Bandwagon effect?

In 2016, pollsters in the United States projected the wrong winner in the presidential race. Although the surveys reflected Hillary Clinton’s victory in the popular vote (by a margin of nearly 2.9 million), they failed to project the outcome in the decisive electoral college, which Donald Trump won.

Last year, the credibility of US polling took a worse hit. Pre-election survey results consistently showed a presidential race so tight there were concerns over a cliffhanger in the November vote. Surveys also showed Kamala Harris nudging up the numbers for the Democrats against the Republicans’ Trump after Joe Biden gave way to his vice president.

Yet when the results of both the popular vote and the electoral college came in, the world saw not just a sea of red, as the Republicans had predicted, but a red tsunami that swept the United States, handing Trump control over the White House and Congress, with several of his appointees from his first term sitting in the Supreme Court.

Opinion polling also took a hit in 2016 in the United Kingdom, when the surveys failed to reflect British citizens’ preference to exit the European Union. Because surveys usually serve as guides in UK policy making, the Brits found it necessary to conduct a post-mortem, to find out what went wrong in the polling.

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In the Philippines, the top pollsters have been releasing similar results on performance, approval and trust ratings of key officials, as well as the main public concerns (high prices and jobs consistently top the list).

The reputable surveys have also been accurate so far in the races for president, vice president and the top six places in the Senate.

But now the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has revived a concern about pre-election surveys. Are they reflecting voter preferences, or influencing them?

The Comelec still thinks there’s some basis for the second one, even while agreeing that surveys provide a snapshot of the public pulse during a particular period. Comelec Chairman George Garcia has said the poll body is considering regulating pre-election polling.

It’s not the first time that the Comelec has argued that surveys could condition the minds of voters. Over two decades ago, the poll body had banned the publication of pre-election surveys, to prevent a “bandwagon effect.”

Pollster Social Weather Stations and a newspaper took the issue to the Supreme Court. In May 2001, the SC ruled in favor of the petitioners, saying the Comelec ban constituted prior restraint on freedom of speech and expression, which is unconstitutional.

“We’re having to review the Supreme Court decision, if it’s still applicable. Because, to a certain extent, (surveys) create a tendency to influence people,” Garcia said recently, noting that voters tend to pick survey frontrunners. “The right of choice disappears because of the surveys.”

The SC ruling provided guidelines on the conduct of pre-election surveys. Garcia wants to monitor compliance with the requirements. These include declaring whether a survey is commissioned or not, who commissioned it, where the respondents came from and certain other details in the methodology.

“We will now conduct a review of the propriety of allowing survey firms to release results if not compliant with the decision of the SC,” Garcia said.

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There are people who share Garcia’s misgivings on the impact of survey results on voter preferences in a country with dismal comprehension levels.

Surveys can also be self-fulfilling. Campaign fund donors look at the early results and put their money on the frontrunners. Large war chests allow candidates to cover more ground for their campaigns, buy more ads, pay influencers and trolls and paste their campaign materials on every electric post.

Such campaign donors, however, also risk being burned. As we have seen in previous presidential races, early survey frontrunners can suffer from peaking too early. They draw the heaviest campaigns to bring them down, with all the dirt both real and imagined being dredged out.

The buzz is that apart from Vice President Sara Duterte, who has publicly admitted what everyone suspects anyway, that she is eyeing a run for president in 2028, certain survey frontrunners will soon be the subjects of blistering campaigns to pull them down.

Some wealthy campaign donors have seen their businesses suffer from being identified as supporters of early presidential frontrunners who later lost.

Still, surveys are among the ways by which candidates can raise their public profile. Outside elections, surveys can also be used to push policies.

There are some surveys that are patently tailored to suit the needs of the camp that commissioned the poll, to promote a candidacy or policy agenda.

But those with the funds to commission such a survey probably know that the results are tailored to please the party that paid for the poll, so it’s useless as an accurate gauge of the public pulse. Such surveys, however, are not meant as a gauge, but for self-promotion or advancement of an idea.

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I must confess I was dismayed when OCTA Research, whose members attained rock star status for their frighteningly accurate math-based reading of infection trends throughout the COVID pandemic, decided to lend their credibility to polling.

Oh well, now they’re deep into it. I asked OCTA president and University of the Philippines political science professor Ranjit Rye if their respondents on Senate preferences know what senators are mandated to do. Do they think senators are mainly distributors of unconditional ayuda, or entertainers?

He promised that OCTA would conduct a survey on this.

If such a survey validates suspicions that many voters have no idea about what senators and congressmen are being paid by taxpayers to do, perhaps it could give some urgency to carrying out reforms promoting improvement in comprehension.

Surveys, when accurate and done scientifically, without an agenda, can be useful in crafting policy.

For pre-election polling, however, the concern about a bandwagon effect is not entirely baseless, especially among those whose poverty and undereducation make informed choices challenging.