A conjecture about the polls.

[takeanumber]

Hi all.

I'm takeanumber.

I'm not a Liberal, NDP'er, Conservative, Bloc'er or even a Green. So if you're going to attack me instead of my arguement, make sure you attack me on some other personal level...such as my eyecolour or hairstyle. Some have taken to attacking my age. I've come to expect that, so don't think that'll hurt my feelings.

Alright:

Does anybody here remember that 1993 or 1992 election with Torie PM Major in Great Britain?

Does anybody here remember how all the polls screamed Labour Majority, but on polling day, it was a Tory victory?

The reason was that many Tory voters were closet Tory voters.

I believe that there are many Liberal closet voters.

Voters who are too embarassed to admit, in public or to a pollster, that they're going to hold their nose and vote Liberal simply because they can't stomach the alternative: a Bloc-Conservative Alliance, or even a Conservative majority.

I don't believe there are as many Conservative closet voters -- for anectdotal reasons only. I won't have the completed CES for quite some time.

I also believe that recent comments by Mr. White about s.33 came at the most devastating time, because many Canadians only just started paying attention this past week. I also think that the Conservatives lost a lot of the moral high ground when it came to negative advertising at the most crucial time. Why? The Pedophile charge put them on the same level as with the Liberals.

It was pretty crass.

I don't think the polls reflect the closet Liberal vote.

I don't think the polls reflect the effects that strategic voting will have (which, according to Blais et al in the last election, meant 1 percent less for the PC's and NDP last election. If we apply the same logic to the Greens and NDP this election, the Liberals will pick up an extra 2-3 percent, especially in the ridings where it counts most.

In conclusion:

1. I don't think that strategic voting or the closetted Liberal vote will be enough for the Liberals to win a majority.

2. I do think that the polls are underestimating Liberal support by about 4 to 6 percent overall based on past studies and anectdotal evidence.

My projection (and I'm NON-PARTISAN, I'm just using what I know of electoral behaviour):

Liberals: 38% (+4-6 percent, 2-4 from closet, 2 percent from strategic voting)

Cons: 32% (Solid. Won't benefit from strategic voting anywhere, not many closetted ppl.)

NDP: 16% (Victim of strategic voting.)

Greens: 4% (Victim of strategic voting.)

Bloc: 10% (Solid. Won't benefit from strategic voting or closet voters.)

Libs might lose the seat count though by 10-15 seats.

Regards,

Takeanumber.

[DAC]

if you're going to attack me instead of my arguement, make sure you attack me on some other personal level...such as my eyecolour or hairstyle.

Oh, please tell us your hairstyle or eye colour. I'd really like to have something substantil to argue, something concrete, instead of much of the ad hominem abusive that goes on here. Can't we have a nice fight about whether your eyes are acceptable or not?

[August1991]

I'm not a Liberal, NDP'er, Conservative, Bloc'er or even a Green.

From previous posts, I don`t know what you're for but you have a distinct dislike for Alliance types (which you confuse with the Tories).

I believe that there are many Liberal closet voters.

The editorial boards of the G&M and the Toronto Star are in favour of the Liberals. The CBC belittles Harper. I just spent a few days in southern Ontario where voting Liberal seems to be a perfectly acceptable public thing to do. (Harper is a coldly dangerous man and Layton has a "big mouth and a long tongue", as one female Liberal voter loudly explained to me in a public place.)

I got the impression that a public admission of a Conservative vote was tantamount to declaring George Bush Jnr a wise and articulate leader.

If anything, there are closet Conservatives in Ontario. People who want to kick the Liberals out, don't like the NDP, are not afraid of Harper but lack the courage to announce this to everyone.

But TalkNumb, your idea is really interesting. I agree with you about the UK election. In Quebec, there are closet Liberals outside of Montreal. What happens when a pollster phones a wife and her husband stays in the room? Does the wife answer honestly?

The great thing about democracy is that it is a secret ballot. This election may well be a turning point for pollsters, like 1936. Their job is getting harder.

[takeanumber]

Most Conservatives I know arn't afraid of saying that they're grumpy Conservatives.

Most of the Liberals I know are fairly leary of stating their political preference at the risk of gettind dissed in bars and at a parties. (And yes, I attend quite a few where politics is a topic of conversation).

I'm also seeing it at a variety of functions I've been at.

People who just get done telling me that they don't trust the Harper-Klein Axis, and that they're leaning Liberal turn around once a Con circulates in and then, promptly keeps their mouths shut about how they're feeling.

I think that there is a distinct undercurrent here. I wish I had the data to drill in and find it, but I guess I'll have to wait for the CES, and also get the poll by poll data to compare postal code characteristics with which way the vote went.

But yeh. It's just based on what I've read in the past, observed in the data myself, and a lot of anectdotal evidence from the past week.

[August1991]

I think that there is a distinct undercurrent here. I wish I had the data to drill in and find it

Watch for pollsters to ask other questions, highly correlated with voting tendencies, and make predictions accordingly. (ie. Do you think government should protect us less?)

But a fundamental problem is the Call Identifier. Certain people don't answer phones.

[takeanumber]

Or reply to CES surveys.

True.

Which is why I think matching polling districts and linking them with postal codes, and from there, to statscan data on income, age, gender..among other indicators, is a really great thing.

A much more robust way of looking at factors.

But yeh. Monday looks delicious. We got the Randy White factor working out there. Sounds good.

[August1991]

Which is why I think matching polling districts and linking them with postal codes, and from there, to statscan data on income, age, gender..among other indicators, is a really great thing.

They do all of that.

