Instead, polling errors have most commonly resulted from problems with representative samples and weighting, undecided voters breaking in one direction, and to a lesser extent late swings and turnout models. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for polling both in terms of fixing the problems identified and new approaches to understanding public opinion.

Everybody Follows the Crowd?

Abstract. Opinion polls are a well-established part of political news coverage, especially during election campaigns. At the same time, there has been controversial debate over the possible influences of such polls on voters’ electoral choices. The most prominent influence discussed is the bandwagon effect: It states that voters tend to support the expected winner of an upcoming election, and use polls to determine who the likely winner will be. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying the effect. In addition, we inquired into the role of past electoral performances of a candidate and analyzed how these (as well as polls) are used as heuristic cues for the assessment of a candidate’s personal characteristics. Using an experimental design, we found that both polls and past election results influence participants’ expectations regarding which candidate will succeed. Moreover, higher competence was attributed to a candidate, if recipients believe that the majority of voters favor that candidate. Through this attribution of competence, both information about prior elections and current polls shaped voters’ electoral preferences.

Incidir en el ámbito estructural: ¿meta pendiente o terreno vedado para las Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil? Experiencias de México y Ecuador en el sector energético

<p>A pesar del florecimiento del tema de la “incidencia de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil” (OSC) en las políticas públicas, la realidad muestra un panorama escabroso. El presente artículo profundiza en los casos de México y Ecuador, valorando cuáles han sido las posibilidades reales de incidir en reformas de carácter estructural como las del sector energético. La desactivación de las oportunidades de participación ciudadana muestra hasta qué punto este nivel permanece fuera de alcance de las OSC. Según lo analizado, parece corroborarse que el pulso se está definiendo no sólo por la acción de grandes conglomerados de intereses económicos sino además por la potente defensa del monopolio del ejercicio político por determinados profesionales. En ese escenario de alta impermeabilidad, ni las OSC profesionalizadas ni los movimientos sociales tienen muchas alternativas de actuación. No obstante, el desarrollo de campañas de opinión y la coordinación de fuerzas afines pueden generar un acumulado que dé curso a iniciativas políticas ante una coyuntura propicia.</p>

Forecasting the 2013 German Bundestag Election Using Many Polls and Historical Election Results

This article reports on an attempt to forecast the outcome of the 2013 election to the German Bundestag. In contrast to the predominant academic approach to forecast incumbent vote shares from measures of government popularity, economic conditions and other fundamental variables, we entirely relied on data from published trial heat polls. Opposite to common practice in the news media, we did not take isolated polls as election forecasts in their own right. Instead, we used historical data to assess empirically the relationship between polls and election outcomes, and combined extrapolations from current polls in a Bayesian manner. The forecast was published one month ahead of the election. The retrospective evaluation of our method was added after the election. While our method is parsimonious and provides a large lead time, the performance at the 2013 election was underwhelming. We offer additional suggestions how the approach can be improved in future scenarios.

Context-Aware Uplink Resource Allocation Using Request Header Information for ertPS Services in IEEE 802.16e Networks

In this paper, we propose a simple and effective way to improve the quality of service (QoS) of uplink resource allocation for the extended-real-time polling service (ertPS) in IEEE 802.16e broadband wireless networks. The primitive ertPS algorithm determines the amount of resources allocated to a given subscriber station only according to the requested volume in current polling cycles regardless of the knowledge of demand trend. This trend is continuously increasing or declining, which may be incomplete to truly reflect reasonable resource allocation for subscriber stations in different demand tendencies. To cope with this problem, we developed a context-aware ertPS algorithm which gathers statistics on the numbers of request headers of medium access control layer management messages among various subscriber stations, and thus uses the statistical information to enable a dynamic allocation of additional uplink resources to subscriber stations with continuously increasing bandwidth demands. The simulation results show that in comparison with the original ertPS algorithm, the proposed context-aware resource allocation scheme is effective to increase the data throughput as well as to decrease the packet loss rate and packet delay so that the user-perceived QoS can be improved.

