THE EFFECT AND IMPORTANCE OF OPINION POLLS IN POLITICS

With the local elections approaching, it becomes decisive for the political figures of the cities who are preparing to change the junta to know the opinions of the citizens. Knowledge helps to understand mistakes and make the right decisions for future steps to take. In recent years there has been a growth in this need, and that’s why online polls have been identified as the identikit of future predictions such as Donald Trump Approval ratings for chances of Donald Trump to be President again. The opinion poll aims to know the opinions of a group of people on certain topics, such as politics. The quality and reliability of the data depend a lot on the sampling and on the methodology that one decides to adopt.

What is a poll?

A poll is a statistical survey aimed at giving a quantitative indication, on a given date, of a population's opinions, wishes, attitudes, or behavior by questioning a sample.

Polls are therefore defined as:

By their vocation: to know and measure "opinion" on given subjects at a given time, and in particular to enable institutions and the media to make informed decisions, to animate public debate, etc.;

By their representativeness and their reliability, thanks to the scientific methods of applied social sciences. ,

Do polls influence voters' votes?

No information is completely neutral. Like any information made public and among many other elements in an election campaign, polls can have an influence.

In view of the published polls, people can decide to vote "useful," to abstain if the most rejected candidates do not seem able to win, or on the contrary, to mobilize to express their disagreement. However, it is difficult to attribute polls to other elements (campaigns on major media and social networks, news items, fake news, etc.) to a specific effect.

Polls respond above all to a need for information, both for the media who base their analyzes on them and for citizens who find it useful to compare their feelings or the statements of candidates with objective data... It is useful, for example, that polls identify the expectations of the Modi approval ratings on a statistical basis, with regard to the assertions of the candidates on these expectations, or that they measure the credibility of such a proposal for the opinion...

This potential influence gives pollsters an ethical responsibility for the quality and neutrality of methods. This responsibility has prompted the institutes to build and optimize for decades the most reliable possible methods and know-how based on quality standards under the control of the Survey Commission.

Why is it important to carry out opinion polls in the political sphere?

Today more than in the past, voters are inclined to electoral mobility, i.e., they often change their electoral behavior? This phenomenon makes it difficult to forecast in terms of election results, and a poll can be tactical, especially in the decision-making phase that precedes candidacies. For example, the