EDITORIAL - Guidelines for surveys

Like mushrooms after a downpour, groups offering to conduct political surveys sprout during election season. And like mushrooms, some of the surveys can be poisonous to the electoral system, according to the Commission on Elections.

The Comelec over the weekend disclosed that it is considering the regulation of election-related polling, including releasing guidelines that can help the public distinguish between reliable and fly-by-night survey firms.

In countries where surveys enjoy a high level of accuracy, the results are used as guideposts in policy making even on critical issues such as Britain’s exit from the European Union. Surveys, when accurate and free of partisan agenda, perform a useful role in good governance and democratic processes.

As the Comelec noted, however, there are also fly-by-night groups that emerge during Philippine election season, which skew the results of their surveys, tailoring these to serve the interests of those who paid for the poll. The principal goal of such outfits is not to reflect public opinion but to influence it in favor of the paying party.

Collecting accurate data is challenging enough; pollsters have previously botched election surveys big-time even in the UK – such as in the victory of the Conservative Party in the 2015 parliamentary race – and in the United States, as seen in Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency against Hillary Clinton.

Today the constraints arising from the COVID pandemic have compounded the challenges of polling.

With the proliferation of fake news, trolling and other forms of disinformation, the Comelec is considering reining in survey operations. The rules being studied include requring the identification of those who commission a survey as well as posting the questions posed to respondents.

Amid the proliferation of trolls and disinformation plus possible attempts to create a bandwagon effect, the Comelec sees a silver lining: perhaps Congress – whether the current one or the next – will see the need to pass laws to curb the practices that undermine a free and informed vote.