Of late, opinion polls, have generally been unable to capture the public mood in India during elections. This was witnessed during the Lok Sabha contest and in the Haryana elections, recently. The same has happened in the US where polls were predicting a tight contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Even the exit polls got it wrong. It is true that a 3 percent margin of error, either way, was expected, but eventually it was a sweep in favour of Trump.
So, why are the pollsters getting it wrong? Have they become lazy and are only extrapolating past statistics? Is the feedback process proving faulty? Are there not enough teams on the ground, and is dependence on telephonic and similar ‘remote’ interactions too much? Is the data from the past not being structured properly for accurate comparisons to be made?
There is no doubt that the US has become quite similarly diverse as India. There are strongholds of various communities that are easily predictable with similar opinions, but – as in the case of the ‘swing’ states – there are variations that need closer scrutiny. Is it that pollsters have a bias towards one or the other party and, instead of providing the public an accurate picture of the existing situation, are actually trying to influence them? It is like the TV talk shows where ‘objective’ discussions are held in the effort to present a preferred narrative.
Those interested in tapping into the public mind need to be party to the conversations taking place. In the past, the ways of interaction were limited, and it was easy to get into their midst. Today, there are so many just in the digital world that some hardcore conversations may be entirely missed, thereby narrowing the perspective. If one does have wider access, algorithms in digital media do not allow an objective view. In other words, it is difficult to obtain the required ‘samples’ for surveys.
The question, therefore, emerges whether such polls perform a useful role in the present day. While debates, speeches and suchlike influence the voters in making up their minds, polls should help political parties fine-tune their pitch, adding to the feedback from their own cadre. Unfortunately, as seems to be the case with the hype surrounding the Kamala Harris campaign, polls can prove misleading and lead to complacency and errors of judgement. Statisticians must get together to work out these glitches so that the element of misinformation is reduced in public life.
