Opinion poll suggests FG could win two seats in Louth

[The Analyser]

This constituency is going to be a 5 seater next time out. Labour's time will come, not this time but next time looking at the poll.
I agree with the anecdote Analyser provided about the silent treatment.
Last time out canvassing, our candidate got a good, however slightly pitied recertion. He got a great vote, and people were telling us they would vote for him, but they knew FG had no chance of Govt. People were asking 'will he get in' rather than 'will ye get in'.
I havent done enough canvassing this time though to know what the reception on the door is yet.

That was people's experience last time all over. The silent treatment is the frightener. Some elections ago I canvassed with teams from all the parties for research purposes. You could see then (1992) that FF were in deep trouble. People would take leaflets from them but say little, sometimes just stare at them or give them a quizzical smile. I asked one of the FF team how he thought it was going. He said "you've seen what happened. We're ************************************." And he explained that the silent treatment was death. If they cannot look at you, or if they won't talk to you, or if they are cooly polite, it means they have decided that you are dead meat when they go to vote. Whereas for Labour, everyone wanted to talk to them, to say positive (or negative) things, to give feedback. You could see that there was an engagement there. People were interested. They were listening. Then neutrals wanted to engage you and give you a chance to convince them. FF instead was being ignored; politely ignored, but ignored. A TD calls it the "waiting in the long grass for you". FF had it in 1992. FG in 2002, Labour a bit of it in 1997.

[Last Word]

[quote=The Analyser]

But the downside is that Red C's methodology is suspect and they do not have a proven record. So until proven by direct comparison with 'live' election results, given doubts over other Red C results, their results need to be taken cautiously. However the fact that they are not using questionable phone polling, which is distorted by landline ownership (usually middle class and middle aged; working class people and young people are disproportionately dependent on mobiles which are not polled) but the more proven direct interview technique might improve their accuracy quotent.

What on earth are your problems with telephone polling Analyser. I agree that RedC havn't been proven yet, but their polls don't appear to be that different from mrbi adjusted figures, apart from the last one. I for one am delighted that they are polling more regularly than anyone else has done.

The telephone appraoch may not have been proven in Ireland, although ICM were closest with this approach last time, but it is proven across the world. Telephone polling is used by most companies in the UK and USA, and in the UK has been shown to be much more reliable than face to face polls.

mrbi often "adjust" their FF vote in face to face polls by a massive 5%. Would you adjust a methodology you were happy with by this much, or would this suggest there might be something wrong with it?

I am not sure which is better at the moment, and we won't know until the next election, but certainly don't see any reason to slag one or the other off.

I understand that those without landlines in Ireland make up just 1 in 10 of the Irish electorate, and even less of those who are actually likely to vote. 8 out of 10 people aged 18-35 do STILL have a landline, and as I understand are not seen to be materialy diiferent to those without a landline. So your issue with the lack of mobile only homes seems a bit over the top.

To be hoenst I get the feeling you don't really know what you are talking about and have some personal agenda!

You obviously don't know much about polling, Irish demographics or much else. Phone polling is flawed because it lacks the personal interreaction that can help influence people into telling the truth. (Most people find it more difficult to lie to someone's face than over the phone, simply because they worry whether their body language - are they red in the face? Do they look shifty? Are they sweating? Can they see it in their eyes? etc - will reveal their lack of truth. So confronted face-to-face with someone they are more likely to tell the truth or at least not deliberately lie than anonymously on a phone. That is elementary psychiatry and shapes polling techniques worldwide.) Face-to-face polling also allows the questioner to observe and assess the truthfulness of the responses, whereas on the phone they have no way of knowing if they are being bull************************ted.

That is just one of many many issues that have arisen with polling. Stratified sampling is also extremely difficult when one is interviewing people by phone as not only is it impossible to tell the age of someone by phone (one has to rely on their truthfulness, something which is all too often missing). Often one cannot tell the gender. (One business contact of mine has the lowest deepest voice imaginable. They are a woman from Limerick, but everyone who talks to them on the phone presumes they are a man. They have even been refused permission to talk about their utility bills over the phone because those on the other end of the line will not believe that they are female.) So not merely must one rely on the truthfulness of the respondent's answers to the questions, one must rely on the truthfulness to answers as to their age and gender.

In addition the degree of commuting that Ireland has, thanks to its corrupt planning and resulting excessive house prices, means that in many parts of the country one cannot be sure to get younger people on a landline, if they have a landline, in the time one is allowed to call. Instead one very often gets their parents or grandparents who are babysitting while the thirty-something mother or father is sitting in a traffic jam. And by the time they come home they are in no mood to answer thirty questions over the phone. So either they refuse to take part or else they lie through their teeth to get the thing done quickly, by giving the easiest answer possible. (The easiest answer is always to say 'I support the incumbent' rather than have to go into details about the alternatives.)

As to phone ownership, anyone who works in business knows that when one rings a landline or mostly contacts people who are in the older age bracket and/or middle class. Landline ownership has plummeted among younger people. Even those who live in houses with landlines often do not use them. But in most countries ringing mobiles is against the law for polling because one cannot be certain that the person on the other end is in the country. If they are abroad they would be charged a roaming charge, and in many states it is an offence to make an unsolicited business call that results in a charge to the person being called.

