Political polls
by Amy Paterson
The never-ending election campaign is starting to get to me.
Almost every night on the evening news we receive an update on which political party leader is winning the ‘race’ for popularity.
I would like to think that I’m an active participant in our democracy - seeking out information so that I can make an informed decision when the day comes to acutally vote.
But when the information we are fed by our trusty political commentators is tainted with superficiality and infested with hype, I feel a little disappointed.
One of the worst perpetrators I’d have to say: The political poll.
It’s not so much political polling itself, but the media coverage that usually follows.
Polls are largely used by news organisations, such as the New Zealand Herald and both evening news shows, to illustrate who’s ahead in the popularity war.
I agree that a tool to measure the current public opinion can be useful - I just don’t think polls cut it as grounds for a major news story, or a full front page article.
Polls, schmolls
Why do I feel so uncomfortable about political polls? Let’s take a look at one particular type of poll that most often reaches the headlines – the preferred Prime Minister polls.
- The sample size, if shown at all, often consists of a tiny proportion of the population – yet it is meant to represent the entire country’s position on the preferred Prime Minister.
- Like a recent NZ Herald headline reading ‘Clark a clear winner with women voters’. But if the sample size is only around 800 people, like most of the Herald’s digi-polls, how clear is it really? Of course many readers wouldn’t know how big the sample size is, however, because this important piece of information failed to make it into the article.
- The margin of error. It’s often between two to four points. So when the top story of the evening news proclaims that a political party has a six point lead on it’s main rival, but there’s a three point margin of error, it seems a bit useless.
- Most of all, the coverage of the election campaign focuses on these unreliable points of reference. Instead of the main focus being on the relevant party policies that will affect us, the polls have tended to steal the limelight - which to me is just lazy journalism.
The biggest gripe I have with election campaigns and the subsequent polls is that they just never stop.
The New Zealand general election is not until late next year and already we are being bombarded with poll results and predictions of who is going to win.
Give us a break.