It’s as if Lorne Bozinoff of Forum Research and John Wright of Ipsos Reid (inset left and right) were in different provinces talking about different election campaigns. Polls released by these two organizations earlier this week are entirely opposite in their findings. Forum says the Liberals have 38 percent of the popular support, the PCs 35 percent. The Forum release is full of bright information about the likelihood that the Liberals will win. The Ipsos Reid poll says the Conservatives have 39% of the popular support and the Liberals 30%. The poll says the PCs are poised on the basis of these results to win a majority. It isn’t enough to say that there is a margin of error in polling which might account for this strange contradiction. Any statistician would have to admit that one of these two operations is just hopelessly wrong and inept, or something. The public really deserves better. Read Twitter chatter about “weighting” etc. Are these two pollsters on the same planet?
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It’s as if Lorne Bozinoff of Forum Research and John Wright of Ipsos Reid (inset left and right) were in different provinces talking about different election campaigns. Polls released by these two organizations earlier this week are entirely opposite in their findings. Forum says the Liberals have 38 percent of the popular support, the PCs 35 percent. The Forum release is full of bright information about the likelihood that the Liberals will win. The Ipsos Reid poll says the Conservatives have 39% of the popular support and the Liberals 30%. The poll says the PCs are poised on the basis of these results to win a majority. It isn’t enough to say that there is a margin of error in polling which might account for this strange contradiction. Any statistician would have to admit that one of these two operations is just hopelessly wrong and inept, or something. The public really deserves better. Read Twitter chatter about “weighting” etc. 