With undecideds on 13.8%, labour has to win people back. There is no big pool of unpersuaded. It will be a tough ask...with a lot of energy going into minor gains, unless something happens and National fall over before the finish line....which can't be ruled out given we know so little of their policy. ]
A new poll out today in the NZ Herald is a bit hard to make out - at least in the online version.
Like other polls, they make no mention of the proportion of undecided voters, so we have no way of knowing how many people are still undecided. This is a huge flaw in my eyes as it can have the effect of grossly exaggerating the apparent levels of party support.
Also difficult to explain is the lack of a simple table or list reporting the poll. All numbers are couched in analysis and comparison with past polls that we have to try to see through to get our own picture of things.
Inexplicable is the lack of any number for several parties including the Greens who appear to have polled third, but with no actual percentage of support reported. All we get is:
On the basis of this poll the Greens would comfortably get over the 5 per cent threshold and return to Parliament with eight MPs, two more than now.
What basis?
Either some editor (print and / or web?) screwed this up or the Herald is playing silly-buggers with the poll results for some reason. Why not just report the result? I hope it's just a screw-up.
I've read it several times now (sometimes I miss things. No...really) and still don't know the results of the full poll. The numbers just aren't there in the online version. What we have is a poll already distorted by leaving out the undecideds and a partial result for the rest....which doesn't appear to include the actual level of support for the party that polled third. The Greens. Did they go up? Down? We're told this for the other parties mentioned, including those with less support.
Not good enough.
More evidence that these polls are totally unreliable. Just look at the margins of error - it makes the results meaningless. Let's face it, we won't know who will win the election until everyone's votes are counted.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I agree....
ReplyDeleteSteve, just got to this, I know it's later than is polite, but busy is as busy does.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason these polls make the paper is that the Herald has paid for them.
This is a badly written summary of a useless poll. Like bgb says, the margin of error alone is enough to make "preferred" prime minister meaningless, and the rise in Winston's pants is due to Viagra, not the poll.
we should just ignore this stuff.