How reliable are Opinion polls?

Just as the first phase of E2014 gets closer a slew of surveys/opinion polls are bound to flood the TV channels.  Just like all the props associated with our democratic system even the Psehphology and Opinion Polls have been on target of several parties in India. The ruling party of India has been so peeved by them that they have boycotted the shows centered around these polls. Yet by keeping our eyes shut we cannot run away the fact. In all large democracies the Opinion Polls are an integral part of the democratic process and by banning them we can only harm their evolution. However at this point of time there are several myths that need to be busted about these polls.

Myth No. 1 ;- These polls are unreliable

Reality :- This may have been a case till a few years ago. 2004 was really a big setback for the industry yet since then it has evolved a lot. In last few years a lot of modification has been made. At least one agency (CSDS) has predicted almost 90% elections rightly and this is high standard for any such polls. It has called right politically tough states like UP on more than one occasion. In fact a lot of credibility associated with AAP (which is also pooh-poohing these polls) is that one of its leaders, Yogendra Yadav, has been one of the pioneers of such kind of fine-tuning of electoral fortunetelling in India and thus people rely on what he says. Just because he has been good at telling at who will win people are now relying on his words on who should win. Nothing more can be a more fitting to reply an allegation against the reliability of the polls. Even other agencies are learning fast and in 2013 Delhi polls when all the big time agencies got their numbers wrong a new agency called Today’s Chanakya got it bang on in its exit poll.

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/aaps-delhi-sweep-the-only-exit-poll-that-got-it-right-1276857.html

So the Delhi elections was not only a big cause of jubilation for AAP but also Today’s Chanakya. Yet it is ironical that while people see AAP’s feat as a miracle they still say that Today’s call was a fluke. Is it not double standard?

Myth 2 :- They can tell us something about Assembly elections but are not that useful in a Lok Sabha poll.

Reality :- Yes the solution has not been so perfect for the national level picture. But 2009 was not a washout like 2004. As early as in January 2009 CSDS gave UPA a seat range of 215-235, in March 2009 Start News gave UPA as many as 257 seats. In reality UPA got 262. In no way it can be said that they can got the picture, yes they got it a bit off the mark still they clearly said that who will win and did not go wrong. Interestingly these agencies faltered a bit more in their exit polls which is generally seen more reliable. CSDS gave UPA 185-205 seats and NDA 165-185 seats, Star News-Nielsen’s number was UPA-199 and NDA-196. So what went wrong? Actually these pollsters did not miss the fact that UPA was ahead and NDA was behind, but they completely missed the big picture for the Third Front and South India. AIADMK and TDP’s numbers were totally skewed and it added a lot of weight to Congress’s numbers. Similar was the case for Left in Bengal and Kerala. In UP too third and fourth front parties like SP and BSP performed much worse than they were expected. So UPA benefitted from decisive mandate against the non-NDA opposition. Since the UPA was frontrunner naturally it benefitted from the swing away from regional parties in several states.  So the agencies will have to fine-tune their strategy a bit more when they are assessing the real strength of regional parties. This time too parties like YSRCP, TMC, TRS, AIADMK are getting a lot of attention. If these numbers go wrong they are going to impact the number of leading coalitions in the big way and may once again strengthen the chorus of opinion polls being unreliable in presenting a national picture.

Myth 3 :- It gives BJP more seats and always underestimates parties like BSP and never capture the true strength of Congress

Reality : -  This was the case in past but in the last few years, after facing flak constantly on this issue, the agencies have changed their methods and in last few years they have been somehow overestimating BSP and Congress. In UP in 2012 everybody gave big numbers to BSP. In Opinion Polls nobody was ready to give it less than 100 seats. In exit poll star news was closest with 83 seats. The INC-RLD combine was given 99 seats by Star News in its opinion polls while in Exit Poll it gave them 51 seats. In reality BSP  got 80 and RLD-Congress got only 37.  The CSDS poll gave BJP just 28-30 seats to BJP in its exit poll whereas it got 50 seats. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Legislative_Assembly_election,_2012

In the case of Bihar in 2010 nobody was ready to give BJP more than 60 seats when it got 90+ seats in reality. INC was constantly given more than 20 seats when it got only 4. So the question of overestimating BJP is itself an overstatement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar_Legislative_Assembly_election,_2010

So what is the key flaw?   

One of the major shortcomings of the Opinion Poll business is that it is not adaptable to gauge the impact of a newcomer in political fray. In Andhra it could not predict how PRP’s entry will impact TDP. In Tamil Nadu it could not say how DMDK’s rising graph will benefit DMK. It was almost blind to MNS’s impact in Maharashtra. So a challenge before the industry is to call the multi-cornered contest in right way. This time too AAP has been present in a major part of the country. It will be a bit tricky to predict what will be the final impact of its latent force. Yet you can trust these polls to find out who is ahead. 2004 was an aberration and it is not going to be repeated. For all other things you can keep coming to this blog for getting the better picture of the electoral game.