We should fix the business of opinion polling in India

Pollsters need self-regulatory mechanisms that can set standards and ensure transparency

- PRAMIT BHATTACHARYA

Elections in India have become a trial by fire for pollsters. The ones who get it right are celebrated for their prescience. The rest are seen as outright frauds. If all of them get it wrong, people suspect a conspiracy; or worse, a stock market scam. We also hear demands for banning pollsters sometimes. A spotlight on pollsters at the time of election results is not unusual. They are in the business of forecasting electoral outcomes. And if the outcomes do not match their predictions, we should question these forecasters. Such questions are also raised in other democracies. Yet, the nature of questioning in most mature democracies is quite different.

Pollsters have faced intense criticism in the US, for instance, for underestimating support for Donald Trump in three consecutive elections (2016, 2020, 2024). Trump himself has dismissed opinion polling as "fake." But not everyone there has taken his words literally. Some commentators have in fact defended pollsters this time since the final vote shares of the candidates are within the stated margins of error. Others have raised questions about a systematic bias in one direction. They fear that Republican voters may have been less likely to respond to polls compared to Democrats. Still others have questioned whether sampling weights used to adjust the raw polling data have led pollsters astray.