To suggest that automated telephone polling is right 19 times out of 20 or subject to variables of 3 or 4 per cent is something of a joke. When you have no idea of the age of respondents, no idea of the statistical viability of your sample, then you have no idea of the reliability of the result. And then there is the problem of people who always lie to machines. When the calls get heavier towards the end of the campaign, you get loyalties bouncing all over.
One example of this, witnessed in the vast databases being assembled by the federal parties in Canada, has been this writer’s schizophrenic presence in the Liberal Party’s database. Periodically being identified as a Liberal, a Green or New Democrat supporter is upsetting the parameters of the records. It would be laughed off if it were not for the monthly donation we make to the party. We got a tax receipt for 2014 the other day for less than 15 per cent of our annual contribution.
The very fact of these databases should be a matter of some concern to human rights advocates. The entire voter database for all electoral districts is provided to the political parties by Elections Canada. The parties add further information. When you declare you will vote for this party or that party, the information is recorded. Eventually it is recorded in all party’s databases. They know who to call to encourage your vote, if that is their interest. They know who to call if they want to send you to the wrong place to vote.
And when you go to your door to talk to a political canvasser they are there to do one thing. They want to know how you are going to vote. You might tell them outright how you will vote. You might tell them indirectly by your body language and your questions. And you might just lie to them. Sure they will leave some literature, in hopes, but they can most often tell from their experience.
But good canvassers are not available everywhere and the cheapness of automated calling is a lure to campaign managers. More than half the time it seems, those automated calls, saying press 1 if you are voting Conservative, press 2 if you are voting Liberal and so on, are from the political parties seeking to update their information.
When you have voted, their database is also updated and the parties can go on to get the neighbours out to vote. With the information about your reliability in voting and how you vote, you can be targeted in the next election as the parties learn more and more about you and your voting habits. That is unless you routinely lie to canvassers and callers.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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