I think the pollsters are secretly hoping for bad predictions so that they can argue for expensive "at door" interviews for the polls at the next election. In Russia, that's how it's done. Person-to-person, face-to-face, countable, verifiable. The truth.

Combine cross-Canada face to face questions with StatCan data, and then correlated side questions and the truth is maybe honest. (Random sampling is robust unless there is systematic bias.)

Whatta business...

[takeanumber]

I don't even think face to face polling is accurate.

There's more instinct to please in that case, not less.

[August1991]

I don't even think face to face polling is accurate.

I agree. But correct for bias.

The point is that phones calls don't work anymore. The alternatives are: Internet polls or face to face in street or at door.

Call it sophisticated, honest, mini Focus Groups.

[takeanumber]

Uber.

89% of Canadians who belong to political parties feel that pollsters have too much power.

Maybe it's time to get rid of the polls?

[August1991]

Maybe it's time to get rid of the polls?

Maybe it's time to get rid of McDonald's, jazz and Disneyland. Chirac? Putin?

[takeanumber]

Sure.

Let's go hog wild.

Didn't Jazz give us Kenny G?

Hell yah. Let's go for it.

[idealisttotheend]

What if the most accurate polls were no polls at all until the actual day? Would that best reflect how people really feel. What exactly is the real benefit to society of polling at all during an election? Polling issues I can see, but why poll parites?

It has become apparent to me that voting is really an act of faith. If I don't vote on Monday the chances that the result will be a one vote difference is so small statistically that I wonder if it has ever happened in any part of the country in any election. Therefore I could conclude that there is no reason for me to vote at all since I can be assured that if I sit at home instead of go vote the result will be the same. Yet if everyone thought like that then no one would vote and democracy would fail. So we all must have faith that our individual vote does matter even though statistically it really doesn't.

I wonder if that faith would be strenghthened if I didn't know who was likely to win and which party had no chance of forming the government (since this can often become a self fulfilling prophacy). If there were no polls might I simply vote my conscious and might democracy be better served?

[takeanumber]

Probably.

[playfullfellow]

How many people aside from politcians actually put a lot of faith in polls? Do polls help you takeanumber? (just an example, not picking on anyone here) All they indicate who might perceptively be leading in the polls. Polls should be about what actually matters to the electorate. Why waste that kind of money on clap trap? All of these polls only help set the odds at the local pub on who will actually win.

[caesar]

Polls are just an inaccurate scorecard. Internet polls are useless even with the guard of not voting twice. They are still easily manipulated. People have more than one computer and computer address. I have seen some very distorted internet polls.

I really don't give polls or newspapers too much credibility.

[Goldie]

Does this sound familiar

Peterson's successor, Lyn McLeod, was expected to return the Liberals to power against a very unpopular Rae, and a right-wing, tax-cutting, low-profile Tory leader, Mike Harris.

Just three days before the election, a Gallup poll showed the Harris Conservatives and the Liberals in a "neck and neck" battle with decided voters - Tory 39 per cent, Liberals 38 and NDP 20.

But when Ontarians went to the polls, Harris went up six points and wound up with 44.8 per cent support and 82 seats and McLeod dropped seven and finished with 31.1 per cent and 30 seats.

Closet Conservatives perhaps?

[takeanumber]

Yes.

Closet Conservatives.

Just as there are probably a ton of closet Liberals out there now.

Just a hunch, based on what I know of the electorate.

I could be very wrong. It might turn out that the undecideds just can't hold their nose anymore.

[takeanumber]

Liberals: 38% (+4-6 percent, 2-4 from closet, 2 percent from strategic voting)

Cons: 32% (Solid. Won't benefit from strategic voting anywhere, not many closetted ppl.)

NDP: 16% (Victim of strategic voting.)

Greens: 4% (Victim of strategic voting.)

Bloc: 10% (Solid. Won't benefit from strategic voting or closet voters.)

[idealisttotheend]

Your numbers look damn close TN, maybe you should be working for Ipso-Ried.

Where are all the happy Harperites?!? lol

[takeanumber]

Overall Election Results

Party  Elected  Leading  Total  Vote Share

LIB  119  17  136  38.14%

CON  75  15  90  29.25%

BQ  51  4  55  11.81%

NDP  17  8  25  15.65%

NA  0  1  1  .02%

OTH  0  0  0  5.15%

Last Update:  June 28, 11:05:13 PM EDT  308 seats

I even scare myself.

Maybe I should.

I know where the Harper-lovers are.

Working on insults to hurl at the 66 percent of Canadians who screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" at Harper.

It's really pathetic that Harper couldn't win, even when the Liberals defeated themselves.

I mean, if they can't win when the Libs are this far down....being vote splitted everywhere, competing in every region....I mean...lol.

What a GONG SHOW.

[Michael Hardner]

The seat projections were not scientifically done, and they were out by a whole bunch. They should scrap that next time.

[August1991]

The Toronto Star poll on the weekend was close to the final result. Clearly what happened is that enough people in Ontario were frightened with the idea of Harper as PM and decided to vote Liberal. The result is that about 25 Ontario seats went Liberal, not Tory.

Polls aren't the issue. Attack ads work.

[idealisttotheend]

Is the conclusion we should draw that attack ads work or that Ontario is simply still afraid of what they see as the Alliance -ish elements of the Cons. After all, Ontario is the only suprise. There may have been a slight 'breakthough' but the Cons wanted and expected so much more out of Ontario and once again they didn't get it even with a stronger NDP siphoning some votes from the Liberals. Notice how there was a point where Harper couldn't find a hand to shake after his speech, even in a crowd of supporters.

[takeanumber]

Ontario women should be afraid of the socially conservatives.

The Burqua goes back in the closet.

Whew!