Opinion poll firms say that any failures to predict election results accurately are not the result of faulty methods but of the decline in the use of landline phones and, in at least one case, of pressure exercised by one political party that attacked their raw results.
Whatever the reason, experts say, a great majority of the public does not trust the results of opinion surveys, believing they are easily manipulated.
According to Ioannis Konstantinidis, associate professor of electoral behavior at the University of Macedonia, only one in eight people would choose to believe a pollster’s analysis over that of any number of self-appointed “expert” panelists, “from nutritionists to economists.”
This reflects the public’s broader mistrust of politics and the media, he says.
The shift to cellphones, meanwhile, has increased uncertainty over respondents’ geographical location, pollsters add.
