And the polls were wrong again: ballot boxes contradict institutes' predictions in every election
A candidate who appears nine points behind on the eve of the election enters Sunday as a defeated. Read on Gazeta do Povo.
TL;DR
- Seven out of seven presidential polls leading up to the election predicted Lula ahead in the first round, but Flavio Bolsonaro won, exceeding all predictions.
- This marks the third consecutive presidential election where polls have systematically underestimated candidates from the same political alignment, with errors of 6, 7, and 5 points.
- Similar inaccuracies were observed in state-level gubernatorial races, where polls in 16 out of 26 federative units underestimated the winning candidate by more than three points.
- The article highlights specific instances in Rio de Janeiro, Parana, and Rio Grande do Sul where polls significantly misjudged the winners.
- While some errors occurred in the opposite direction, like in Bahia and the Federal District, the consistent underestimation of right-leaning candidates in presidential races is identified as a significant pattern.
- The author suggests that the repeated errors, particularly when they consistently favor one side, raise suspicions beyond mere methodological flaws, though direct evidence of manipulation is not presented.
- The current transparency regulations for polls, while requiring registration of who hired the poll and its cost, do not provide access to the raw interview data, making independent verification impossible.
- A call is made for open data policies in political polling, demanding access to raw interview data, response weights, and undecided voter treatment, to ensure accuracy and prevent polling from operating 'in the dark'.