Election Polls Research Articles

Forecasts From Nonrandom Samples

The 1990s was not the best of decades for electoral polls, with striking errors occurring in, among others, the British, French, and Spanish elections, including election night, when errors are more evident. This article proposes a model for predicting final election outcomes based on the consistency that polling stations show between elections. Using both past and incoming polling station vote proportions, the model produces continuously revised predictions. The method is validated predicting the 1995 Corts Valencianes (Valencia regional parliament) elections and displaying the real-time experience of the 1999 Corts Valencianes election night. The case study is completed by demonstrating the technique's efficacy in three additional elections. The results confirm that the procedure generates quick, highly reliable, and accurate forecasts. In fact, only a few minutes after starting the scrutiny, the proposal permits one to approximate the final results with great precision, even with only a small percentage of votes polled. The great flexibility of the procedure makes it possible to use the method under a wide variety of circumstances and electoral systems. Furthermore, this procedure has additional advantages, including robustness and lower cost, over other methods which can also be implemented during election night with the objective of forecasting final outcomes, like exit polls or quick counts of a meaningful sample of polling stations.

A Review and Proposal for a New Measure of Poll Accuracy

This article proposes a new measure of the predictive accuracy (A) of election polls that permits examination of both accuracy and bias, and it applies the new measure to summarize the results of a number of preelection polls. We first briefly review past measures of accuracy, then introduce the new measure. After the new measure is described, the general strategy is to apply it to three presidential elec- tions (1948, 1996, and 2000) and to compare the results derived from it to the results obtained with the Mosteller measures. Then, the new mea- sure is applied to the results of 548 state polls from gubernatorial and senatorial races in the 2002 elections to illustrate its application to a large body of preelection polls conducted in off-year races with dif- ferent outcomes. We believe that this new measure will be useful as a summary measure of accuracy in election forecasts. It is easily com- puted and summarized, and it can be used as a dependent variable in multivariate statistical analyses of the nature and extent of biases that affect election forecasts and to identify their potential sources. It is com- parable across elections with different outcomes and among polls that vary in their treatment or numbers of undecided voters.

The 2005 General Election Polls

The 2005 General Election Polls

Estimating Parliamentary Composition Through Electoral Polls

SummaryAll electoral systems have an electoral formula that converts proportions of votes into Parliamentary seats. Pre-electoral polls usually focus on estimating proportions of votes and then apply the electoral formula to give a forecast of Parliamentary composition. We describe the problems that arise from this approach: there will typically be a bias in the forecast. We study the origin of the bias and some methods for evaluating and reducing it. We propose a bootstrap algorithm for computing confidence intervals for the allocation of seats. We show, by Monte Carlo simulation, the performance of the proposed methods using data from Spanish elections in previous years. We also propose graphical methods for visualizing how electoral formulae and Parliamentary forecasts work (or fail).

The changing election coverage of German television. A content analysis: 1990–2002

The article reports considerable changes in the content and style of German election coverage between 1990 and 2002. The findings are based on a content analysis of the main evening news of the four major television channels, spanning four Bundestag elections. During the observation period, television has immensely expanded its coverage of the top candidates. While the presence of the candidates in the news increased, they were not able to get their issues across to the audience. The news discourse was narrowed down to election and campaigning as issues. Matters of campaigning style, the ‘game schema’, as well as election polls became increasingly salient. The number of sound bites grew, although the average sound bite length decreased slightly. The presentation of the candidates became more vivid and more colorful, and, thus, more attractive for the audience. On the other hand, there are no signs of increasing negativism. The observable trends in the scope and kind of presentation of candidates can be interpreted as increasing personalization and dramatization of media coverage. The changes partially fit into the pattern of convergence (i. e., a mutual assimilation of public and commercial channels). These developments are partly rooted in the change of the German television market. Other results can be explained by historical incidents such as the German unification in 1990, and by the candidate constellation during each election. In spite of some similarities with developments in the US, the authors argue that it would be misleading to label the observable changes of German election coverage as ‘Americanization’.

