The role and limitations of opinion polls

Last Tuesday (23rd), the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion, a polling agency, announced a survey on voters’ willingness to vote. 52% of the respondents tended to vote on Election Day on December 19, while 33% chose not. Voting, the intention to vote is obviously lower than that before the previous elections. On average, as high as 80% of the respondents indicated that their preference for voting was low.

Later, some establishments, including the vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, Lu Wenduan, questioned that the polls might violate election laws. The ICAC Commissioner Bai Yunliu also said in an interview that if the polls have elements of inciting others not to vote or to cast invalid votes. , He believes that there is a suspicion of violating the "Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Conduct) Ordinance."

Before June 30, 2019, the Public Opinion Research Project of the University of Hong Kong has been conducting pre-election polling intention surveys, collecting data by random sample telephone interviews, and making adjustments in accordance with the statistics provided by the Census and Statistics Department using the "repetitive multiple weighting method". In order to analyze the voters' positions and attitudes before and after the election for reference by society or political parties.

The Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion will be responsible for the polling reform in 2019.

Existing data can be traced back to 1991, when the Hong Kong colonial government implemented the first direct elections.

The voting intention survey conducted a month ago at that time reflected that 61% of the respondents indicated that they would vote in the election, and the relevant figure has increased to 73% as the election day gets closer.

Did not see how the poll question is illegal

The reason why this poll is suspected of illegality may be because Chung Tingyao, chairman and chief executive officer of the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion, said earlier that "voting a blank vote" would be taken as a part of the statistics as an option of the interviewees.

However, looking back at the poll conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Public Opinion, the question is "This year's Legislative Council election will be held on December 19th. Will you go to vote?", no one party has specifically pointed out how this "incites". The position and voting intention of the "others" in the election.

But no matter what, the incident is worthy of our deep consideration and understanding, as well as its readable and unreadable features.

Especially when some people in the community believe that polls have the meaning of interfering with elections, and objectively, many citizens may have a "herd mentality" when facing elections. We should understand the functions and limitations of polls.

At present, no one party has specifically pointed out how this "incites others" to stand and vote in the election.

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Polls are only for reference but not for pointing

First of all, although opinion polls are scientific and objective social research, they can help understand the dynamics and characteristics of society, but polls can only understand the views of citizens on individual issues within a certain period of time, and may not reflect the basis or basis behind their views. The rationale does not necessarily have the effect of guiding the direction of society.

Especially when it comes to election issues, if someone uses the results of the polls to dominate their personal voting preferences, this "herd mentality" will inevitably distort the meaning of the polls.

In fact, every voter should have his or her own consideration, and actively think about which candidate is more worthy of his own approval, and that his or her position should be the direction of Hong Kong's development.

Today's society is still full of anxiety and suspicion to a certain extent. Even though the allegations are indeed "exaggerated", we cannot fail to be vigilant about how society views polls.

The question has always been how every voter in society views the election in a positive manner, actively chooses candidates worthy of support among the candidates, and allows their ideas and ideals to play a role in the parliament.

Turnout calculations, disputes are meaningless, fighting for support with political platforms, actual tolerance, accepting candidates, good governance and good governance, society should see that the future of parliamentary weather is taking shape