Forecasting the 2013 Bundestag Election Using Data from Various Polls

CDU/CSU 38.1%, SPD 28.2%, B‘90/Die Grunen 13.5%, Die Linke 7.7%, FDP 5.4%, others 6.5% – these are our (point) estimates of the party vote shares at the upcoming Bundestag election. In contrast to the predominant academic approach to forecast incumbent vote shares from measures of government popularity, economic conditions and other fundamental variables (Jerome, et al. 2013, Kayser and Leininger 2013, Norpoth and Gschwend 2013), we entirely rely on data from published trial heat polls. Opposite to common practice in the news media, we do not take isolated polls as election forecasts in their own right. Instead, we use historical data to empirically assess the relationship between polls and election outcomes, and combine extrapolations from 42 current polls in a Bayesian manner. A retrospective evaluation of our method compared against other approaches will be given after the election on September 22.

Vascular neurologists and neurointerventionalists on endovascular stroke care

Endovascular revascularization therapy is a promising method for treating patients with AIS; however, many challenges remain. The findings from the SVIN roundtable meeting highlight several important points regarding the present state of endovascular therapy and the future direction of the field. Patient selection is essential for the success of endovascular therapy in acute stroke.1 The spectrum of dramatic benefit and failure in endovascular therapy for AIS underscores the importance of identifying markers for those who will be helped and those who will be harmed. Simple rapid imaging such as noncontrast head CT remains fundamental to patient evaluation. However, further study is needed in advanced imaging such as perfusion studies, in order to liberate stroke triage from the constraint of time and reach more patients.2 Furthermore, the triage system for stroke networks, requirements of providing institutions, and guidelines for those trained in neurointerventional procedures need to be better defined.3,4 Stroke intervention techniques vary among neurointerventionalists, which emphasizes the need to identify the optimal revascularization approach. This might include a single or multimodal use of mechanical devices, thrombolytic agents and doses, and adjunctive therapies. Perioperative management also varies, and not all factors that might change outcome are known. The variability in triaging patients, in the neurointerventional technical approach, and in periprocedural management is an indication of the urgent need for consensus, standardization, and additional research to provide evidence to support particular approaches for particular patient populations. The armamentarium available to neurointerventionalists continues to expand, but the optimal design for a revascularization device remains unknown and demands continued innovation. As the young field of endovascular revascularization therapy continues to evolve and patient selection is better defined, education of health care providers and awareness among those in the community will become essential to carry the success of endovascular therapy in the battle against AIS. In these interesting polling questions, participants of the SVIN roundtable meeting addressed each aspect of the care of patients with ischemic stroke as it pertains to endovascular therapy, and their answers may be of interest to readers, policymakers, and researchers alike. However, because of space limitations, only certain polling questions and responses were included in this report, which may limit the ability to understand the full complexity of the system of care for AIS. Moreover, some new areas of clinical care and research may not have been addressed by the polling questions or the roundtable topics. A clinical continuum network of care with a spokes-and-hub model (whether ship-and-drip or retrieve-and-ship to a tertiary stroke center) and research network needs were not brought up in this polling report. We would like to underscore that the current polling report reflects the opinions of the attendees of the SVIN roundtable but is limited in lacking supportive data and sampling errors. Polling different attendees might have produced different responses.

State of the Nation: New British Theatre

A s I write this, the confluence of global crises and national pressures in the UK has produced a perfect storm of “State of the Nation” questioning. With Labour now into its thirteenth year of government, a natural dissatisfaction arises with the status quo. Wide-ranging scandals over MP’s expenses threaten any faith in government. Gordon Brown’s status as unelected Prime Minister (and one who has made a variety of seemingly bad political—not policy—decisions) yields poor approval ratings, and the newspapers have readily dubbed David Cameron the “Prime Minister-in-waiting.” While current poll numbers show a Tory lead, a clear-cut conservative victory is far from certain; with a narrow 6% gap between the two leading parties, a hung parliament looks fairly likely (although with an election necessary no later than June 3, 2010, the situation may be drastically different as this appears in press). Unhappiness over wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain in the news, with the death toll of British soldiers steadily increasing in Afghanistan, and public hearings into the Iraq war under way. The credit crunch hangs over everyone’s heads, and with the UK’s 0.1% economic growth in the last quarter of 2009, it just barely squeaked out of recession. Brown’s tenure as Chancellor is read as having produced Great Britain’s precarious financial state, with the past year seeing both the largest devaluation of the pound since the 1930s and an increasing trade deficit.