A eleição de 2002

O artigo analisa a campanha presidencial de 2002 a partir dos resultados das pesquisas de intenção de voto divulgadas na mídia, da propaganda eleitoral gratuita na televisão e do contexto político que resultou na vitória do candidato do Partido dos Trabalhadores, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.

State Policies for the Nitty-Gritty of School Life

ACCORDING TO songwriter John Lennon, Life is happens while you're busy making other plans. With all of the attention being paid to big initiatives to improve schools - high-stakes assessment, comprehensive reform packages, voucher proposals, etc. - sometimes it is easy to forget the little daily details needed to provide a good education. In our push for results, these smaller components nevertheless have their rightful place. Indeed, they frequently set the tone for our fond memories of life classrooms. Though perhaps mundane, they're not unimportant. This Stateline is dedicated to recent policies that affect what happens while you're busy making other plans. Revenues. Wyoming recently enacted a bill (H.B. 161) that makes school fund-raising sales exempt from sales tax. Also Wyoming - and at no small cost - legislators March were close to agreeing that it is necessary to invest a computer-based system of data collection. They sought to purchase a statewide system for $4.3 million. Transportation. According to the March 2003 School Transportation News, North Carolina is voluntarily going to equip 13 buses of its fleet of school buses (they are state-owned North Carolina) with three-point occupant-restraint systems. Derek Graham, the state transportation chief, said this is a fact-finding mission that does not mean it will be statewide. In the meantime, Arkansas passed H.B. 1042, which bans the use of a cell phone while driving a school bus. People. In November 2002, the Massachusetts legislature decided to require volunteers to have their backgrounds checked prior to being allowed to volunteer schools. Although salary is certainly not a minor detail to teachers, a proposal by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredeson would set $37,000 as a goal for the average teacher's salary. Time. Policy makers South Dakota, who were apparently concerned about losing minutes of instruction to other activities, passed H.B. 1041, which specifically limits to 16.5 hours the time spent parent/teacher conferences that count as hours in session. Of those 16.5 hours, districts are allowed to count no more than 5.5 hours as inservice training for teachers. The state board South Carolina has approved uniform starting dates for all public schools the state, beginning 2004. The regulation requires that all schools begin the academic year within a 10-day time period falling between the last Monday before Labor Day and the Wednesday after Labor Day. The uniform date is intended to give all districts equal time to prepare students to take statewide academic achievement tests. Citizenship. In an effort to increase the civic engagement of high school students, H.B 1028 Arkansas allows high school students to work at the election polls. Kentucky enacted similar legislation last year. Pennsylvania became one of the latest states to amend its law requiring all schools - private, parochial, and public - to display the U.S. flag. The flag must be displayed every classroom, and schools must provide for the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or singing of the National Anthem. In addition, Arkansas now requires public school districts to allow and encourage teachers to read or display documents of state history (S.B. 57). Home-schoolers. South Dakota added itself to the list of states that allow home-schooled students to participate high school extracurricular activities. Early learning. Sixteen governors addressed the importance of early learning their state-of-the-state addresses this year. And March the Arkansas House of Representatives approved by a vote of 90-0 H.B. 1951, a bill that would require the state department of education to provide the public with a list of skills children should have when they enter kindergarten. The bill has since moved to the Senate. Health and safety. Utah's state board of education agreed on a new policy that prohibits personnel from making recommendations to parents with regard to health treatments. …

Presidential Election Polls in 2000: A Study in Dynamics

Presidential Election Polls in 2000: A Study in Dynamics

Presidential Election Polls in 2000: A Study in Dynamics

Much research shows that voters behave in understandable ways on election day and that election outcomes themselves are quite predictable. Even to the extent we can predict what voters do at the very end of the campaign, we know relatively little about how electoral preferences evolve over time. The U. S. presidential race in 2000 offers a fairly unique opportunity. The volume of available poll data for this particular election allows us to examine the dynamics of voter preferences in great detail for much of the election cycle. Analysis of the poll results in 2000 reveals that underlying electoral preferences changed quite meaningfully during the course of the campaign. The analysis also provides evidence that a significant portion of these changes in preferences actually persisted over time to affect the outcome on election day. Based on these results, it appears that the 2000 presidential election campaign mattered quite a lot.

