What slot machines are to gambling addicts is pretty much what election polls are to journalists.
We love them.
They and surveys can occupy a whole lot of punditry time. So, it’s understandable that no matter how wrong polls have proven to be in recent elections, we still yammer on about them.
Take the latest one relased this week in B.C. A Mainstreet/Postmedia poll released Wednesday, had the NDP ahead of the Liberals by about five points. The NDP was polling at 30 percent, Liberals at 25 per cent, Greens at 11 per cent and Conservatives at 10 per cent. The undecideds were at about 24 per cent.
According to the pollster, the results come from a random sample taken on Feb. 25 and 26 of 2,353 B.C. residents and confirmed eligible voters. The margin of error, they say, is 2.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
This one poll provided yards of speculation. The fellow who is president of Mainstreet Research said, “The NDP does have a lead at this point, (but) the only hesitation is because of what we see in the rest of B.C., where the undecided has given the Liberals a lead in that part of (the province).” So, that’s a good way of saying, this means pretty much nothing.
Flashback to election polls in Alberta and right here in B.C. in 2012 and 2013. Pollsters got it spectacularly wrong. And then look south for another major poll error that saw Donald Trump take the White House. But, as media, this does not seem to deter us for very long.
We just keep hoping the next poll will reveal what folks are really thinking or doing.
The polling industry must also be shaking in its boots. There may simply not be an accurate way to determine what or who people will vote for anymore. And polls that hedge their bets so much that their polls are meaningless will surely feel the pinch.
With landlines diminishing and those being polled admitting they are lying deliberately to throw the polls off, it’s pretty much a snapshot of a grey horse in fog for pollsters.
But that won’t stop pollsters or media pundits from poring over the data like ancient Romans divining the future through sheep entrails.
