If I Was A Conspiracy Theorist.....

WhoNeedsAWeathermanToKnowWhichWayTheSpinBlows?
PollVille


Well, well......

It looks like folks of a certain bent (ie. folks like me) might have to think hard about 'Strategic Voting', again,* this time around.

After all with a lead like the following, from the Globe and (nolongerEmpire) Mail's Omar el Akkad, how could we not:

OTTAWA -- The New Democratic Party has nearly doubled its support in British Columbia battleground ridings in less than a week at the expense of both the Liberals and the Conservatives, a poll shows.

The NDP has the support of 30 per cent of voters in those key ridings, according to a poll conducted Sept. 7 to 9 for The Globe and Mail and CTV News. That's up from 17 per cent in a poll conducted Sept. 4 to 6.........

Now, this is good news for left-leaning folks (ie. folks like me), right?

Of course.

But then you've got to ask yourself - who else benefits?

I mean, it's not like those votes are going to be torn from the grip of the gnarled fingers of the ConBots, right?

Which got me to wondering who actually did the polling:

"This is a trend line," said Peter Donolo of the Strategic Counsel, which conducted the poll. "It's the strongest trend we've seen develop.".......


Of course, the Strategic Counsel has seen sudden 'strong' trend lines develop just before elections in the recent past that suddenly disappeared, surprise!!!, immediately after those elections.

And, who, you might be asking yourself, benefitted then?

Well, let's just say that it wasn't the left-siders......


Exhibit 1: The 2005 British Columbia Provincial Election, as reported by Monte Paulsen in the Tyee:

On the Friday before the tightest provincial election facing British Columbia this decade, Canada’s most influential newspaper published dramatic poll numbers that appear to be based on biased methodology.

“This is unethical," Vancouver pollster Angus McAllister told The Tyee. “The Globe and Mail ought to be responsible enough not to publish a poll where the ballot question is preceded by 14 questions that influence people’s answers.”

The poll, which was released on Friday the 13th, predicted that the BC Liberal Party would beat the New Democrats by a 13 per cent margin on May 17. Co-sponsored by The Globe and Mail as well as CTV, the poll was conducted by a Toronto firm called The Strategic Counsel.

The wide lead found by the Strategic Counsel poll not only exceeded both the 8-point lead predicted by an Ipsos-Reid poll and the 5-point lead predicted by a Mustel Group poll (both of which were conducted the same week), it also differed from those polls in that its Liberal lead exceeded its margin of error. At a critical moment in the campaign, the Globe’s 13-point prediction provided an appearance of invincibility that buoyed BC Liberals and demoralized New Democrats.

Exhibit 2: The 2006 Canadian Federal Election as reported by myself following up on the work of good folks like Mahigan at POGGE:

From Jan 16, 2006 (ie. one week BEFORE the election)......

I think Nik Nanos at SES just delivered a subtle spanking when he published this.

Poll	Date	Lib	CPC	NDP	Bloc
SES	Jan 14-16	30%	37%	18%	10%
Ekos	Jan 15-17	27%	37%	20%	11%
Decima	Jan 12-15	27%	37%	18%	11%
SC	Jan 14-16	24%	42%	17%	12%

Can anyone spot the outlier?

Posted by mahigan at 07:09 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

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OK?


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*Linked is my Jan. 2006 Election Eve Lotuslandian StratVote Report from last time around (please be kind, because at that time David Emerson was still the Liberal he now says he never was).
If you want numbers that have a track record of actually being predictive of reality go to NNanos' place. If you want analysis and discussion that is top notch, go to Greg Morrow's.

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