Drama in the Polls: Looking Back at the Advanced Polls Failure in the U.K. Election

By: Dominic Jones

When reading in our textbook Media Matters: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power by John L. Sullivan, I came across the line "Opinion surveys are therefor quite useful as neutral touchstones for political debate" (69).  It made me think back to the U.K. general election earlier this year where Prime Minister David Cameron was re-elected by a large margin, despite advance polls showing his Conservatives being basically tied with the left wing Labour party.

With our own election coming up, I have been very skeptical of any polls for this very reason.  And reading that line in the textbook made me wonder if I should be concerned about other political polls, not about who will win the election but about the public's opinion on various issues.  In the textbook, the history of polling was explored in great detail so it's easy to see why traditional polling is being relied on when it's worked for so long.  

But the U.K shows how the system can be rigged by the pollsters.  I came across an article in the Telegraph from after the election by Dan Hodges, titled "Why did the polls get it wrong at the general election? Because they lied."  In the article Hodges goes over how the polls started off with wide gaps between the parties and the gaps shrunk as the election approached to where it appeared there would be a virtual tie between Labour and the Conservatives.

Hodges argues that polling companies came together to ensure that their numbers were similar, as to not look bad if they all had different results.  He explains the problem with this saying,

"Polls aren’t just used to predict election results, they’re also used to try to influence election results. A few days before polling day the BBC produced an all-singing, all-dancing full page online interactive graphic detailing the “Close constituency battles” it said were “being fought with less than a week to go before the general election”. At the bottom, it carried this small disclaimer. 'Most of the polling shown was commissioned from independent polling companies by former Conservative party deputy chairman and donor Lord Ashcroft. Seven were conducted by Survation on behalf of UKIP donor Alan Bown or trade union Unite. One was carried out by ICM for former Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott.'

If the polling companies don’t want to be regulated, fine. But let’s not pretend we don’t know why they got it wrong on 7 May. Because we do."

Polls are important to both the people and the parties.  We need accurate reflections of what the vote will be.  If companies are going to come together like this and influence results by putting out bad information then shouldn't they be held to the same standards as politicians running.  That if they do wrong by the people they won't get their job back in the next election.  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

It's not unique to the U.K. either, Hodges points to an article by Nate Silver about a similar occurrence in the 2014 US election.  One can understand why the polling companies would not want to look like the outlier and risk being the only one to get it wrong and would therefore come together.  But when they all get it wrong, then we have an epidemic on our hands.  Once the Canadian election is over, it will be interesting to go back and see not only how accurate were the polls, but how similar were they as well.