Anxiously looking at a possible election, any opinion polling this time would again create talking and debating points among political pundits, media watchers and the interested Joe Public.
Before getting into these discussion, it is worth it to take some time to set the record straight on what surveys are meant and not meant to do.
First of all, it is important to remember that surveys are but a snapshot of a point in time. It is meant to gauge voter sentiment at that particular point in time i.e. the period in which the survey was conducted.
Former British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson once said that ‘a week is a long time in politics’. Elections can be made and unmade in the space of a week. In the space between a survey and the election, a lot can and will happen which might affect the sentiment of the voters.
Secondly, a national survey is meant to reflect sentiment on a national scale. A voter, from assessing the conditions in his particular constituency might find that a significant proportion of the voter sentiment is still anti-establishment while a national poll might refute that sentiment. It does not mean that the national poll figures have been rigged. Rather, local conditions cannot be extrapolated to national figures and vice versa. On the other hand, a poll conducted at the state level, with the appropriate boost in the sample size, would paint a more accurate picture of voter sentiment at a more localized level.
Besides that, in conducting any survey, sample size and selection is always a tricky issue. One cannot hope to meet all the criterion of ethnic, gender, age, education and income representativeness because of various constraints. Hence, the presence of a margin of error for every poll. All polling agencies including international renowned ones such as Gallup or MORI would include a margin of error for every poll they conduct.
It is also important to the method of polling and the cultural context in which the poll takes place. Every polling method has its pros and cons. Telephone polling, which has been used by some research agency, has the advantage of low cost and more accurate targeting but excludes those without phones who are usually the economically marginalized.
However, a face to face poll, is more inclusive but is also more expensive to run. Malaysians, who are generally suspicious of strangers, are sometimes reluctant to answer questions and may even answer in a way which they think would please the questioner. Most polling agencies in Malaysia have found that it is the Chinese community that is, by and large, the most reticent especially in regards to perceived ‘sensitive’ questions.
These cultural factors perhaps explain why some of the political surveys recently show a high percentage of unknowns or no responses especially for certain questions.
All in all, surveys are a useful indicator of what people’s perceptions are at a certain point in time. If they are analyzed and interpreted correctly taking into consideration other factors and supporting evidence, commentators, policy makers and even the man on the street can benefit from it.