The 39th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes toward the Public Schools

THIS IS the 39th annual poll in this now venerable series. The noted pollster George Gallup was one of the poll's founders and, until his death in 1987, played the major role in selecting the questions and writing the article that appeared in each year's Phi Delta Kappan. His son Alec, chairman of the Gallup Poll, stepped into a leadership role after his father's death and has continued to work closely with those at Phi Delta Kappa to maintain the standard of quality established by George Gallup. The Gallup Organization goes far beyond the normal role for a polling firm. Alec Gallup approves the wording of each question and monitors the development of the poll report to guarantee that the suggested interpretations are supported by the data. The poll has changed over the 39 years. It started as an effort to inform educators. While it continues to perform that role, it has come to serve as a source of information for those who shape education policy, and the database that has accumulated over 39 years of polling chronicles the growth and changes in K-12 schooling since the late 1960s. As it has grown in importance, the PDK/Gallup Poll has fueled debate regarding K-12 schooling, and charges of bias are routine. With that in mind, we have gradually reshaped the poll report to make it user-friendly and to draw the reader into the analysis of the data. We report the data, state what we believe they say, and leave it to the reader to reach his or her own conclusions. In this year's report, the statements following a table and designated as Findings are in the nature of summaries that we believe offer a fair interpretation of the data. Statements designated as Conclusions are highlighted because we think they capture the most significant of the poll results. These are offered as topics for debate. In the end, our aim is to let the data speak for themselves. IMPROVING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT The 39th poll comes at a time when K-12 schooling is near the top of the agenda in state and national policy discussions, and efforts to improve student achievement dominate those discussions. Chief among the improvement efforts is No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the sweeping federal initiative. Given the importance of this law and the fact that the poll was founded on the belief that public support is a vital component of shaping effective education policy, it is appropriate to open this report with the public's reaction to NCLB and its principal strategy, standardized testing. Public View of NCLB Since 2003 the PDK/Gallup Poll has traced the evolving public response to NCLB. The analysis here focuses primarily on the questions asked in the current poll, but readers interested in more detail on the evolution of the public view should consult earlier poll reports. A question asked every year since 2003 seeks to find out how much people know about NCLB. The responses are reported in Table 1. For the first time, a majority (54%) say they know a great deal or a fair amount about the law. Sixty-five percent of public school parents give this response. However, 46% of the total group still say they know very little or nothing at all about NCLB. This percentage drops to 35% for public school parents. An important question is whether the gradual gain in knowledge about NCLB is causing the public to have a more favorable or more unfavorable view of the law. Trend data for this question are reported in Table 2. While 31 % say they have a very or somewhat favorable view of the law, 40% say they have a somewhat or very unfavorable view. The percentage selecting one of the two favorable responses has grown by 13% since 2003, while the percentage choosing one of the two unfavorable responses has climbed by 27%. An even stronger unfavorable view of NCLB is held by those who say they know a great deal or a fair amount about the law. * FINDING: It seems fair to say that, as the public knowledge of NCLB grows, the public's view of NCLB is becoming less and less favorable. …

Handicapping the 2004 Presidential Election: A Normal Vote Approach

Conventional wisdom about the 2004 presidential election holds that it will be an exceptionally tight race. This wisdom is grounded in the results of the 2000 presidential election, current polls, and a general sense that electoral competition at the presidential level has tightened over the past decade. While there is ample justification for these beliefs, an examination of long-term voting trends (i.e., normal voting patterns) paints a different picture. In terms of the relative size of their electoral base, and its distribution across states, the Democrats begin the 2004 campaign with a distinct electoral advantage. Historically speaking, they have not begun a presidential campaign in such a strong position since 1944. Practically speaking, all the Democrats need to do is win the states in which they have a normal vote advantage to capture the presidency. If the Democrats can do this they need not win any Southern states in which the Republicans hold an electoral edge, including Florida. Moreover, even if Ralph Nader matches his statelevel returns in 2000, this will not be sufficient (by itself) to overcome the Democrats' electoral advantage in states that are essential to attaining an Electoral College majority.

Forecasting presidential elections using history and polls

We develop a method for efficiently using current poll data to update election forecasts based on historical relationships. The method is applied on an ex post basis to forecast Republican and Democratic shares of the national vote in U.S. Presidential elections from 1952 to 1992. Using poll data substantially improves the performance of forecasting models that rely solely on historical fundamentals. Moreover, when poll data are used appropriately, their information content dominates in the calculation of an optimal forecast. The method has also been applied on an ex ante basis to forecast the 1996 presidential election, producing a series of highly accurate predictions over the 2 month period before the election.