New report wants improvements in polls in leadup to elections
Posted Aug 8, 2018 2:50 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A report into wildly inaccurate polls in the leadup to last year’s Calgary civic election is calling for better standards for the market research industry and the media.
Three Mainstreet Research Polls had incumbent Mayor Naheed Nenshi trailing challenger Bill Smith by wide margins one by as many as 17 percentage points.
Nenshi won by eight points.
The report says two other polls correctly predicted a Nenshi win, but were also flawed.
The report was commissioned by the Market Research and Intelligence Association.
It recommends the association update its standards and provide a checklist of those standards.
The polls were published in the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun.
Some of the report’s recommendations were targeted toward the media.
It urges better disclosure of the financial arrangements between media outlets and the polling outfits they work with, as well as better reporting standards and training for journalists who cover polls.