As to TNS/mrbi, your ignorance of their polling methods is astounding. The situation is simple. all polling organisations use basic methodology. The difference is in the extrapolation of the meaning from the numbers. TNS/mrbi established that a flaw it (and IMS) possessed was that it included many people who actually were not going to vote, or gave stock incumbency answers. That problem exists throughout polling. In Ireland that tended to overestimate FF, who would be the recipients of the stock incumbency answers, while underestimating FG who tended to do better among intending voters than those who had no intention in reality of voting. In addition the 'DUP/SF effect' in a southern version tended to negatively affect FG results. Independent research enabled TNS/mrbi to develop a model with can largely negate the incumbency distortion and the 'DUP/SF effect' while distinguishing between the 'certain non-voters', 'possible voters' and 'probable voters'. That model has shown itself to be more accurate when compared to real results that took place since its adoption, and versions of it are being studied for use by other polling organisations in Ireland, Britain and elsewhere.

You may have a chip on your shoulder about the fact that the adjusted number means that FF goes down and FG goes up, but the model is not constructed to minimise FF support and maximise FG support. It is constructed to overcome the longstanding tendency of polls to overestimate FF and underestimate FG. However the 2004 elections showed that, not alone did TNS/mrbi not falsely overinflate FG support, it actually still underestimated that party, just by less.

Phone polling possesses too many unstable variables in Ireland, variable that are less impactful in other countries because while such states also possess high travel times, etc they have not had the dramatic economic growth that has happened in Ireland. As a result there is a greater degree of economic stability and residential continuity. In Ireland the sudden impact of the Celtic Tiger means that people's work hours, social hours, travel schedules, house ownership patterns, phone usage patterns and other areas are in a greater state of flux. So that makes constructing a representative trustworthy sample, much less a stratified sample, exceedingly difficult, more so that in some other states. Which is why the main polling organisations do not use phone polling. The fact that Red C results tend to corrolate with unadjusted poll results rather than adjusted results leads many in polling to suspect that it too is getting an over-impact of the incumbency issue and is so overestimating FF and underestimating FG. That is why the professionals in the parties are dubious about its results and why all the parties, iincluding your own, pay more attention to face-to-face polling in general and to MRBI polls in particular.

BTW I have worked in polling and written about it. That is why I have written about it here.[/quote:3jp27mwj]

My God you really are full of hot air - I don't think I have ever come across someone so full of their own self importance. Your just making half of this stuff up as you go along, and not worth even making this post for.

[The Trinity Politick]

He contributes very well to p.ie.

You on the other hand dont. Try making a case for what you're saying

[The Trinity Politick]

The average joe on the street doesn't understand fully the political process. Indeed even us interested people can have trouble with it.

People have to remember that its not just the seat count that is important.

FF/PD will not get enough seats to form a government.
FF/GR will not get enough seats to form a government
FG/GR/LAB will attempt to form a government .
FF/LAB may form a government if all else fails
FF/SF will not get enough seats to form a government, and even if they did
it would be a very unlikely coalition

Sinn Fein , the Socialists and many independents have said they will abstain and not vote for any candidate. How does this look like a Bertie Ahern victory???

Bertie Ahern needs 83 votes or Enda Kenny becomes Taoiseach.
Enda Kenny will have concrete votes in FG, Lab and the Greens with the possibilty that some independents will vote for him rather than let Ahern clobber together a coalition.

This is a game not simply of seats and size, but of simply common sense.

[The Trinity Politick]

FG will gain in Louth, and this is indicative of the shedding of the fat of the FF party

[SEANSOUTH]

This is a game not simply of seats and size, but of simply common sense.[/quote]

Bertie does not need 83 votes in the Dáil to be Táoiseach but a simple majority of the Deputies that do vote on the vote for Táoiseach.

[The Analyser]

This is a game not simply of seats and size, but of simply common sense.

Bertie does not need 83 votes in the Dáil to be Táoiseach but a simple majority of the Deputies that do vote on the vote for Táoiseach.[/quote]

If FF are anywhere below 40% and the PDs anywhere the 1% the latest poll put them at, then FG+LAB alone would have more than enough votes to beat Bertie's FF+PD if the likes of SF are abstaining, as they have indicated they might. And if SF supports Ahern, then the PDs will vote against him. The number of independents is likely to go down. So the odds are either that Kenny will be nominated taoiseach or that the Dáil will fail to nominate anyone, rather than that Ahern will have the numbers to get himself nominated. And if he is defeated, though he doesn't physically resign, the National Archives files imply that he automatically deemed to resign. (Previous taoisigh who were defeated in the nomination process also understood from their legal advisors that once defeated they were deemed to have resigned. Though in the case where Haughey was defeated in 1989 it was thought advisable that as there was not a new taoiseach nominated for appointment by the President, the Taoiseach should actually physically resign rather than just be deemed to have done so. I presume the same process has been followed since. I must check that with Albert.)

[The Trinity Politick]

A simple majority assuming the full Dail sits with 166 TDs and excluding those who abstain ?