How polls are conducted

Oct 05, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
This is an attempt to briefly explain why and how polls are conducted as requested by a few of your letter writers.
Elections are the best means of finding out the support for political parties. In between elections, opinion surveys are about the only means to find out how people view their government. Hence the NACTA polls in Guyana or in other countries.
Polls’ findings are often rejected by politicians (and their supporters) who have low numbers. In developed countries, however, opinion polls are welcomed by politicians who use the polls to guide their campaign.
If properly conducted, surveys can be a guide to electoral outcomes. It is important to note that polls are not ordained in heaven and at times can be off target especially if there is a last minute swing by the electorate brought about by a sudden course of event. NACTA erred in Grenada last year.
A poll is not the same as one’s speculations and must be conducted by an unbiased pollster. Polls are based on scientific techniques which is a very complex process that can be described briefly in the following steps: defining the universe (whole population), constructing a sample (representative slice of the universe), preparing valid questions (not loaded towards an answer), selecting and control the means by which the poll will be taken (conducted at random); and reporting the findings (publication).
Pollsters usually draw a random sample or probability sample. Here, the poll-taker interviews people from among the population. In the U.S, it is made easy by computer selection and telephone calls. In Guyana, it is done by randomly interviewing (face to face) potential voters. In the U.S, pollsters generally interview about 1500 people to represent the universe of about 250 million voters. In Guyana, about 600 is a good number to represent a voting population of about 400 thousand.
One of the major problems of any poll is the methodology. The pollster has to devise an appropriate methodology. Ideally, opinions are taken from a systematically randomized sampling of the population. In the U.S, this sample is constituted to proportionally represent the geographical (regional), ethnic, class, age, educational, religious and gender diversity, etc., of the population. In Guyana, NACTA made every effort to include the diversity of the population in the sample.
A scientific statistical sampling of the population to include all social categories would in theory give very accurate results of a poll. In the U.S, a complex mathematical equation from a (SAS or SPSS) programme generates a sample from the registered voters’ list. Then the names are telephoned with their opinions recorded, by the computer or interviewer. The programme then calculates the results and errors using a standard formula.
Pollsters usually analyse the results at a 95% significance level which means that in 19 out of 20 cases the results are accurate. In Guyana, the lack of telephones in every home makes it very difficult to conduct polling over the phone. Therefore, polling must inevitably be conducted by interviewers in what is known as “intercept contact”. American pollsters recently used this intercept contact methodology in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pollsters in India and other third world countries also use this method.
Polling was initiated in Guyana in late 1980s by Dr. Baytoram Ramharack (who founded Turkeyn Research & Polling Institute) who was assisted by Ravi Dev, Vassan Ramracha, Rennie Ramracha, Vishnu Bisram, and a few others. The polls were self-financed with all of us chipping in to cover the costs. The NACTA polls basically took over from Dr. Ramharack after he discontinued the TRPI polls. The late David DeCaires was a believer in polling and SN published and on occasions funded the polling work of Dr. Ramharack (TRPI) and Vishnu Bisram (NACTA). Like DeCaires, TRPI and NACTA believed that polls need to be institutionalised in the psyche of the population as they are part of the democratic process – hence our self-financing and continuing conduct of the polls.
It is hoped that more pollsters will conduct polls so that the government will know how the public view it and the parties how well they are doing. Towards this objective, I welcome the presence of Republican pollsters Dick Morris and Frank Luntz polling for the AFC in Guyana to bolster institutionalisation of polling.
Vishnu Bisram

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