Six reasons why the pollsters were wrong

As was correctly noted by sociologist Yevhen Holovakha at The Day’s round table prior to the election, demonizing sociology was a distinct feature of this year’s parliamentary campaign, zeroing in on those probing electoral sentiments. He called this ratingomania, noting that 60-70% of the media coverage focused on whether or not the sociologists would mislead Ukrainian society. Sociologists, it appears, felt just as anxious about the issue.

Iryna Bekeshkina, scientific adviser with the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, said on March 31 that the polling companies would be happy if their findings tallied with the official results. Allowing for statistical error (within 1%, according to the pollsters), the exit poll findings were quite accurate. Proceeding from the poll carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, SOCIS, and Community Monitoring Center, discrepancies exceeded 1% only with regard to the blocs Our Ukraine and For a United Ukraine (the former proved less successful than predicted and the latter vice versa).

Domestic forecasts of how the parties and blocs would do were less successful. Thus, the latest from the International Institute of Sociology and Community Monitoring (March 20-25) claimed that Women for the Future and the Greens would surely get seats in Verkhovna Rada, while underestimating Oleksandr Moroz’s Socialists and the Communist Party.

The heads of Ukraine’s most prestigious polling centers held a round table on April 4 to try to figure out where they had gone wrong and whether their performance during the campaign was a success or failure. After all has been said and done, the following six reasons can be singled out to explain their mistakes.

First, the ban on the publication of poll findings relating to the parties and blocs two week before the election itself. Much could have changed during that period, given “the exceptional dynamism of fluctuations in electoral preferences” concerning the nine leaders of the race (second reason), said Valery Khmelko, president of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the more so that canvassing and counter-canvassing was not prohibited under the law. In addition, respondents remaining undecided also made their choices during this period.

The third reason is purely technical. Mr. Khmelko pointed out that the sociologists took the electorate’s pulse mainly using sample quotas, while the statistical method was applied in the exit poll.

The fourth reason was the pollsters’ supposed bias. Olha Balakirieva, head of the Community Monitoring Center, emphasized that the poll shortly before the elections proved considerably more accurate than sociological forecasts based on its findings.

The fifth reason was the discrepancy between what the respondents stated and then actually did. Volodymyr Paniotto, KIIS general director, explained this sociological nuance, referring to a discrepancy that might well have aggravated the difference between the polls and the official turnout. He pointed out that people in Western Ukraine were unwilling to admit their support of the Communists, and that in the east, likewise, few would say they were going to vote for the national democrats. This means that polls in those territories were not reliable.

The sixth reason was bad organization of the election itself. Sociologists believe it could change the electorate’s structure, especially discouraging the participation of young people. Bekeshkina said the long lines at the polling stations could have discouraged some voters who just left without casting their ballots. Sociologists believe that young people did precisely that. If so, this explains the fiasco of the Greens, Yabluko, and other parties betting on youth. She also recalled that the sociologists expected 75% of the electorate to visit the voting booths, but CEC statistics showed 69%. “It remains to be seen who would have benefited from that six percent.”

Naturally, all the above reasons acted in favor of or against one political force or another. When asked by journalists to comment on the Socialist Party’s unexpectedly high turnout, Oleksandr Yaremenko, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Social Research, suggested that some of the respondents concealed their political preferences, because the SPU is in dual opposition, against the regime and the Communists. Inaccurate sampling could also have a negative affect on assessing the party’s actual support.