The rise of the opposition party in Taiwan: explaining Chen Shui-bian’s victory in the 2000 Presidential election

The 2000 Taiwan presidential election drastically changed Taiwan’s political landscape. For the first time in Taiwan, an opposition party candidate, Chen Shui-bian, won the presidential race, receiving 39.3% of the popular vote. To understand the factors that determined the election’s outcome, we analyze survey data from the 2000 presidential election. First, we study whether a divided ruling party was the cause of the opposition party candidate’s victory. That is, would the ruling party have lost if one of the trailing candidates had opted not to run? Second, there were charges following the election that the Kuomintang misled people into believing their candidate was still leading in the polls, when he was really running third, and this misinformation led people to vote differently than they would have otherwise, possibly giving the election to the opposition party candidate. We examine the validity of this claim by measuring the degree to which strategic voting could have influenced the outcome. Third, to understand the underlying dimensions of the electoral competition in Taiwan and to understand each candidate’s electoral support, we run a multivariate statistical model to study how strategic voting, candidate personalities, party identification, and issues influenced respondents’ vote choices. Finally, we discuss the effects of election polling data on election outcomes.

Estimating Parliamentary Composition through Electoral Polls

Any electoral system has an electoral formula that converts vote proportions into parliamentary seats. Pre-electoral polls usually focus on estimating vote proportions and then applying the electoral formula to give a forecast of the parliament's composition. We here describe the problems arising from this approach: There is always a bias in the forecast. We study the origin of the bias and some methods to evaluate and to reduce it. We propose some rules to compute the sample size required for a given forecast accuracy. We show by Monte Carlo simulation the performance of the proposed methods using data from Spanish elections in last years. We also propose graphical methods to visualize how electoral formulae and parliamentary forecasts work (or fail).

The Wizard of Washington: Emil Hurja, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Birth of Public Opinion Polling

Introduction Growing Up in a Frontier Boom Town College Days and Beyond The 1932 Presidential Election Polling and the New Deal Post-New Deal Hurja Publishing, Polling, and Consulting Conclusion

The Voter's Guide to Election Polls (review)

In The Voter's Guide to Election Polls, Traugott and Lavrakas state that their goal in writing the book is to help "students of politics . . . appreciate the use of polls, especially during election campaigns" (vi). In pursuit of this goal, the authors have produced a very solid introduction to matters associated with polling. This book will be useful to all who seek to make sense of the relentless use of polling data during a campaign, be they journalists, academics, or concerned members of the public.

Public Journalism Through the Lens: How Television Broadcasters Covered Campaign ‘96

Public journalism has had a less measurable impact in local television newsrooms than in newspapers. A study of 1996 election coverage found that broadcasters who committed to practice public journalism devoted more airtime to policy issues and less to election polls than other stations. But the differences in coverage were so small they fell short of statistical significance. In contrast, coverage in newspapers Committed to public journalism was substantively different from other papers.

THE CHALLENGES OF SURVEYING PUBLIC OPINION IN AN EMERGING DEMOCRACY

Based on interviews with political party officials and journalists as well as a content analysis of election poll stories, this paper discusses opinion polling in Ghana's emerging democracy. Highlighted in the discussion are the relevance of surveying public opinion in a neo-democracy and the journalistic reporting of poll results. The paper describes the surveying of public opinion in a political climate in transition from long historical experience of authoritarianism and dictatorship including a period of a ‘culture of silence’, to freedom of expression, as a challenge. In an examination of local ‘polls’ conducted by newspapers during the 1996 presidential and parliamentary elections, it characterizes those exercises as unscientific and inaccurate. Technical details about surveys were mostly missing in the stories, suggesting lack of poll reporting knowledge among journalists as a major challenge. There is an attempt to address these challenges for the purpose of strengthening the enabling role of political polling and journalistic reporting of poll results in Ghana's new democracy. Adequate responses to these challenges would, it is proposed, contribute to a scientific and an objective assessment of issues in political decision–making including measuring voter support for political parties and candidates.

