Poll perils persist

As the election campaign intensifies ahead of the Feb 8 poll, a number of education outlets as well as media channels are churning out opinion survey results suggesting the popularity ratings of individual candidates.

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It’s apparent that only a few polls, particularly those conducted by some education outlets, conform to professionalism, using statistics and standard data collection processes that show reliable and transparent results. Quick online polls are more dubious. These are mostly carried out by a handful of media channels that allow their respective audiences to click in favour of their political idols. The problem is that people can click without limit and, worse still, certain elements are using malicious bots and/or information operations (IO) to create the impression their parties, or party leaders, are unduly popular, to misguide the public. Consider this a form of opinion poll manipulation.