How do the Newspolls know how people will vote? How could they possibly be accurate unless we all voted?

Question

I have no idea how the Newspolls know what the people will vote on election day, unless we all, or a huge majority of us have voted in polls? How do they gather this information! If there were so many undecided people, how could they tell who we will vote for? Thank guys

Answer 1

I've taken part in polling and market research in the past, although not in this election.

It's not a complex process.

The polling outfit knocks on the door or rings on the phone, and asks a series of questions.

They try to get a varied 'pool' of respondents, so they'll look for seniors, immigrants, anglo aussies, couples with kids, singles, carers, rural people, city people, suburban people ~ a variety of groups with a range of interests and political demands.

They don't poll everyone in Australia, but they poll what is called a 'significant inicator' number of people.

From the information people give them , they can make a projection of how similar groups in the population will behave.

It's a useful tool for very many uses, and very popular with advertising agencies, who use it to assess how their product sales are going.

Political parties, and governemts, also use polling to assess how new policies will be regarded by the electorate.

A margin for error is built into every poll.

Polls are usually conducted by firms who are experienced in statistical analysis, a university taught discipline which I don't personally find very fascinating (can't get my head around it, lol), but which is not at all mysterious.

While polls are never guaranteed 100 per cent correct, if for no other reason than people might wake up on the day and change their mind, they provide useful inidicators and have been improving in accuracy for many years as the science used by the pollsters improves.

Cheers :-)

Answer 2

They take a sample of people. So 500 voters. These stats are never correct for 3 reasons.
1. It depends where you poll. If you are polled in the shopping centre in a rich area you may get one sided results which don't reflect the entire electorate.
2. People well tell a pollster one thing, but vote differently. People might say they are voting Labor, but when they get in they might vote Family First.
3. Many people don't make up their mind until the actual day.

The polls showed Latham winning the 2004 election when there were only a few weeks to go, we all saw how that went.

Answer 3

Great question :)
And Molly's answer was really good.
I've studied statistical analysis but I'll try not to be boring....
(and it was boring and I wasn't brilliant at it)

It ultimately comes down to how well you select your sample of the population. It's a very deliberated, mathematical and scientifically proven process.

If you have a vested or biased interest then you might be tempted to choose a less scientifically accurate sample of the population or mess with the measurement. That's when you have skewed statistics - e.g. the current supposed unemployment rate (which we know is actually double under pre-Howard measurements)

Or another less reliable poll might be if you don't select your sample and just let it be entirely random, like a Yahoo poll of the day.

Places like Newspoll use genuine statistical sampling methods... but you can't always be sure when the media may be politically incentivised to sway public opinion... but then again...

When veteran political analysts like Laurie Oakes are putting their reputations on the line to say that Labor are looking to win by a landslide up to 20 seats... then there just may be some credibility in the polls.

Answer 4

either poll by calling people randomly or ask on street? say 100 people to get an idea?

Answer 5

Its not designed to be something you bet your house on its only ever meant to be a rough guide

Answer 6

Don't know, do you know of anyone that has been polled ? I don't