Presidential polls and the news media

Introduction: news media's use of presidential polling in the 1990s - an introduction and overview, Paul J. Lavrakas and Michael W. Traugott. Part 1 Developments in media polling: election polling in historical perspective, Susan Herbst Page One use of presidential pre-election polls 1980-1992, P.J. Lavrakas and Sandra L. Bauman the use of focus groups to supplement campaign coverage, M.W. Traugott. Part 2 methodology of media polls: how pollsters and reporters can do a better job informing the public - a challenge for Campaign '96, Warren J. Mitofsky a review of the 1992 VRS exit polls, W.J. Mitofsky and Murray Edelman methods of allocating undecided respondents to candidate choices in pre-election polls, Robert P. Daves and Sharon P. Warden. Part 3 Media polls in the 1992 election: the 1992 election and the polls - neither politics nor polling as usual, Richard Morin the evolving use of public-opinion polls by The New York Times - the experience in the 1992 presidential election, Michael R. Kagay problems of character - was it the candidate or the Press?, M.W. Traugott and Jennifer Means. Part 4 Public reactions to media polls: the people, the Press, and Campaign '92, Andrew Kohut and Larry Hugick media, momentum and money - horse-race spin in the 1988 Republican primaries, Diana C. Mutz. Conclusion: the media's use of election polls - a synthesis and recommendations for 1996 and beyond, P.J. Lavrakas and M.W. Traugott.

Political Polling: 95% Expertise and 5% Luck

SUMMARY The record of British election polls was good- until the general election of 1992. The Market Research Society's inquiry into the performance of the polls in 1992 found inadequacies in the implementation of the sampling system used, evidence of a late swing and some reluctance of Conservative supporters to reveal their loyalty; but it generally endorsed the principle of well-conducted quota polling and found that variations in methodological detail had nil effect on the results. The evidence is presented and some possible future developments to counter the 'spiral of silence' are discussed.

A mathematician reads the newspaper

From crime figures to health scares, election polls to stock market forecasts, numbers make the news all the time. But are they accurate? John Allen Paulos, travels through the pages of an average newspaper, revealing how mathematics is at the heart of the articles we read everyday - even horoscopes and the sports pages - and how often they mislead us. By understanding simple concepts such as probability, chaos theory and game theory, you'll be able to see through faulty statistics, stock market forecasters and conspiracy theorists - and make the figures truly add up.

Politisation et vote des jeunes

This article sets out to prove, using several «Eurobarometer» surveys since 1973, for France and for Europe, that present day youth is anything but depoliticized. Today’s youth is just as concerned with politics as preceeding generations. Young people have always been slighly less politically aware and active than adults because of progressive socialisation. The vote of young people, recognizable in electoral polls, bears no natural characteristics. Although, they often vote more to the left than other age ranges, this can easily be explained by the characteristics of their sociology and with relation to a political history. In the 1995, Presidential elections, the vote of young people was, in contrast, more favorable to the right than that of adults. But their electoral inclinations are nevertheless partially affected by their social, cultural and religious considerations.

A Review: The 1993 Russian Election Polls

In the last 5 years there have been three instances in which major efforts by pollsters have failed in predicting the outcome of national elections-in Nicaragua in 1989, in Britain in 1992, and in Russia in 1993. These failures, however, offer an excellent opportunity to examine the factors that undermine our ability to predict various social events, especially election results. The debates surrounding these three cases involved general issues, including the quality of the methodology, the political environment during the election campaign, and the political neutrality of the pollsters. Earlier Poll Reviews have addressed the Nicaraguan and British cases (see Jowell et al. 1993; Miller 1991). In this review I will attempt to add to this body of knowledge by addressing the Russian case, specifically examining both the commonalities and differences among the three cases. The comparison between Nicaragua and Russia-both countries with authoritative political systems in their recent pasts-is particularly instructive.