Opinion Polling on Party Support Explained

Feb 17, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Routinely, over the last several decades this writer presented on media the views of the public on issues that fall within ‘the political’. This included support for political parties and ratings of government as well as politicians and views on varied issues. The process of obtaining the data (qualitative and quantitative) for pre-election is called political survey or opinion polling, and it is the primary way that ‘one’ (including politicians and government) can obtain information (data) on what the public think about government, parties, and politicians and what it wants. The person who conducts the poll is called a pollster. In India, the process is called ‘psephology’.

A survey can be commissioned for a private ‘entity’ or for the public (done for the public interest and findings released via the media with numbers and or qualitative description). Politicians (especially in developed countries) tend to use the data to tailor their election campaign or adopt legislation accordingly to the views of the public. In third world, as in Guyana, if politicians don’t like the findings, they attack it directly or through paid agents. American politicians (and those in developed countries) run their campaigns based on polling data and generally don’t abuse pollsters.

There are two types of polling — ‘straw’ which may not be reflective of the views of the entire population and ‘scientific’ which is largely accurate as per the experience of pollsters and social scientists over the last seventy-five years. The former is done by asking anyone (a large number of people) for their views while the latter is done by asking a representative group of the public for their views through a method called random sampling. The former is not taken seriously while politicians depend on the latter to make decisions on their political future or to conduct campaign. Once done properly, the technique of random sampling will produce findings of a survey that is representative of the population on any question asked. Different society uses a different method of random sampling (how the person to be interviewed is chosen) and of polling (in person interviewing, telephone, internet, etc.). This writer never utilized straw polling. The scientific random sample must be representative of class, age, education, race, religion, and other demographic factors. It can be done through a spokesperson for a family or an individual; American pollsters use the individual. Through scientific method, determined by the pollster, a sample of a few hundred can be accepted as representing the views of hundreds of thousands or hundreds of millions depending on the nature of the society. In USA, for example, a sample of between four hundred to fifteen hundred, a fraction of one percent, is used to represent a voting population of 250 million. In India, a few thousand is used for a voting population of over a billion.  In Guyana, a few hundreds is sufficient to reflect the views of all. Detractors (idiots) said one needs to interview 20% of the population. A fraction of a percent as a representative sample is good in Guyana.

There are hardly any known degree programs in polling, but almost every (American) university that has a graduate (doctoral degree) programme in political science (or sociology) has required courses in statistics under which polling is taught or studied. Some universities have polling institutes. This writer along with Baytoram Ramharack and Kester Alves studied polling at NYU Department of Pol Sci. This writer also took courses in statistics at CCNY (Economics) and CUNY Doctoral Center (Sociology), studying how polls are conducted and doing required field work to master the technique.

It was Dr Ramharack who pioneered opinion polling in Guyana around 1990, ably supported by Ravi Dev, Vassan Raracha, Rennie Ramracha, myself (Vishnu Bisram) and a few others, all of us being political activists clamoring for FFE. Social science surveys and research were conducted in Guyana long before then, but scientific polling on political and electoral matters were first started by Ramharack’s Turkeyen Research and Polling Institute (TRPI). This institute did multiple surveys. The findings of surveys published in media by TRPI were brutally attacked and belittled by those who did not think the poll accurately presented support for the parties they supported. The then opposition PPP found the polls credible and cited them in calling for the holding of free and fair elections. There were also other detractors who never did surveys, not till this day. One critic at UG who claimed that since he was not consulted, lambasted the pollsters and pronounced that the findings of the polls were contrived. He questioned whether surveys were actually done since he was not interviewed. TRPI became dysfunctional after a few years and surveys discontinued. Meanwhile, a group of educators out of USA founded NACTA, conceived by Vassan Ramracha, that conducted hundreds of surveys in Guyana, Trinidad, Grenada, Tobago, Antigua, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and elsewhere during the 1990s till this day. Both TRPI and NACTA were largely self-funded with occasional grants from sponsors who like the work of the pollsters and who don’t have political axe to grind.  Polls were also commissioned by media houses like SN and NGOs.

Sampling is like an ‘odds’ or lottery game; a person may or may not be selected to be interviewed. The odds of being selected is very low. Critics who are not interviewed and who may have scores to settle may make a claim that a survey was not conducted. It is a regular criticism by a couple of discredited individuals in Guyana and in a third world society with a handful of critics of a low, third world mentality. Scholars and the more educated, as in the USA, think differently. None of the critics would actually do a survey to compare their findings with those they castigated, abused and denigrated. Social scientists found that all surveys done around the same time revealed similar findings. All polls conducted in the 2024 American election cycle, and for previous elections, published similar findings. So if critics and detractors in Guyana did surveys, one can do comparisons and make informed determinations on whether a survey was conducted or whether pollsters have hidden agendas.

Critics had asked for names and contact for people interviewed for polls. Surveys are highly confidential; a pollster never betray confidentiality especially in a third world society where people are routinely victimized for freedom of speech. A UG academic was known to reveal time, place, name of individual who revealed confidential information. This writer, as a person of integrity, never betrayed confidentiality. Critics are free to conduct polls and report findings.

Survey findings don’t have to actually reflect actual outcomes as the former are not ordained by God. But they do offer guides of the public’s views (support) of issues and politicians and parties or projected outcome of an election.  People were also known to change their views after speaking with interviewers. Findings are dynamic till the moment of voting. Currently (recently), several polls are being (were) conducted in Guyana. All the polls should have similar findings that would reveal PPP ahead in the 2025 elections. Data will be presented in forthcoming write ups on surveys conducted by this writer for NACTA.

Yours truly,

Dr. Vishnu Bisram (PhDs)

(Opinion Polling on Party Support Explained)

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• media, Opinion Polling, Party Support, Political Parties, ratings of government

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